Eye Practice, Part II

And the practice continues... I wasn't happy with the first eye, so... I completely redid it.


I'm much happier with this one, as you might have guessed by the fact that I did two eyes, one with warm shading and one with cool. Yep, just for the practice, which I think is definitely helping. I decided to change the eye shape a bit, refine the eyebrow so it doesn't look so pixelated, and work on the textures. The shadows might be a little too dark, but I haven't decided if I want to do anything about that or just leave it alone for now.

I have actually finished the entire face by now, so here's just a small peek at that. The proportions may be a little off still, but it's still a big step for me, and I think those proportions a a little closer to realism than my last attempt. Don't get me wrong; I still love how she turned out, but it's still not exactly realistic. This one's yet another step closer.

Of course, the next challenge is the hair... Attempts #1 and 2 have not gone well. Hopefully third time's the charm!

Eye Practice

Yesterday, I got my hands on Impact Publishing's "Fantasy Art," which they term a "bookazine" because it is over 200 pages and probably only got stuck on the magazine rack because it's Volume 1 and bound like a nice magazine and because the creators couldn't even decide on what it was (alas, that means it's exempt from most coupons). Plus, it comes with a CD with video tutorials, brushes, and reference images. Haven't gotten into them yet, but yay, references!

In any case, it's chock-full of tutorials and helpful hints on everything from painting portraits to designing architecture. Every now and then, I like to try something a little more realistic than my normal anime style, so when I saw the tutorial on digitally painting eyes, I decided to put the Popsicle pic on hold and give it a try.

This is what I've got so far:



Still not quite as realistic as I'd like, but not too bad. The eyebrow needs some serious help, as well as those lower eyelashes, but overall, I think it's a step in the right direction. And yeah, went for a red eye (can't completely purge my fantasy tendencies!). Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming...

Popsicle Process

Yep, didn't exactly get it finished yesterday - an impromptu round of WoW with the brother and sister-in-law demanded my attention. Several hours of traipsing through the Barrens later, and it was back to work.

In any case, the lines are done and the base colors are all set on the girl. Which means it's time to start on the background. I'm going for more of a city scene. Or, at least, a town. Not something I do a whole lot, but practice is a good thing. Little trellis thing will hopefully be a cafe, and the further background will be done sans-lines, I think. Stick some city-bound foliage in there... I don't want the background to dominate or compete with the girl for attention.

Coloring this is going to be... interesting, to say the least. We'll see how it goes!

Home Improvements

This has been an interesting month. Terrible for blogging and doing anything productive, online-wise, but still interesting. We're in the process of making a few home improvements - specifically, new vanity tops in the bathrooms and, for the big one, new floors through much of the ground floor. Seeing as I'm from a family of packrats and clutterbugs, this means a LOT of packing things up to relocate them during the installation.

Exactly HOW I fit so much stuff into such tiny spaces, I do not know. I'll have to take some pictures.

Anyways, my goal for today is to get one more finished pic up in my deviantArt gallery, so I snagged one from a recent sketch session to try and get that done. If not, I'll have a fresh pic for August, then.

I figured this one was a nice, summery one. Girl eating a Popsicle - nice variation from the typical girl-in-a-bikini pics that usually show up when someone wants to do something summer-like. It's half-inked right now... and outlining in Photoshop takes forever, but it gives me a smoother line than in MangaStudio. I'm still not sure what I'll put in the background, but we'll see what shows up!

Okay, back to work!

Character Design: Mariposa

Alright, so sometimes in the course of my chat!RPs, the question comes up of what the kid of two characters would look like. I, of course, love it when this happens. It's like a special treat for the character designer in me: try to create a character that incorporates traits of two others in some way. Hello, playland!

This hasn't happened in awhile, alas - I think the last time was with Bridget back in 2008 - but one of my frequent RPmates brought up a potential kid the other night, and of course, I had to give it a shot. For now, I'm calling her Mariposa:



Mariposa here does not have a chance of existing short of the magical equivalent of the mother of all drunken one-night stands, but man if she wasn't fun to figure out. Pretty much the only things the other RPer suggested were that the kid be stunning and dark featured, so I got to play a lot with her.

Plus, I had an excuse to do something more in my usual style on the new laptop. Granted, since I don't currently have a working copy of MangaStudio that exports, I had to do it ALL in Photoshop, including the sketch and the line art. Normally, I do all that in MangaStudio because the MangaStudio pencil tool rocks for sketching, and the pen tool in beautifully easy to use. Outlining in Photoshop in comparison is SO incredibly tedious.

Anyways, I'll probably figure out a simple background once I know more about Mariposa here and then throw her up on dA. Good times.

WIP: In the Office

Alrighty, this is from my queue of Works In Progress:



This is a minor character who might be showing up in my chat!RP, but I got the image in my head and had to draw it... and then it turned into an exercise in perspective and whatnot. Exercises are good for me, and perspective is one of those things I usually have to force myself to do. Continuing with the exercise idea, there are a few things I'm thinking about trying when I get around to coloring it. Hopefully it'll turn out well!

Sketch and line art were both done in Manga Studio EX. Have I mentioned how much I love their perspective ruler? It gives a digital version of a horizon line with up to three vanishing points, and - here's the important part - it lets you have the vanishing points OFF the page. You have no idea how helpful that is. Trying that in Photoshop leads to copious headdesking.