We'll always remember how to fly ~ Art Post: Holiday Gift Commissions Part 1
Hi *waves*.
So...this semester's being a real jerk to me so far, which doesn't really excuse how late these things got pushed back, but my Piscean nature just won't let me not try to explain things. To people who are still waiting for their pictures, apologies for the delay, but progress is coming. Just...slowly. But I'll try to make them worth the wait :)
How these gifts will work is I'll be posting them in pairs as they get done on my LiveJournal; simultaneously, I'll be sending the original commissioner a bigger (generally around 1250 x 850 px), un-watermarked copy via e-mail. The original will remain with me until I can either give it to its recipient in person or through someone who can get it to them in person (sorry, I don't trust the postal system enough to send them out).
Why in pairs? Because it takes forever every time I upload artwork onto LJ to prepare them (scan, brighten, adjust contrast, fix colours, photoshop, crop, resize, upload, link, post, and format--the entire process can take up to three hours, if not more) that it's easier to get it done in bulk, but I find uploading too many pieces in one post kind of overwhelming; two seems like a good number.
Right. So on to the artworks for today--one was done for M-chan and the other one for Rachael.
M-chan's Commission: "Carefree"
Time: ...I lost count. A few hours a day over the span of a week or so.
Tools: Copic multiliners 0.03mm, 0.1mm and 0.3mm; Prismacolour pencils
Notes: The request was for me to draw her Gaia avi wearing any outfit I had in mind to design for her--so I picked a green colour scheme to work with, and went for an earth x air atmosphere; lots of bright cool colours, and soft edges :3
This picture took forever, mostly because I re-inked it about five times. No kidding. My inking skills are shot from lack of practice, not to mention I had a hard time deciding on a final sketch to begin with. But I'm pretty happy with the result--it looks a lot brighter and prettier in RL because the scanner can't pick up on some of the more subtle colour usage, and the background's nearly nonexistent in this copy, but nevertheless, it is here, and it is finished.
Here's the original reference I used:
And some sketches:
This was the original composition plan. Not much changed, except I altered her pose a little and added some background...and got rid of her staff, because it just wasn't doing anything for the piece.
Character design/practice sheet. I actually did this at the airport while waiting for my flight to France, which had gotten delayed by two hours or so...grr. At least I got some productive work done.
Rachael's Commission: "In Harmony"
Time: Oh goodness...I've been working on this one since December, in bits and pieces. I started the lining and colouring process about four weeks ago, but only managed to get it done tonight because it was on hiatus for about two weeks in between. So really, no clue.
Tools: Copic multiliners 0.03mm and 0.1mm; Sakura Liner pen 0.05mm; Pentel Hybrid White Gel Pen; Prismacolour pencils
Notes: (Mrr...this one also looks better in RL...) The original request was to draw either Toma (Ikuta) or Yamapi (Yamashita Tomohisa), holding hands or hugging with Shahadia. Of course I jumped at the idea of drawing a Johnny, but I had a hard time deciding between the two sketches I'd done for this one (see below), and in the end merged both of them together, which took quite a bit more time than expected and many pieces of paper. Who the guy was going to be seriously was not decided upon until I was nearly done inking Shahadia first. I chose Yamapi (even though it doesn't really look like him...many apologies orz ^^') kind of on a whim. Of course, it was only afterward, while attempting to find good references, that I noticed Pi's one of those people with a perfectly symmetrical facial structure, and no..."trademark features" (you know...like Nino's "Nino spot", or Ohno's confused look, or Ryo's eyes, or the shape of Kame's face...something that is a telltale sign of who they are in drawings), which made him really hard to draw in anime-style *dies*. [/minirant]
The colour scheme is primary, which is not something I work with a lot, but it seemed to work in this case. Also, note the tattoo on her arm :)
The swirly design on her shirt and in the background is something I'm quite fond of using, and if anyone remembers the pencil drawing I did for Cat a year ago (entitled "Touch"), it was there too, and I'm pretty sure it'll be a recurring motif in later pieces, in case anyone's into patterns.
Oh, and just on a last note, I dare you to guess how many colours were blended into her hair. Really. Try.
The two original sketches:
I drew this one first, with the intention of doing just a bust of Yamapi and Shahadia (even though it looks more like Koyama than Yamapi in my opinion). I was really pleased with how this came out though, since I usually fail at drawing couples in general.
This one was done on the plane on the way to France. Toma is the intended guy on the left. Their body positions for this one is what I really liked. And her outfit. When I merged the previous sketch with this one, I eventually ended up with the finished piece :3
In other news, notice the new layout! It's pretty fantastic, but unfortunately, the code is set to cut off images that are too large to fit into the posting space. So if you ever go looking for my old art posts (which can be found by clicking on the "*art post" tag on the sidebar to the left, or through any other tags labeled with an asterisk), some of the images can't be viewed fully anymore, which makes me sad. But on the whole, it's still pretty fantastic anyway.
*stretches* That's it for today. I've been clicking away at the computer for what feels like way too long now, so I'm off to bed. Midterms next week, and a lab report for Analytical due on Monday. Looks like this weekend is going to be devoid of any relaxation *sighs*.
~Phoenix
These works by Phoenix are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
So...this semester's being a real jerk to me so far, which doesn't really excuse how late these things got pushed back, but my Piscean nature just won't let me not try to explain things. To people who are still waiting for their pictures, apologies for the delay, but progress is coming. Just...slowly. But I'll try to make them worth the wait :)
How these gifts will work is I'll be posting them in pairs as they get done on my LiveJournal; simultaneously, I'll be sending the original commissioner a bigger (generally around 1250 x 850 px), un-watermarked copy via e-mail. The original will remain with me until I can either give it to its recipient in person or through someone who can get it to them in person (sorry, I don't trust the postal system enough to send them out).
Why in pairs? Because it takes forever every time I upload artwork onto LJ to prepare them (scan, brighten, adjust contrast, fix colours, photoshop, crop, resize, upload, link, post, and format--the entire process can take up to three hours, if not more) that it's easier to get it done in bulk, but I find uploading too many pieces in one post kind of overwhelming; two seems like a good number.
Right. So on to the artworks for today--one was done for M-chan and the other one for Rachael.
M-chan's Commission: "Carefree"
Time: ...I lost count. A few hours a day over the span of a week or so.
Tools: Copic multiliners 0.03mm, 0.1mm and 0.3mm; Prismacolour pencils
Notes: The request was for me to draw her Gaia avi wearing any outfit I had in mind to design for her--so I picked a green colour scheme to work with, and went for an earth x air atmosphere; lots of bright cool colours, and soft edges :3
This picture took forever, mostly because I re-inked it about five times. No kidding. My inking skills are shot from lack of practice, not to mention I had a hard time deciding on a final sketch to begin with. But I'm pretty happy with the result--it looks a lot brighter and prettier in RL because the scanner can't pick up on some of the more subtle colour usage, and the background's nearly nonexistent in this copy, but nevertheless, it is here, and it is finished.
Here's the original reference I used:
And some sketches:
This was the original composition plan. Not much changed, except I altered her pose a little and added some background...and got rid of her staff, because it just wasn't doing anything for the piece.
Character design/practice sheet. I actually did this at the airport while waiting for my flight to France, which had gotten delayed by two hours or so...grr. At least I got some productive work done.
Rachael's Commission: "In Harmony"
Time: Oh goodness...I've been working on this one since December, in bits and pieces. I started the lining and colouring process about four weeks ago, but only managed to get it done tonight because it was on hiatus for about two weeks in between. So really, no clue.
Tools: Copic multiliners 0.03mm and 0.1mm; Sakura Liner pen 0.05mm; Pentel Hybrid White Gel Pen; Prismacolour pencils
Notes: (Mrr...this one also looks better in RL...) The original request was to draw either Toma (Ikuta) or Yamapi (Yamashita Tomohisa), holding hands or hugging with Shahadia. Of course I jumped at the idea of drawing a Johnny, but I had a hard time deciding between the two sketches I'd done for this one (see below), and in the end merged both of them together, which took quite a bit more time than expected and many pieces of paper. Who the guy was going to be seriously was not decided upon until I was nearly done inking Shahadia first. I chose Yamapi (even though it doesn't really look like him...many apologies orz ^^') kind of on a whim. Of course, it was only afterward, while attempting to find good references, that I noticed Pi's one of those people with a perfectly symmetrical facial structure, and no..."trademark features" (you know...like Nino's "Nino spot", or Ohno's confused look, or Ryo's eyes, or the shape of Kame's face...something that is a telltale sign of who they are in drawings), which made him really hard to draw in anime-style *dies*. [/minirant]
The colour scheme is primary, which is not something I work with a lot, but it seemed to work in this case. Also, note the tattoo on her arm :)
The swirly design on her shirt and in the background is something I'm quite fond of using, and if anyone remembers the pencil drawing I did for Cat a year ago (entitled "Touch"), it was there too, and I'm pretty sure it'll be a recurring motif in later pieces, in case anyone's into patterns.
Oh, and just on a last note, I dare you to guess how many colours were blended into her hair. Really. Try.
The two original sketches:
I drew this one first, with the intention of doing just a bust of Yamapi and Shahadia (even though it looks more like Koyama than Yamapi in my opinion). I was really pleased with how this came out though, since I usually fail at drawing couples in general.
This one was done on the plane on the way to France. Toma is the intended guy on the left. Their body positions for this one is what I really liked. And her outfit. When I merged the previous sketch with this one, I eventually ended up with the finished piece :3
In other news, notice the new layout! It's pretty fantastic, but unfortunately, the code is set to cut off images that are too large to fit into the posting space. So if you ever go looking for my old art posts (which can be found by clicking on the "*art post" tag on the sidebar to the left, or through any other tags labeled with an asterisk), some of the images can't be viewed fully anymore, which makes me sad. But on the whole, it's still pretty fantastic anyway.
*stretches* That's it for today. I've been clicking away at the computer for what feels like way too long now, so I'm off to bed. Midterms next week, and a lab report for Analytical due on Monday. Looks like this weekend is going to be devoid of any relaxation *sighs*.
~Phoenix
These works by Phoenix are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.