A Quick Pencil Drawing

Its just a quick drawing I did over my lunch break one day. I was eating a bagel and that quite possibly may be why it didn't turn out quite right. As a Christmas gift to a friend I was going to draw a picture and then I realized that I can't draw myself at all.

Is that odd? For an artist who does a lot of portraiture to not be able to draw themselves. Perhaps I just run against the norm, which either makes me astoundingly cool or have some kind of deficiency.

Either way, this was done based merely on a reference picture of me for pose and nothing more. I basically just sat down and drew and this is what happened. Its got some sort of unique charm and appeal to it even though its quite ugly if you think about it. I don't look like this. I just, have a posed picture like this and I'll leave it at that. Its not quite finished, I may yet finish it, but as far as I'm concerned from the neck down she's done except for some small sweater details.

She has a horse mouth. That's depressing to me.

Also, I managed to make a layout and its wintery since it is winter afterall. Although as for the snow, I'm spending Christmas in San Francisco so while everyone is freezing in Canada I'll be enjoying a harbor cruise in a t-shirt and maybe a sweater. I'll get some drawing done while I'm there with any luck. I'm not keen on the actual going, but there will be the Golden Gate as well as Interesting People. I've been there before. I think its the only city in the world where you will find a homeless guy who tries to scare people for money and another who sings the SpongeBob Squarepants theme song at the trolley station.

FYI it might do one better to click on the above image. Its not very clear, but it is when you click, so you might fancy a visit to something slightly larger and less aliased.

Learning to make use of what you have

Being a new media student I am quite lucky to be allowed the use of a broad range of programs. Pretty much everything from 3D programs, to Adobe Premiere and most recently, Macromedia's Flash. Which isn't bad of a program. In fact, quite fun to play with.

One of my introductions to flash was to get the hang of the actual drawing of objects in the program. This made me happy. I get to draw in class even if its on the computer its still drawing. So I drew a girl and gave her a particular style and then thought she needed some colour to give her some life. For some reason I'm reminded of Stephen Silver when I look at it. Of course, I could say that as far as my more illustrated work goes, he is an influence among some others. What people may be familar with is Kim Possible. Mr. Silver did that.

The above drawing was pretty quick and done with my mouse. So either I've gotten more control with using my mouse or Flash is really that much easier. I'm hoping its the former as that would be splendid to note. I would have used the tablet, but since I was at school I didn't exactly have free range of a tablet pen.
And speaking of tablets. My world would be complete if only I could manage to afford a Cintiq. I don't exactly have $3000 though. My parents wouldn't go for that either.

Ainsley

A few posts will probably surface sometime today or in the next few days, possibly. I still need to make a layout. Really, its on its way. I'll pretend I'm not outright lying through my teeth.
No I haven't really started it. To be honest, all I've done is plan it out on paper.
I have done that, give me some credit.

What I do need to do is get some blogs up here.


My first is an older drawing from this year. A lot of it was a study on human anatomy as practice with a photoshop colouring technique I hadn't used before. She was done for Aggro the comic in question requiring her to be less dressed than her usual self.

It was a challenge to do anatomy that I don't normally draw while still maintaining the look of the actual anatomy. Going off of what I know of a lot of people, and that is making certain aspects of the female look remarkably fake, I used a reference. What I've noticed, mostly in male artists but they can't help that, is that the upper half of the female looks to be, well, balloons. That's not true. Look at any anatomy reference book. I tried to stay away from that. Ainsley may be a cartoon character, but its important to maintain the realism even in that realm.

I'm a big fan of believability. I like my art to have that element of "Yeah, I can see this being a real person" and hopefully that's reflected in this one. The photoshop techniquie is one that uses the layout properties. Overly allows you to blend colours better and still see the lineart you are working with without actually have to make lineart. If you're like me, that's a great thing. I should post the tutorial. It was made by a friend, but its really great to have. The rest was done with the sumdge tool and the finishing touches of addings ome small highlights were done with the dodge tool on 7 opacity.

Click on the image for a larger version or here for a better closeup.

Sketch Blog? I think so.

working on a layout.
This will be a sketch blog.
Give me some time to sort it out.

This is actually for a University project so it may take a bit to get a layout and up and running completly. I mean, afterall, I do have a month.

For now head over to www.guitarcrash.net/meresoftwilight