Kaedyn Attempts to Draw; For the Last Time! *dun dun duuun*

Hello again!

This will be my last post... so I've decided to make comparisons!
Unfortunately... I don't draw often, so I just have a couple examples.

However, I'm going to quickly walk through the steps for a little Zelda I drew.

As always, I began with a quick, messy sketch of what I wanted Zelda's pose to be. I decided to use just a pen and crayola colored pencils for this, simply because I wanted to experiment. I haven't seriously used only colored pencils for any of my drawings, so this was a challenge. >>

Bunyapen writes that you should "Plan your character's outfits by thinking about your character's personality and other factors such as his or her occupation, hobbies and personal likes" (Bunyapen 53). I know that Zelda in her most recent game is a warrior with style. She's a princess, yet will fight for her kingdom at any given moment. Her main color scheme in previous games is mostly pink and purple, so I stuck to her original design.

<< I used a 0.1 mm pen to outline her and add details to her armor and clothes. Notice the splotch of ink on the page. It made me cry a little bit. We move forward from our world-crushing mistakes. For coloring, elaborate patterns and rich colors make clothing look lively (Bunyapen 84). With that in mind, I used a metallic gold and silver pencil to color her armor; then proceeded to color the cloth with ~three different tones of violet and deeper purples. Her hair is just a yellow and orange colored pencil, which made things much easier. Zelda is the princess of Hyrule, so the design on her... front... cloth... thing (please inform me what this is called if you know) is the triforce and Hylian crest.

Here it is finished!

Now that I have that covered, I wanted to show a comparison of where I was before reading this book and afterwards...

Here are a couple of examples from when I began reading:

After I finished reading all of the tutorials:

                            I drew this picture today!

 I'm especially proud of this one, because it is just a sketch (took me ~one hour), my first time with the legitimate version
of Photoshop, and still looks better than the art that took me
hours and hours.

Thank you for all of your kind comments and for keeping up with my blogging!

One last question: Have you seen recent improvement in your art? How do you think you've improved?

Bunyapen, Supittha. Shojo Wonder Manga Art School: Create Your Own Cool Characters and Costumes with Markers. Cincinnati, OH: Impact, 2011. Print.

Kaedyn Attempts to Draw; Merry...Christmas?

Hello again!

Kaedyn is back in business, but a month late. I have a project I worked on for a secret santa gift that I never posted, so I'll just... leave this... here.

My lovely, beautiful tablet broke (a.k.a the tool I use to draw on the computer) so I have to "re-learn" traditional art, which is not exactly ideal. However, I'm a firm believer of only giving up when you /really/ want to, and I didn't want to. So, I created a wonderful mess of watercolors and tears. Shoutout to Hailey- I hope you appreciate this.
Rest in peace, tablet.

In this piece, there wasn't anything in particular that I wanted to accomplish, so I ended up mostly focusing on the background. I was a bit lost on what to draw. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is throw your pencil on your paper and hope it creates something. That's sort of what I did here.

First off, I made the simplest sketch I could muster of characters I knew my giftee liked. Anybody watch Voltron? Throughout creating this monster piece, I used pencils, crayola watercolors, inking pens (the knock-offs from eBay), watercolor paper, and $1 brushes. I love cheap materials. I spent a total of $8 for the supplies that made this.

Helpful tip:
To watercolor SAFELY, also known as not destroying the sketch you put 10 minutes into, cover up the area you don't want painted with masking tape (low tack)! $2 right there. Okay, so now $10 total spent.

Bunyapen had a picture called "The Traveler", which had a similar color scheme to what I wanted my background to look like. She blended "Sky, Pale Blue and Frost Blue from the top down to the bottom on the background areas. Let the paint overlap" (Bunyapen 124).

Unfortunately, Copic markers are approximately $7 a pen and I do not own any of these colors. My crayola watercolors would have to do. Bunyapen also used a Colorless Blender to blend the shades of blue together, so I made my own adjustments by blending the watercolors with... water. Also, please don't do what I did. I didn't let the paint dry as I layered the colors, and on top of that I took the tape off before it was even CLOSE to being dry. 

This part was my favorite- I basically splattered paint on my paper and "squiggled" my brush (technical term) over the splotches of color. Please, please wait until after watercolors dry before taking masking tape off. You'll ruin everything you love. So far into this piece, I have made about five unfixable mistakes.

Then, I used an inking pen to trace over the characters I drew, The process of inking takes about five minutes, yet can either make or break your picture. To avoid entering the depths of hell while inking, try to cover up all of your mistakes with annoyingly bright Christmas colors. Nobody will know. Speaking of coloring, for accurate results, ALWAYS test your markers before you use them. It can ruin your picture if your markers are damaged or dried (Bunyapen 15). I used the cramped range of Copic markers I own to execute coloring as best as I could. In addition to Copic markers, the remnants of blue I had left in my watercolor set were useful as well.

At this point in time, I have made sixteen unfixable mistakes. One of those being that I didn't test my markers and my grey one split and spilled... I'm cursed, I swear. To finalize, I used a gel pen (generous donation by Phoenix, whom I stole it from. Thank you. I'll give it back soon) to add little stars in the sky. Unfortunately, my scanner washed out the picture a lot, so in reality it's a lot darker than it appears.

Here's the finished product! This was a lot of fun working on, even if I'm not exactly on time for Christmas. Whoops. Merry Christmas anyway!

I have a lot of difficulty finding time to sit down and draw, so my question for you is:

How much time do you usually spend drawing? When do you have time to draw?

(Please, I need management skills)

Bunyapen, Supittha. Shojo Wonder Manga Art School: Create Your Own Cool Characters and Costumes with Markers. Cincinnati, OH: Impact, 2011. Print.

Kaedyn Attempts to Draw; Burns Hand and Murders Several Markers

Hello Everyone! Happy New Years Eve!

I was debating whether or not to make this post a video, and now unfortunately I don't have a choice. I burned my left hand, so now I have only my right one to type with, which makes things painfully slow. "Hot plate" is not just a clever name.

I apologize for the low volume and the tilted video, but I'm particularly inept with filming timelapses and my phone was not incredibly helpful with that fact.

(Also, did you know in Russia they wear engagement rings on their right hand? Me neither. Thank you, Viktor Nikiforov, for making this especially confusing for me).
Enjoy!

Edit: I fixed the video, but it can only be played here now- http://sendvid.com/a6upuh4y
It's not a virus, I promise!

Here's the finalized comic because the video is super low quality on Blogger, apparently. 

Bunyapen, Supittha. Shojo Wonder Manga Art School: Create Your Own Cool Characters and Costumes with Markers. Cincinnati, OH: Impact, 2011. Print.

Kaedyn Attempts to Draw- Part 2

Hello everyone! Happy holidays!

     Disclaimer before I dive right into things: The reason I'm trying to get this all done quickly is because I'll be leaving the country two weeks and won't be back until January! That means cramming all of my homework into one weekend. So, without further ado, part two!

     I'd like to talk a bit more about color for this piece. I have absolutely no idea what I am doing when it comes to colors, but this book has been pretty helpful with that so far. I'm working on a ~Secret Santa~ project for a friend, so I figured I should knock it out (you'll see plenty of Secret Santa stuff when time inches closer and closer to Christmas).
     My friend is REALLY into Ouran High School Host Club, so I figured I'd draw the twins for him.
     Here they are -->

     Like I began my last piece, the first step is always to sketch. The sketch is the backbone of the drawing- all of your guidelines are in this step. You'll be lost (or at least I always am) without it.

     After that is the putting down the flat colors (on a separate layer, unlike what I did. Save yourself another 20 minutes of fixing everything). Having a base color is important for placing shadows and highlights. If you don't have a base color, how will you know what other colors to use? The simple stuff is definitely most important when it comes to art.

   








     Next is shadows/highlights! These are the shades I used to color Hikaru's face. Bunyapen suggests when painting light skin, you begin with the middle shadow and build up. "Create the middle shadow...add skin depths and bring out subtle details." (Bunyapen 32). So, I began with the base color (the middle tone) and added simple shadows before going darker. Afterwards, I added highlights to his skin. Notice I'm still using my handy-dandy sketch layer (which I make visible every now and then).




Then after I'm positive I have what I want, I'll add the details such as freckles and lip shine. Bonus points if you actually remember the eyes, as I neglected to do so for hours. I then added "legitimate lines" and shaded the hair. I did some more blending as well. For their uniforms, Bunyapen suggests to add creases and wrinkles on the clothing. Don't get too carried away! (Bunyapen 52). I shaded around where the folds of the uniform would be.

     Then, I repeated the same exact process for Kaoru, the decent twin, Lucky me, I didn't have to figure out another set of colors.











     I then decided to draw a background (shocking, right?) and then immediately backed out since I had already spent 5 hours on this piece. So, I found a rose background and added a fade effect and some overlay colors for the background. It still took a decent amount of time, but not as bad as expected.



   








     Here are my layers at this point.
     I'm not sure at all what the third and seventh layers were for, and I couldn't figure it out so I just decided not to touch them in hopes they wouldn't destroy my art. As you can see, I separated the main lines from the clothes, hair, and skin layers. Separating layers makes it so if you mess up and have to erase (like I do all the time) you don't have to redo an entirely different section.





     I added some final touches, and prayed it would look decent for my friend! I'm still not happy with it, but I'm sure I'll go back to it at some point.

     Even though I'm still not very good at drawing, I draw because it's my personal outlet. What's your go-to activity to get all of those emotions out?

Thanks for reading!

Citation: Bunyapen, Supittha. Shojo Wonder Manga Art School: Create Your Own Cool Characters and Costumes with Markers. Cincinnati, OH: Impact, 2011. Print.

Kaedyn Attempts to Draw Digitally- Part 1

Hello everyone! I'm Kaedyn, and I'm an art nerd!

     I'm excited (and wholeheartedly embarrassed) to make my first post on this blog. I'm focusing on my art skills for this project and have decidedly went with Shojo Wonder Manga- Art School by Supittha Bunyapen. If you haven't seen her art before- I STRONGLY suggest you check it out! It's beautiful.

     Essentially, the book is a guide for artists of any level (I'm an amateur) to learn about color theory, posing, anatomy, and my least favorite- backgrounds.

     A little self-introduction: I've been "drawing" (also known as nonsensical scribbles) since I was twelve. Of course, I grew up in an anime-fanatic family, so I was introduced to a show called "Sailor Moon" and I was completely hooked. I've always been interested in art from a young age, but simply beat around the bush when it came to sincerely learning about it. When I was fifteen, I started my first attempts at digital art- which I must admit- it was terrible. However, I'm still learning and still struggling and still persevering. I've never had any formal training for digital art, so I've had to scrape by on my own. The piece I'm about to walk you step by step through is my 8th attempt at digital art (which is not a lot in over a year and a half. I'm a slacker).

My first attempt at digital art: (Be warned- I'm not the strongest artist)

 

And here is my most recent attempt (four months ago):

Now onto the actual art!

     To begin, step 1 is essentially drawing your basic structure of the face: "Create the basic shape...then add the features placement...the lines indicate where the facial structures should be placed." (Bunyapen 24). So, I made outlines for where the basic features should be. Also: my apologies. I was drawing this at 3 a.m. and didn't realize I should probably have not included the doodles, alas, I did it anyway. Whoops.

Next, I added basic features. This allows me to use guidelines to color and shade where appropriate.

      The next main section of the book is Skin Tone Basics. The book I chose is unfortunately bound to strictly using markers, and I decided to do a digital picture because I feel I need to work on my digital art more. Not a good decision on my part. So, I had to sort of “translate” the color choices. The chapter states the desired colors for darker skin could be achieved by using E13-Light Suntan, E15-Dark Sunshine, and E33-Sand - make sure to consider what needs to be shadowed and what to keep light (Bunyapen 28). There are two main ways to go about coloring skin- the Blending style and the Layering style. I decided to go with Layering style because I am drawing digitally. Basically, you paint the entire figure with a base color, which is what I did here in step 3.

     Next is to add the middle shadows, which is your second layer. This would be applied to the cheeks, brow bone, eyes, and lips). I applied this step to images 4 and 5. I don't have a picture for this step, unfortunately. Finally in this section I added the deepest shadows (nose, under the lip, neck, chin). I then did the same process for the clothing. These steps were the most difficult, mostly because I am partially blind and struggle with shading immensely. It took me approximately 4 hours for this section- which I hope to improve on in the future.

     Although this was not in the book, I would like to highlight how I got my final effect. As you can see in the image below, I have a series of layers because I don't trust myself at all. The "galaxy" layer is an overlay ("hard color" blend) of her hair. I traced the shape of her hair and then used a reference image to paint the galaxy effect in the selected section.

     Finally, Step 125 (or so) is cropping my image and flattening my layers! Here's the finished product below.

     I have to say, this was a true struggle. This drawing took me... I believe around 7 hours? I think this book helped me a lot with where the shading should be on the face and placement of facial features. I'm proud of myself for taking on the challenge! Anxiety almost got in the way of me posting this, but I think it came out alright as an amateur in digital art. Do you have any critiques? (Please be nice, I'm fairly new...)

     So, you have most likely drawn something at least once in your lives. What was the most difficult thing for you to overcome? (Such as colors, body structure, or facial features etc...)

     Thanks for reading! Have a great day, everyone.

Edit: I forgot the citation! Whoops!

Bunyapen, Supittha. Shojo Wonder Manga Art School: Create Your Own Cool Characters and Costumes with Markers. Cincinnati, OH: Impact, 2011. Print.