Anyways, like always I start out with a circle. This time, I imagine she’ll be facing ever so slightly downwards, meaning that more of the top of the head will show. Why is she holding the phone like that? I don’t know. It seemed appropriate at the time.

When I draw on paper I usually don’t even bother with shaping out the image. I usually start with the head and move on to wherever it takes me. But I find most pictures of mine tend to look a little better when I take the time to figure out the logistics of a picture, and make sure the anatomy isn’t too horrendous. So having laid out the initial form, I can move on to making this thing actually start looking like a girl.

I like to focus on the eyes, and this time is no exception. Even though I plan to paint most of the details in, I can’t help but flesh out the eyes. Nobody likes staring at an ugly picture while they work on it.

While maintaining the overall structure, I have added some details to help me guide my painting. Since I don’t draw ears too well, I’ve eliminated them altogether with some hair. I’ve kept the hair pretty simple for now, but I’m still free to add things once I actually lay color down. While symmetry is important, by no means should you simply copy and flip one side of the face to the other. Drawing digitally gives you many abilities you’ve never had before but this should not be one of them. And besides, if you look at the features I’ve drawn for her, she’s quite asymmetrical but maintains more of an authentic look.

I also haven’t quite decided what to do with the hand yet, hence the 5 fingers and 2 thumbs.

Now while I haven’t finished sketching out the final design, I’ve decided to go ahead and start painting. Nothing too serious yet, just mostly some basic colors on the face. I imagine I’ll have the light coming down from above her (which means the eye highlights are wrong) so I start out with a lightest skin shade on her forehead and the ridge and tip of her nose, while the darkest areas being around her eyes, under the nose, and right under her lip.

10.27.08- I’ve filled in some other major color areas, keeping the overall picture “autumn-y.” With the face, I’ve added more highlights and shadows to strengthen her features. While you want the colors to blend together, overuse of soft brushes tend to make pictures look too balloony. I like to mix in some hard brushes every now and then, even though it makes blending a bit more time consuming.

After I laid some of my major color groups, I’ve mostly been mostly smoothing out the curves. While I’ve been doing that, I’ve also removed some of the black lines I had sketched in the beginning. Ideally, you should be able to define shape and form using colors and shades alone.

I think my lip technique could still use some work but I think my noses are starting to be quite presentable. In addition to fixing up the face, I cleaned up her left hand and changed her right hand to be (hopefully) more anatomically correct. I also tried lengthening her hair, but I’ve kept the hair changes on another layer as I’m not sure whether I’ll keep them or not.

11.09.08- Along with some additional work on the face and around, I’ve begun to part out major color groups for her hair. While she has a single real hair color, she will have different shades of hair depending on where the light falls and doesn’t fall. By taking this into account, you can show how the hair is positioned just by changing the dark/lightness.

After applying the main color blobs, I just go ahead and start adding finer details by utilizing smaller and sharper brushes. To get the “strand” effect, I am using a spackled brush while easing up on the pressure near the ends. I blurred the ends together, to make sure the hair appears uniform.

Now, I’ve painted the background brown to increase the contrast and also me to see any gaps that need to be filled. I think I’m now done with the main look of the hair, but I may make tweaks as I continue. I originally planned on giving her a fur collar but I thought would be a bit ridiculous, so I gave her one made out of hay, which is even more ludicrous. I have no plans for the image beyond the original shape of the body I sketched so I’m just making it up as I go.

Honestly, I have no idea what I’m doing.

11/17/08: I still don’t really know what I’m doing. I removed the cellphone? for something that makes more sense. Why does wheat make more sense? I don’t know. I also have been trying to remove some of the original sketch lines as I go along. This may be as far as I take it.

11/26/08: Done! Or as much as I can go before I start wondering what I’ve been drawing all this time. I added more wheat. Removed some lines. Nothing much else. Little bit of background blur.

Anyway, here we are. I started out with a circle again, plopped in a head of sorts, and gave a preliminary sketch for the body. You can also see some of my eye failures concepts at the top. Funny thing is, I was starting out with a guy first. I ended up with a girl. Fail. It happens. One second you’re drawing a turtle, the next you have a toaster.

I know the collar is hideously disproportioned, but this was the best I could do without posing myself in front of the mirror. I think it looks pretty good though. Now if you’ll look in the upper right of the 2nd picture, that’s about as close to a full wire frame I’ll get. It helps to have a little model for the body before you waste your time drawing the big one realizing it won’t work.

Like I described in the previous post, I cleaned up the lines and laid out the basic colors. I painted on some shades and highlights, just to help get a “feel” of the face’s shape. One thing I learned was that shading doesn’t just happen in shades of gray. If you actually poke around tutorials, you’ll learn about things like luminosity and how light/shadows can alter the color saturation of a surface. In my opinion, it’s better to just copy what you see others do rather than learn all the reasoning and technicalities behind it. This is especially important for organic surfaces. (Like skin.) So in other words, avoid shading skin with pure grays.

Didn’t like the skin color. Made it lighter. Shirt needed to be more happy. Added more happy. Boosted smile power by 2 points. Tie? I did something to it. I also started fidgeting around with the eyes. I have a tendency to focus on faces and hands. (mostly to make up for the lack in ability in drawing anything else – heh.) So with that mindset, I also figure that if those parts look reeeel gooood, people won’t criticize the other parts so much.

For the final image, I shaped the eyes better, along with some other minor facial alterations. Added shadows to the shirt, matched the skin tone of the arms to the face, and spilled some yellow paint in the background. Done!

I think it came out rather well. I’d like to reduce my dependence on dark outlines, but I don’t know how to get rid of them in a timely manner while preserving shape. For your viewing pleasure, here’s a closeup on the face. Lip highlights FTW!

Side post, I finished my first final. 2 finals and 1 paper left. Wish me luck!

I don’t know if people utilize “wire frames” for drawing people, but all I personally just start with a circle. For the head. I guess a frame would help out my anatomical proportions, but I’m lazy.

So first up, you have a circle. Nowadays I start every picture with one. Sometimes it looks like didn’t even need it. Like this picture below. Maybe it’s a force of habit, but I still think it helps me size things up.

Anyway, the head leads to the body, with some random pose. Jibtip: A standard straight view, 3/4 profile view, or anything else of the like are extremely boring in my opinion. Hide an arm, have the person’s head face elsewhere from the body, or whatever! I think it leads to a better picture overall.

At this point I still didn’t know whether I was drawing a girl or a guy. Well now you can see which side won out. Don’t think there’s too much of a difference in drawing either. For girls, I typically have narrower shoulders, a smaller arm to leg width ratio, and have their hips about the size of their shoulders. And boobs.

As for anatomy itself, I pretty much guess. I imagine the elbows being around the end of the ribcage, with the boobs around halfway between the elbows and collar. I think I should prolly devote some time to actually studying some real anatomy, but I’ve managed well enough without seeing the need to do so. There are those who will tell you that a foundation in anatomy is absolutely necessary before even trying to delve into manga or cartoony styles. I say that’s garbage. Yes, my drawings “suffer,” as they’re not perfectly correct. (For example, I have a tendency to draw large hands and high waists) But where’s the fun in that? The key is to draw something with mismatched proportions and still have it look great. That, is style. If I were to critique myself, I’d say I drew her body frame too small in relation to her head. She’s rather thin too.

I add some basic color in, to see what blend of skintones, clothing, and hair work best. I throw on some shading, change the haircolor (I changed my mind), and it’s done!

So while it turned out decent, I have no idea how to shade properly. I try to be mindful of a light source, but I don’t have too much knowledge on how light falls on objects. As for painting technique, I try to copy from Falcoon, and Furiae. Falcoon is an artist for SNK and I like the way he draws. His site only has pictures and Japanese text, unfortunately. Now Furiae.com is a great website. It contains many useful tutorials on painting people that actually work! If you go to her site, you will quickly see that she is a master at painting portraits.

I guess I would say this is how I learn any anatomy at all. Not by studying actual books or diagrams, but looking at other people’s paintings.