Look at this, but not too closely

I think I made her too glossy in my final touches, but this is as much as I can work on one woman's face.

I MUST MOVE ON! *holds sword up and towards the right of the screen*

*Exit Stage Right*

I'm surprised at myself

Wow, I'm speechless. When I started working on this, I did not expect to make such progress. :D This is awesome! I'm getting the hang of this! More!

Of course, it isn't perfect. But I'm just surprised I got this close. Very happy.

Attempt 2 at Something Different

This is too advanced for me.

Back for good

I'm back! New comic work coming soon. Nothing amazing. I don't know, this has probably been the longest art block I have ever had. Anyway, this is my latest attempt at painting. Used a reference.

I've always found skin color challenging. So I'll be working on a series of such paintings to get better at it.

Fail and learn

The reason I started Headshots Week is because some of my friends thought my shading style was boring. :| I like the old-school 2D shading with only a few tones and I usually use shadow work just like that. For example:

 

This is typical to the shading style I use. I could have worked harder on his hair, I guess. Anyway, so when my friends said I need to try my hand at soft shading, I started coloring headshots for practice and I was able to come up with some good results:

 

 

I tried varying the amount of soft shading I used with the extent of cell-shading. So in every picture here, we have two elements - one is the soft indiscernible shading done with a powdery sort of dry brush set at low opacity and the other is a smoother, defined ink that contours the shapes.

If you look closely at the purple drawing, you'll see that i used more definition and more softness. I don't like the result. 

In the green one, I used very little of both and I liked how it turned out but I wasn't sure I could use it often. For example, if I colour a comic with this method, there will be scenarios where the drawing needs more definition and this light look won't do. 

In the blue drawing, I used high softness and low definition. It kinda worked and I think it works best when working in dark tones. 

In the orange drawing, I used high definition and less softness. I think I like it because it makes the subject very clearly outlined but also manages to make it closer to reality (less cell-shaded, i guess).

But then these are my opinions. Maybe if my friends looked at it, they'd argue a different way. In any case, I got carried away with all the soft shading and I thought 'Hey, I should try to make a painting taking a photograph as reference and see how close I can get to it.' So I found this picture on the internet.

 
The reasons I chose this picture were : ONE, the limited color palette; TWO, the high contrast which makes her look almost plastic; THREE, some challenging parts like the sleeves and the hair.

Maybe I should have chosen an even less complex picture. Maybe something like this would have been better for a first attempt:

Maybe next time. :) Anyway, what I'm going to say is, I failed quite terribly. But once again I learned a lot. For one, I know I don't do enough paint-work. My deviantart account hardly has any drawings, mainly because I don't have paintings to post and I think its a waste to put sketches there (unless they're like WOW). Secondly, with this exercise I was able to test my ability to start with a definite idea and be able to stick to it till the end. I'd give myself a ... 40%? x_x Bleh, nepotism. Without blabbering on for any longer, here's the painting:

You don't even need to place them together. :P Its obvious. Sorry for the long post.
 

I am now calling this 'Headshots Week'

kinda like 'Lakme Fashion Week' or some such. :/ I dont know many.

I could make her pout less, but I won't. :P

Purple

The problem here is the lack of expression. On a brighter note, Mission Keep-final-painting-close-to-original-drawing is successful. :D

And look, better hair! ^_^

More

Still experimenting. Also, with this one, I had fun working on the hair. Learned a bit about lighting too, like erasing with low opacity can look like light/shadow work. :D Also learned that with this skin color, shades of blue blend really well (on the skin, I don't mean the shirt).

Still trying to simplify this whole process.

Still coloring

I have been busy, getting used to my new PS CS5. :D After the last two drawings, I am trying to find a coloring method that would work for my drawing style. I still prefer the good old cell-shaded sketches better though.

I have a lot many random headshots in my notes and I'm using them for practice. Here I've used the general textured brushes dry brushes for the cheeks and the darker tones on the neck. To make the process quicker and more sketchy I drew sketch lines but in lighter colors. Tried not to use too much black because I want the focus on the colors. In the end, I added a layer on top of everything, set it on 'Multiply' and with a normal brush on low opacity and semi-flow, I added shadows wherever I thought it was needed. I hope I can improve the method in my next try. ^_^

Family Portraits II

And the last one. :] A portrait of my little sister. This looks rather traditional unlike the one before. :D

Family Portraits

:D I'm back. I made a portrait of my big brother.

He doesn't like it much though. :P Of course, I used reference for his facial features but the lighting is all from my head. Dude doesn't get many well-lighted photographs taken. :/

Goodbye baby goodbye

It has been some time since I seriously colored a drawing and put it up here, my fault. I've been listening to K-Pop a lot this month (last month I was listening to Arabic Pop) and when I was coloring this sketch MissA's Goodbye Baby was playing in the background. So I ended up calling this blogpost by the same name. ^_^

I was pretty rough with the drawing. :/ But I like how it turned out because lately I haven't had much faith in my ability to draw. :D More coming!

Queen Land

I've been trying to organize myself better while I color my drawings in PS. the arrangement of layers, etc. In that process, I ended up coloring two queens that I had sketched. Here they are:

The first queen is styled after the Mughal rulers of India (mostly based on a film I saw over the weekend). The second was inspired by the Ottoman way of dressing brides. I had no reference picture for an Ottoman queen, somehow. The comparison helped me see how different cultures interpret beauty. Whereas the Turkish style is bold on the colors and the use of jewellery, the Mughals were much more subtle and gave attention to detail, you could say. I had a lot of fun making this.

Lighting practice

I've been absent

on blogger, because it was too slow. Couldn't upload images. Here are the things I've been doing.

Inspiration: The Kathak dance.

I don't even know where I'm going with this now

But I'll keep moving. ^_^

Have had some days off so I made these:

First time I ever colored water. :)

Something for Valentine's Day.

So I'm watching this new series called Young Justice which is awesome. Its a little like ATLA as far as animation's concerned. Kinda inspired me. ^_^

Long time again

I had exams again. But I think I'm free now. 

Anyway, I'm still trying to warm up to drawing and coloring once again. While I struggle with this phase, here's what I tried doing and kinda failed.

 And I'm reading the Spenser detective series by Robert B Parker. He describes his characters in such an interesting way that I wanted to draw them. So below is Bradford W Forbes, his first ever client. This is from The Godwulf Manuscript.

 

I liked it sketchy. So I didn't clean it. :D

Bush Dai-Dai

So this week's challenge at alphabeastiary.blogspot.com is the Bush Dai-Dai. She's a succubus that seduces its victims and shape-shifts to a jaguar/bat/wolf to attack. She's usually found in the jungles of the Caribbean, her origin. She has been cited in African legends, etc.

In my opinion, playing the way succubi usually do, a Bush Dai-Dai would probably appear as a hapless maiden whose father/husband/brother has been attacked by a jaguar and who lost her way in the jungle. Thats what I'm trying to portray below. She is the kind of monster that has to carry its other skin with it after it takes it off. So there.

I'm not participating in this project because: I don't draw beasts as often, I don't think I'll be able to meet their awesome standards and because I'm focusing on learning comic writing.

But when I saw the entries to this week's challenge, I just HAD to draw my own version.

I didn't work too hard because: I have to study for an exam coming soon and I'm not submitting this anywhere.

EDIT: Tried to correct my mistake as Rashi pointed out. Let see. :D

Finally got the haircut.

So I went from looking like this:
 

to looking like this:

Yes, I'm just glorifying it. >_> SNAZZY.

Metro Girl!

It is so much fun to visit an artist's blog and see something they drew based on what they saw around them. Anything. Inspired by one such artist, I started looking at people around more carefully and noticing things. That is how I found Metro Girl.

One morning, when I was still a trainee at a power distribution company in Delhi (which was a couple of months ago), I was waiting for a metro train, I saw this woman (girl?) also waiting at the opposite platform. The first intriguing thing about her was that she was reading a book as she stood. Which looked slightly strange. I've never seen someone standing stiff and reading a book (unless it was a chemistry exam, which I know lots about). The second strange thing (to me alone, i guess) was that she was wearing only yellow and green items on her. Even the book was yellow and green. O_O Which made me think, wow.

What was she doing? Hoping a good artist would see her and get inspired to draw her? Well, that didn't happen. Did she dress up like that everyday? Were yellow and green her superhero colors? Is she a superhero in disguise? @_@

So many relevant questions. Metro Girl, wish I could draw you better.