the endless in between

hello again. two posts from me today how rare. i have another one in my head that i want to write about as well about an artist that i recently discovered and like, especially his painting videos. i find him very inspirational. i should right more about artists i like. its a good way to discuss influences and Art in general, its good to look at other peoples work and not get wrapped up in your own.

but more of that next time. i finished a piece today, added the highlights. i am very pleased with myself. I'm hoping to work on my organization more though. i did however work on this everyday till it was done, even though i did mess around on the Internet for to long at times. i need to work on my self control and my time planning.

this piece was created using drawing pens, alcohol based markers, watercolour paint, acrylic and white in on Bristol board. its title is sanctuary:- the endless in between. well it is for the moment. I'm not 100% on the title. i would like to become better at titling my pieces. shame I'm not good with my words :/ i have talked about this piece in other journals and will do my best not to repeat myself. i thought it would be nice to have all the process pictures in one place.

this piece has been quite trouble some. i messed up on the colouring of the first line art (can be seen here http://wildhaggisis.blogspot.com/2009/09/one-of-3-pieces-im-currently-working-on.html) and started again, didn't like the second one so i started again (as mentioned in this blog http://wildhaggisis.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-to-be-illustrator-and-late-new.html) so this is the third attempt. than there was the fact my masking fluid peeled all the marker work i did on the chains D:<

no just line art to show you guys, so strieght to the marker work, everything here except the chains is at the stage you'll see in the finnished picture.

i finished the marker work on the chain. and masked it off. i decided to go for purple based storm clouds because it was unnatural. i wanted it to be a glimpse into her psyche, the storm clouds being the tension that's been building up from the outside world and unnatural clouds seemed to be appropriate. i added Payne's grey (which i'm running out of), rose madder and Prussian blue to the mix to add volume. to the clouds splattering it onto the background at times. i then took my white ink and added the highlights to the clouds, washing it out to blend the colours better with the background.

here i took the masking fluid off which removed the chain work with it :( i went over the chains with white acrylic to define where the chains where so i could paint them easier later. next came the ice. i tried a new painting technique here. i made the paint exceptionally watery and painted it on an upright easel. most watercolourists paint there work flat due to the nature of watercolour. this technique however requires the surface to be tilted. i applied the watercolour in thin layers of blues an purples, i also added really watery acrylic to it which created an interesting look. as you paint you take a cloth and wipe some of the paint off, and keep repeating this process again and again till a number of light washes have been layered over the top of each other.

this technique lost a lot of the original line work, so i went in defined where the bottom layer of spikes where added shadows where they where i wanted parts to be darker and then started my drizzling technique again. i then when though the painting and added bright white highlights using acrylic paint straight from the tube as i wanted the texture of it at that point. here's a close up of the ice been worked on.


next i pained all the chain work. i mixed black and White with silver paint to create various shades of a metallic grey colour. after i applied it it was to metallic and reflected a lot of light and looked out of place. so i went through the painting with watered down white acrylic over the chains and wiped it off with a cloth so that enough paint was left behind to not affect the colours but to take away the shine. next time i think i will mix my greys instead of relaying on silver paint. once the painting was dry i removed the masking tape leaving a nice white outline around the picture.

so that's some of the process i went though with this picture. I'm hoping to update again tomorrow with an update about those inspirational vids i talked about. they really made me want to paint. but its getting late here so i should stop writing now.

happy drawing/writing/ whatever you guys do

haggis

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