Processing.. Processing.. Processing..
It's half past four in the morning, but I'm going to get this out of the way before bed time! So, let's abuse LJ so I can meet my 'at least one post every two years' quota.
So, here it is: I casually got a question to show the process of one of my pony paintings. So, I did a simple piece so I didn't get too distracted with scanning the piece. (The difficulty is that between washes new things will come to mind, and it'd take a lot of time waiting for them to dry each time.)
It's called 'The Most Creative Pony in all of Equestria' and is all about Trixie being Trixie, except that she's drawing stuff. It's serious business, you understand.
I didn't bother to sharpen my pencil. It's not very necessary when I don't have that many dynamics going on in small spaces. In this case, the composition was clear in my mind and as such having blobs of graphite on the page wouldn't be a real problem: I'd know where the lines were supposed to be.
And over my graphite mess the ink goes! Because the piece is so small, I resort to my trusted combination of Staedtler pigment liners in the flavour of 0.05mm and 0.2mm, but they're not much different from your basic (waterfast) markers. To prevent mistakes in anatomy, it's not a bad idea to wait with applying the permanence of ink, so perhaps you can pretend that the graphite has to dry too. I had all sorts of silly ideas for the text at the top, but it doesn't matter. I'll apply the eraser next.
And then I realise I've forgotten some details. After squeezing them in I break out the watercolour pencils for the hard-to-paint places. Most notable in omission here is the colour in the eyes. Silly Trixie has her eyes closed or I'd give a perfect demonstration. Next time!
For effect I decide to also purpleize the cape. I figure it might make it seem more like fabric if I can get some contrast and pencil-distribution of colour on there already. If it's a complete failure I could probably get away with throwing lots of paint over it in a bit. We'll see!
I use watercolour paints everywhere. Even on places where it's probably not wise to put them. Life on paper can be more reckless and every painting can only live once. I make sure to tell myself at random intervals that Trixie is fabulous and let her dry a little bit between washes. This isn't a very complex piece so it's really only two washes of wet-on-wet action.
Contrary to how I did it when I was young(er) and doing graphite pieces, I don't do the lighting in separate steps. I do it all in one go and find that this is much easier: I hardly ever think about where the lights are, and of course, in this case there are no lamps, suns, or giant burning Jesuses to determine the lighting. Whatever, man, I'm an artist! Yeah!
And then I just throw in some highlights with a white gel pen. Mine's brand is Sakura, but I doubt it's a big deal. I had determined earlier where Trixie's picture would arch and so it's just smooth sailing. When it comes to lighting an important thing to remember is that the smoother something is the more significant the contrast in brightness would be. (Think glass and hair versus scarves and cork-sculpted dinosaurs.)
That's it. Be enlightened or mildly amused and stuff.
Bed time! Yay!
So, here it is: I casually got a question to show the process of one of my pony paintings. So, I did a simple piece so I didn't get too distracted with scanning the piece. (The difficulty is that between washes new things will come to mind, and it'd take a lot of time waiting for them to dry each time.)
It's called 'The Most Creative Pony in all of Equestria' and is all about Trixie being Trixie, except that she's drawing stuff. It's serious business, you understand.
I didn't bother to sharpen my pencil. It's not very necessary when I don't have that many dynamics going on in small spaces. In this case, the composition was clear in my mind and as such having blobs of graphite on the page wouldn't be a real problem: I'd know where the lines were supposed to be.
And over my graphite mess the ink goes! Because the piece is so small, I resort to my trusted combination of Staedtler pigment liners in the flavour of 0.05mm and 0.2mm, but they're not much different from your basic (waterfast) markers. To prevent mistakes in anatomy, it's not a bad idea to wait with applying the permanence of ink, so perhaps you can pretend that the graphite has to dry too. I had all sorts of silly ideas for the text at the top, but it doesn't matter. I'll apply the eraser next.
And then I realise I've forgotten some details. After squeezing them in I break out the watercolour pencils for the hard-to-paint places. Most notable in omission here is the colour in the eyes. Silly Trixie has her eyes closed or I'd give a perfect demonstration. Next time!
For effect I decide to also purpleize the cape. I figure it might make it seem more like fabric if I can get some contrast and pencil-distribution of colour on there already. If it's a complete failure I could probably get away with throwing lots of paint over it in a bit. We'll see!
I use watercolour paints everywhere. Even on places where it's probably not wise to put them. Life on paper can be more reckless and every painting can only live once. I make sure to tell myself at random intervals that Trixie is fabulous and let her dry a little bit between washes. This isn't a very complex piece so it's really only two washes of wet-on-wet action.
Contrary to how I did it when I was young(er) and doing graphite pieces, I don't do the lighting in separate steps. I do it all in one go and find that this is much easier: I hardly ever think about where the lights are, and of course, in this case there are no lamps, suns, or giant burning Jesuses to determine the lighting. Whatever, man, I'm an artist! Yeah!
And then I just throw in some highlights with a white gel pen. Mine's brand is Sakura, but I doubt it's a big deal. I had determined earlier where Trixie's picture would arch and so it's just smooth sailing. When it comes to lighting an important thing to remember is that the smoother something is the more significant the contrast in brightness would be. (Think glass and hair versus scarves and cork-sculpted dinosaurs.)
That's it. Be enlightened or mildly amused and stuff.
Bed time! Yay!