Posts without a plan

Oh god, I hate exam season so so much. It's annoying to the point where I can't even plan a blog post, let alone write one! I'll get a little bit of inspiration, and then, as if by magic, poof! It's gone.

Take, for example, the other day. I had a great idea for a post, 'What is worthy literature?' I knew what my argument was, I knew exactly how I was going to express it. However, when it came to planning out my argument in stages my mind went blank. It is such a pain, because this thing is finally beginning to get some regular readers, which is admittedly strange to me- Why on earth would you want to read this blog of un-planned, pseudo-sarcastic mess? Not only that, but when you Google 'Teenage life blog' I'm one of the first results, and I have absolutely no idea how.

I don't know. Maybe I'll post you my character's journal from Skyrim, one thing that I am actually able to write without blocking up horribly, or a couple of screenshot from my latest picture. What say you?

See! I can draw! Kind of...

I think I mentioned this in my opening blog post, but I do like to dabble in drawing every once in a while. Admittedly, I'm not the best at drawing, but its something I enjoy and I have improved on since I started. Well, I thought I'd take you through the process I go through to get a picture done. No, this isn't a tutorial, this is done through days worked on the picture. So, without further ado, I present to you the making of Beneath the Surface (obviously didn't take inspiration from the Dream Theater song ;P)

Day 1- Sketching and Line Art

I tend to chose a pose from Posemaniacs, a really great website recommended by art students and illustrators alike to make sure that you get your proportions as close to reality as possible. I tend to add  my own twists to the poses depending on the character. For example, Lila is a quite athletic character with small breasts in comparison to the model on the website, so you do have to adjust things accordingly. Then you clothe them and line them so that the scanner can pick up on every detail you want clear, and I tend to add little notes there and then on the picture, just to remember everything. Although, as you'll see towards the end, I will stray away from these notes. A lot.

Day 2- Basic colouring: Body and Clothes

I'm a very messy colourer. You know when you're told as a child to colour inside the lines? Well, I was always the one who coloured way too far over the lines then rubbed them out afterwards to make sure that I got the colour everywhere I wanted it and more. I also have a habit of colouring skin darker than it will be in the final picture. It just gives me a wider spectrum of colours to use for shading I guess. As you can see in comparison to the Day 1 sketch, I'm already playing around with the line art and adjusting it so that it looks better. Also, I always got for a background in a colour a world apart from the other colours I'll use in the picture. I know, I know, purple is quite close to pink...But they're still very different colours!

Day 3- Tidying up the lines, detail, and more skin.

You see, if I had started keeping the lines prim and perfect earlier, then I might have missed out little sections of colour. Believe me, it would be just my luck to miss something like that. I added a woolen texture to the cardigan by crisscrossing rapidly over the layer, different sections of crisscrossing for different sections of the cardigan. I think it's quite effective myself, but bare it in mind that this is the first time I've really attempted to add texture to clothing...Normally I have a habit of trying to pass off all fabric as silk or cotton. whoops :') Also, getting started on the neck, putting in the basic shadows and shapes.

Day 4- FACE.

Lets not focus on the hands for a moment. They're just there to be there at this point. But yes, the face! It isn't even finished in this stage, I adjusted it later on anyways. I always put the coloured features: eyes, lips, and blush, on a separate layer so that they wont be effected when I start adjusting the skin tone- lets face it, those eyes are light enough as it is. As for the other facial shading, I finally figured out how to do it properly (kind of) with this one. It's so glaringly obvious now that I think about it. All it is is putting highlights in the same manner as you would make up. So L shape on the cheek bones, a few lines on the forehead, chin, nose, and corners of the mouth. I feel so stupid now.

Day 5- Hands, Face, Skin and Hair

So first off I realised how unhappy I was with the nose of the last picture, it looked incredibly flat and, well, it just wasn't very well done. So I got the help of my friend who studied art to give me a lesson in nose drawing, and viola! Decent nose! Then comes the hands. No-one can help me with hands, and even now they look incredibly stupid, I'm definitely not happy with them, not one bit. It's getting the shape right that's the problem! But once I was (very loosely) satisfied with the hands, I could finally start adjusting the skin tone- See how the facial features stand out better now? After the skin tone comes the hair. Honestly, that's my favourite part of drawing people, doing the hair!

Day 6- Click here for the final piece :P

Yes, I'm doing a cheapskate 'go here for the rest of the story' thing. So shoot me :P