Practise what you know, and it will help to make clear what now you do not know.

i'm uploading some more of my sketches, well the last of them i should say, i am finally up to date. well i probably wont be for long. i first wanted to share my practice line drawings. i often sit down and just draw lines and shapes, its often not very interesting but i find its important for drawing. it makes a good warm up exercise, i find especially when i draw digitally i draw tons of lines and shapes before erasing everything and starting my sketches. i did save a couple of the digital ones (the first 2) drawing a straight line most people see as not important as they can whip out a ruler and ta daa a straight line however i find if you can draw a pretty straight line with confidence and without a ruler you can pretty much ink absolutely anything. i wasn't aloud to use a ruler in my product design class except for creating final designs... even in tests and the exam we didn't use them for quick designs and only when instructed. i guess from that class (and the fact my ruler was the most lost item of my pencil case) i never really used them since then. i will occasionally if i need a really straight line such as a boarder but other then that it stays in the back of my art draw.

okay more sketches now. the first is titled scary eyes, because well like my sister said she has scary eyes

now we have some weird helmet. i don't have a clue what was going through my mind when i scribbled it XD

a dude smoking. smoking kills kids, don't do it. i don't smoke by the way just thought the pose suited smoking...

a girl with a... i think it could either be a cocktail drink or a stuffed rabbit... i cant remember what it was, i'll let you guys come to your own decisions

woo a bin lid for a hat, i was thinking how fox girls etc. go about hiding there ears, it was at the time i started creating my masquerade character and at that time she isn't hiding her ears or face, while everyone else wheres a mask, and i was thinking how would she normally hide her ears? big hat like this works, though it could do with some hanging fabric and decoration.

yey sweetles and pretztails... i don't know what the otter type thing is but i was watching my boyfriend play viva pinata trouble in paradise as i was drawing. i love the paper texture and think rare are an awesome company :)

a person with glasses, i quite like her hairstyle. i also realise i need to do more really curly characters as i either draw straight or wavy haired people

very rare fan art. this is Marta and Emil from tales of symphonia dawn of the new world. i like this game, it was fun and i enjoyed it, it was a nice sequel, though why you couldn't play as anyone else other then Marta and Emil as player one i don't know. but Emil is really floaty which is fun so that wasn't to much of a problem. gotta play through it again and get the other endings still and go through the extra dungeon that unlocks after you complete your first play through.

really bad marker colouring practice, at the time i just didn't have enough markers, i have a lot more now but still filling in the gaps in my collection.

the dragon and the wolf. i plan of taking these pictures somewhere though i currently prefer the second picture for this. i like the wolfs sad face. think it would be awesome to show the cocky dragon and the lonely wolf in a dance of some sought. we shall see what comes of it.

i drew this on the bus i believe i had been reading about Japanese mythology at the time. though her design isn't very Japanese.

hyugoman chibi, he needs bigger boots. bigger boots are vital. my chibi's usually have tiny feet though.

and last but not least a actual charcoal drawing. stock image taken from comic artists photo reference: Women and girls by Buddy Scalera. charcoal is one of my weaker mediums so its not as good as some of my figure drawing from reference it was fun non the least.

so thats all my sketches from my sketch books. lets hope this years sketch book is even better :)

happy drawing/writing/whatever you guys do

"Believe it or not, I can actually draw."

this quote i thought very fitting title. i always feel very awkward sharing my sketch from my sketch book. my digital sketches are a lot more refined, probably because i want to practice drawing line art on the PC. my sister commented the other week when looking through my sketch book "its hard to believe that your ideas and sketches for a final piece start off looking like that," as flipped through my other sketch book (I'll update its drawings another day.) Believe it or not, i can actually draw defiantly sums it up. my sketch book doesn't show off my abilities much, probably because i rarely (there is a few cases here) spend more then 5 min's sketching a picture in it. and see it more as a gesture process quick character design, even ideas occasionally.

these are all gesture drawing. i tend to draw from photo reference books but don't get bogged down in details. i do this by setting a time limit on the drawing so that i concentrate more on the pose and gesture then every little detail, i don't like pencil much hence why there drawn in pencil crayon or pen most of the time.

these are drawn from Comic Artist's Photo Reference: Women and Girls by Buddy Scalera

Comic Artist's Reference: People and Poses by Buddy Scalera, origin spirits of the past anime DVD cover, some woman which was talking on the phone in Starbucks and someone leaning on a wall across the street (waiting for shops to open is a good time to sit and have a cup of chocolate or tea and draw.)

these are ideas for possible characters, i was practicing character design for a few of them, there's an unfinished dragon, a fat super saiyan (my boyfriends words) , an old man, a girl holding a paper hot air balloon, a guy with steam pun goggles, and a girl who's hair style changes from picture to picture who also wears goggles and usually a hat.

i don't use a rubber so a lot of the original sketch lines are left from the initial sketch

and i'm ending on a 1 mint doodle which i did on the last page of my sketch book. happy drawing/writing/whatever you guys do

my first commission

okay my first commission i did a while back for a friend. i'm hoping to do more in the future. obviously because it was my first commission i wanted to live up to the commissioners expectations which lead to a lot of sketches and research been done. the subject matter was his character from World of Warcraft a female Tauren. i had never drawn one before which made me nervous. the other day i was scanning all my sketches from my sketch book and came across a few pieces i did at the time for practice and planning. i thought it would be cool to post them up with the finished piece.

the first is one i did when i first was asked for a commission, this commission didn't have many guidelines which i'm very grateful for as it let me develop at the same time other then the drawing is of a tauren. i tried to draw the head of a tauren first to figure out if i could do this.

by the time i had finished drawing this picture i was fairly confident that i could draw a tauren with some practice and some references so i booted up Warcraft and made a female tauren in the same colours of bite, the character i was drawing and took some screen shots. i also noted down that she had green eyes as this was a characteristic that the commissioner had mentioned about his character.

i decided that i would draw a full body shot, because it was more true to my illustration this lead to me having to ask a few questions about what the commissioner wanted the character to wear. he decided on the brew fest dress and so i went with it. the brew fest dress in my eyes was a good choice because unlike the top raid armour sets that are contently replaced. holiday clothing tends to be used yearly. i myself play Warcraft and really like the brewfest dress though at the time i didn't have it.

after drawing these simple drawings i showed these to the commissioner as i wanted to see if there was any changes to be made. the major one that stood out was that her chin didn't look right and that her horns where white not black. so these changes where noted down to be made.

i drew a head shot of my character around the time as i wanted to practice digital art and wanted to practice drawing tauren. this was an couple of hours work in open canvas while i figure out pose and background.

i knew the commissioner's favorite place in Warcraft at the time was Nagrand as we were in the same guild. this lead to me actually picking a beautiful spot within the game to use as a background and lead to this rough sketch the large oval scribble is where the character would be placed.

from this sketch i drew the sketch and line art for the piece and began colouring. i kicked myself because i forgot to confirm the sketch for any changes that needed to be done.

one thing that came up was the nose area, in open canvas i sketched the changes that needed to be make and got them confirmed

i did my best to change the nose however the line art and the fact it had been coloured made this difficult. i learned something from it though and get the pencils confirmed before you ink and colour. shame i hate my pencil work so much. i finished up the background and made it look like she wasn't floating.

overall i was happy with the final image. and while i have received some criticism on this picture, i'm still very proud of the piece. i was especially pleased with how successful my foreshortening turned out since i hadn't used it before.

obviously i have realised that i did to much prep work for it which i wouldn't normally do and realise i need to be more confident in my abilities, that and draw other things but humans. which i'm planning to start doing this year.

while on the subject of world of Warcraft art here's the back of a moonkin i sketched in my sketch book. i love my balance druid <3

happy drawing/writing/whatever you guys do

haggis

how to be an illustrator and late new years resolutions

so the busy period of overtime getting in the way of my art should have come to an end. now I'm back to my lovely 7 and a half hours a week. ah well at least i can work on my art. I've got 7 days holiday to take which practically works out at 3 and a half weeks by march. this is what happens when you live in a timeless world XD. more time to work on my art (though i must get a holiday form as they where out of them last time) and been paid for some of it too, that's good.

so its an other year i looked at how much art i produced last year and finished piece wise it was disappointing, sketch wise it was okay, mainly because i still haven't got all my sketches scanned and posted. i need a more convenient to get to scanner.

I'm currently working on this picture

its the chains one from before only changed a lot, i messed up on the colouring and re sketching it the exact same wasn't feeling right for me, even light boxing it (in the form of taping it to a window) wasn't working out, so i went back to the original idea of designing a character for my illustrated book and took it from there. I'm hoping to have it done by the end of Tuesday, its going quite well, pity i have been so distracted today. i have decided to create at least 4 finished pieces a month (aiming for 2 in January due to not making decisions fast enough) starting with the 5 pieces i have yet to finish. hopefully everything will go to plan. people say I'm to hard on myself at times. i should get one of those schedule wipe boards.

recently i have been having problems getting on the PC that can run my art programs, been kicked off a few times which has been a bit of a downer, luckily where getting a second study put in (not for me but for my boyfriends mum) and hopefully me and my boyfriend are going to invest in a new PC soon with our Christmas money (the old one is going to be stored in the wardrobe as we will probably need it when we get our own place). i'm also debating of getting my current art table stored and using my fold away easel to draw with due to space issues in my room and getting a new bookcase/ stealing my old one back.

i have invested in a couple of books to try and push my art forwards.

the first is the artists' yearbook 2010/2011

"the artists' yearbook is the only comprehensive up to date reference guide to getting ahead in today's art world. offering advice and inspiration in one fact packed volume, it features carefully vetted information on and contact details for more than 3,000 visual art businesses and organizations"

its mainly based around the UK with a few sections listing things world wide. some of the articals where interesting, though overall its more a yellow pages for artists with a brief description about what everything is and does. the fairs where disappointing, not because of the book per say but by the fact you have to represented by a gallery from what i can see. gonna read that section properly soon. but the competitions are a possibility.

the other book was called how to be an illustrator by Darrel Rees http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-be-Illustrator-Darrel-Rees/dp/1856695301/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263842518&sr=8-1

And omg this book is fantastic. this isn't the book i mentioned with my picture of all my art books (which grows constantly i might add) that one was about children's illustration and i found it very vague with only one chapter of i believe 12 pages about getting published. it was good for things such as the notion of making dummy's etc. but was a bit to general in my opinion. this one however is fantastic. its geared more towards the business side of things. i actually came away thinking to myself wow i think i know enough to get started now which is a good feeling, I'm a bit more confident at what i need to do and how i need to go about it to get a job. the portfolio comes first. which I'm gonna work so hard to make this year. the artwork first obviously, and then the whole portfolio design. I'm not going for the over sized portfolio i think a small art book would be better as its easier to look at (and the art director who wrote the forward seemed to prefer this) it made me think about studio space, weather it ideally would be at home or a rented out studio, whether i need an agent or not etc. it talked about contracts, how to write an invoice and keep track of them. i found it a book worth buying

i also thought I'd chime in with some useful links i have found over the years.

the first is a useful blog i found ages ago called the art of business http://www.artofbusinessblog.com/ I'm not the best business woman but this blog which sadly is updated very infrequently has some really helpful hints and tips from separate bank accounts to keeping track of your finances every month etc.

the second is a artist alley guide for cons (obviously) by telophase (http://telophase.deviantart.com/) that can be found here http://www.projectbluerose.com/tutorials/anime-convention-artist-alley-survival-guide/, its very easy to understand and separated well. though it does assume that you know where some cons are (which at the time other then one of the ones in London i didn't know of any which was frustrating) but some research should solve that (http://www.cosplay.com/calendar/ has a list of conventions, not all of them as often the little cons are ignored but its a good place to start) while it is aimed at anime conventions I'm sure that the information can be applied to other conventions and arts and craft fairs.

hopefully these links and books will be interesting or useful for those interested in illustration and art.

happy drawing/ writing/ whatever you guys do.

video time laying down the under paint

next part of the kerrin picture. i have decided to colour this one and record the process from start to finnish. i'm making the videos as and when i paint them. so it may take a while for the next instalment (especailly with all the projects i'm working on)

and a wip of the whole picture so far, shame i cant do full screen recording as it comes out so blurry :(

anyway thats all for now

happy drawing/writng/whatever you guys do

video time

so I've finally made my first recording of my art. i think i'm going to do more of these, even though they do take a while to save. i used a photo of a friend Kerrin Tatman who i have known since way back, I've like known him since he was 5 (i will have been 8) and he stole my sausage roll... which i really don't get because hes vegetarian. he's a very talented musician and belongs to no soup productions. "Here at No Soup we are passionate about live music, creative costumes, physical theatre and original writing. Each summer we come together to create a new show, take it on tour and (hopefully) entertain and inspire our audiences!" http://www.nosoupproductions.co.uk/ there website is still in its very early stages but look them up if you want to find out more ^^.

and heres the final picture

i may color this one, once i have all my other pictures done that is since i really should finnish them before starting something new XD

anywho happy drawing/writing/whatever you guys do

Chérie

more sketches.

time to share my sketches again. my sis got me thinking of how i said i'd draw a picture for her in manga style, i'm still in the design process but so far i have come up with this, i think the nose needs tweaking a alot and could look more like her... work on chin and nose me thinks. i'll leave it till tomorrow and see what i think.

i also drew a reoccurring character of mine, i use her to represent myself on the internet, she is my avatar here and on deviant art, i'm planning to change my other avatars on other websites to her also.

i'm annoyed with myself artistically at the moment, while i knew i wouldn't finish the witches moon picture on time, i'm annoyed that i tend to mess around on the internet, if i didn't mess around so much i think it would be at a stage where i could enter the competition. next time i'm gonna work harder, but for now, i'm going to sketch more and finish the three pictures i have already started.

any who happy drawing/writing/whatever you guys do.