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.