Spring break has come and gone! Luckily, I had time to whip up a tutorial. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to come up with something original, so I had found a piccy on the Interwebs, so I’m going to create my character, OC Solei’na Luna, using the reference:

Image courtesy of berlemu.deviantart.com/

Honey by BerleMu

As you can see, this is a really pretty picture. I love the shape of her face and the structure, however, I’m not a fan of the hair.

Although I am using the pose for the image I am about to create, I am changing the eyes, hair, adding clothes, and elfifying the ear. I’m going to make the lips smaller, too and change the arch of the eyebrows. The skin will also be darker in order for my character to appear “Drow” (although I don’t use grey tones, so we’ll see how that goes).

So, with that, shall we begin?

Step 1

First, I’m going to draw this person traditionally. I do that because it makes it easier to draw after I scan. Although I’ve had my tablet for almost two years now, I still have a hard time drawing circles and the like, but I’m learning. Traditionally, I can drawing my guidelines, make sure all the features are even, then draw my facial structure as shown here.

As you can see, I use guidelines to divide the face off, then I add my facial features. There are a lot of artists who are against doing this first (adding the features first) instead preferring to draw the face structure THEN the features. I like to go against the grain.

In this stage, I also add my hair guidelines. Why? I don’t know. Personally, it helps me see if the face is even, which so far, it does look that way. Hooray!

I also added the hand (best hand I’ve drawn in a while. I did a hand tutorial not too long ago, but I opted not to share it because it was hideous! I can’t draw hands like I used to). I also used guidelines this time for the hand, so I think that made a difference.

After this stage, I scanned the image (and happily, might I add!). Not too long ago, I finally got a new scanner; works like a charm! =^_^=

Step 2

Once scanned, I opened the file in Photoshop. Here, I draw over my original lines with a black paintbrush (I don’t have a pen tool).

In this step, I add more details. I fixed the hair up to my liking, adjusted the eyes, and added clothes. So far, so good.

Personally, I’m loving the hair right now, but I’m going to create another layer in order to fluff it up a bit. This is why I love Photoshop and layers. You can play around with different styles until you achieve the look you want. In total, this outline took about four different layers before I was happy. That’s on the low-side for me, so I guess I should be happy for small miracles!

The next step is to erase the guidelines.

Step four is really fun because we get to play with a rainbow. This is a technique I learned from Alex, so this is new territory for me since I’m still not quite getting the rainbow-bit when it comes to creating skin tones (although it is fascinating). Looking at these images, I think I went a little overboard with my rainbow skin:

Step 4: "Taste the rainbow!"

Taste the muted rainbow?

First, create a layer underneath you Photoshop-created outline. Next, choose a shade of blue you like and shade where you want the shadows to be. Although the original image doesn’t have a lot of shadows, I think I’m going to go a little heavy on the shadows in order to create a more Drow-like look (hahaha, I bet I’ll fail at that!). After the blue, I’ll fade into a purple-tone, then pink, which will still be shaded areas, but less so. For areas that will have the light source reflecting, use yellows and greens. For the cheeks (blush), use red or a darker pink.

As you can see, I wasn’t happy with the first image, so I subdued it by using a layer of purples, pinks, more blues, and oranges. Play around until you achieve a result you are happy with. You will see in the next step that I adjusted the levels a bit more because I was happy with neither of these.

Step 5

After I played around with the exploded rainbow, I created a new layer for dark shading, which will be a layer on top of the rainbow. For the darker shades, I used browns and greys, but you can use any color that makes you happy (like if you’re creating an Oompa Loompa, use dark orange).

I used the brown tones along the hair and jaw lines, along the nose, fingers, neck, and shoulders, as well as close to where her clothes are. I used five different shades of brown in order to achieve this look. Remember, with shading, Gaussian blur is your friend, so be sure to play around with that when smoothing out your lines. This way, the image doesn’t look so harsh.

Additionally, you can also add so light (white) if you know where your light source is going to be.

Step 6

Once you have achieved the look you want with the shading, create another layer between the rainbow layers and brown shading. Choose a color you want to use for the skin.

Once you choose the skin color, color the entire area where the skin is showing using an airbrush tool. I prefer airbrushing the skin because it gives it a softer look. You could use a hard brush if you prefer a more cell-colored look, but I kinda like the softer shades.

Change the skin-base layer’s opacity to about 65-83 percent so the colors from the previous layer show through. If you don’t want the colors to show through as much, go with an 85-93 percent opacity. This will soften the skin, but it will look more real.

Step 7

After adjusting the opacity-level, I create another layer above the skin and brown shading layers to create a light source image.

With this layer, I play around with some light yellows and whites in order to create a light source. I use the light on the fat-part of the cheeks and along the lips and nose. I also enhance the light on the hands.

Personally, I feel the light at this point really sets the mood. Unlike the original image, I think the character is a little more sexy instead of pretty (which is what I was going for since Solei’na isn’t “pretty,” but unusual and sure of her sexuality).

So far, this is working for me.

Step 8

Step 8 is reserved for clothes and details. I’m not really focusing on clothes this tutorial since everyone’s outfits will be different. So lets skip ahead to the next steps.

Step 9

Step 10

The next steps involve adding facial features. In the image on the right, I added the lips, eyeshadow, eyebrows, and eyelashes. With the lips, choose a medium-shade base color, than use a shade 2x darker for shadow; 2x lighter for light. The light creates a shiny appearance. Create eyeshadow using an airbrush, eyebrows with a hard 2 point hard brush. Color the whites of the eyes with grey tones so you can use white to create shine. Color the pupils using a series of lines (eye tutorial coming soon).

Use the blur tool to smooth all your lines, then add light to the eyes.

Step 11

Now, we’re going to color the hair. Pick a color you like and color the base. This involves coloring the entire area.

Next, pick your dark tones and layer them on using different sized brushes and blurring. Then, add your light tones. Keep layering until you achieve your desired look.

For more hair hints, visit here (when I find the link. ^^;)

Finally, delete your guidelines and add a background. Tada! You’re finished!

And now, I shall run. Adieu!

First off, Alex and I apologize for being down for the time being. We forgot to update our publisher, so we were hacked. Alex contacted the wonderful support people at PowWeb for being amazingly awesome and rescuing the site. They truly are THE BEST! Thank you guys from the bottom of my heart! I say it again: YOU ARE THE BEST!

In other news, Sketching House is now on Facebook! Type in Sketching House in the search box, and become a fan!

It’s the wonderful and beautiful month of September! The color begins to fade from the trees, the air turns more crisp, children are back in school, and fall festivals are about to start! I can’t wait! With the fall festivals comes pumpkin roll, and with pumpkin roll comes a very happy Mari! I LOVE pumpkin roll! If you haven’t tried it, I highly recommend that you do because you will NOT be disappointed!

Class started again today, and so far, I love the composition class. Tomorrow’s class I already know I will not like. *Yawn* But like you guys care, right?

In that case, how about a tutorial?

I just recently discovered how to create a wood texture in Photoshop, which is really neat and very simple too. So, if you want to create boxes and even trees, this is the tutorial for you.

First, pick a base color that you feel will be fitting for your wood background. Use lighter browns for oak and ash wood, reddish-brown for cherry wood, dark brown for mahogany, and black for teak.

Once you have done this,  choose a light shade that will serve as your light grain. When I first did this, I used a shade that was three to four shades lighter than the color I originally used. Next, choose a hard brush and set the opacity to 45%-55%. On the box, add random lines for graining. I used a brush that was between 13-23 for the graining. Also, make sure you don’t but your lines too close together, because the wood will looked warped later on (I made this mistake!).
Now, before I continue, I must add that my tablet is currently MIA, so my lines are sloppy and hanging all over. Blah!

Next, pick a shade that’s somewhat darker then the light grain shade you used. Keep the opacity the same–between 45%-55%, although I do recommend increasing the opacity slightly– for your hard brush. However, change the size of your brush until it’s between the sizes of 9-18. Begin adding the darker lines. With this, don’t be afraid to overlap your light and dark lines. In fact, I think doing this makes the wood look more interesting. With this, though, make your lines somewhat shorter than the original light lines you created.

Next, change the brush opacity to about 75%. Change the hard brush size to between 1-8. Choose another dark color for fine graining. I used a color that’s brighter, yet slightly darker than the color used in the previous step. Add these thinner lines on top of the thicker grains, and be sure to add them in more frequency. Once you’ve added the desired lines,  use the blur tool on them. Use a soft brush for the blur tool and set the opacity to below 50%. Lightly blend these lines.

Next, choose white or a color close to white. Keep the paint brush at the same opacity and width as the previous step, and lightly add some white lines on the wood. Once more, use the blur tool to smooth the edges.

Now that the wood texture is complete (easy right?), add embellishments to complete the look to your liking (as you see, I have already done that). Once you’re happy, you can start shading the wood. Please, use different layers for this step.

With wood shading, choose a soft brush and set the opacity to around 30%. Pick a smaller size brush, like between 5-20. For dark shading, I choose a brown color that is almost black, but don’t worry. Since the opacity is low, it won’t look black, but just like a regular shadow. If you created a box like I did, add your shadow along the creases. If you have ornate edges or gems like I do, shadow the along the bottom portion of these adornments to create depth. Additionally, shade areas that are hidden by overhangs as shown in the image below.

For the top shadows, choose a light brown color that is almost white in order to create a light source. Add this along the top portions (or wherever your light source is) in order to create more depth using light.

Once you’re happy with your shading, you’ve created a wood texture. Now, you don’t have to get as fancy as I did, but this was the only way I could how to do the shading.

And with that, this concludes this tutorial. I’m glad to be back!

Until next time,

Mari!

I’ve received emails from people asking how, when an image is colored, to shade white objects and clothing. One of the main complaints is how an object looks “dingy” or “dirty” when people shade using shades of grey. Well, shading white objects and clothes is something I learned a few years ago when I was still in high school. Grey does drag white down and often makes it look dingy. White is suppose to be crisp, clean, and fresh. I discovered that using shades of aqua help with the shading process. Why? Aqua plays off the white, making the white pop off the paper/screen and shout “CRISP!” Additionally, the white also makes the aqua pop creating the illusion of true shadows. Of course, in the non-drawing word, objects that are white often have grey shadows, but remember, when drawing, sometimes art doesn’t intimidate life. Let’s that a look, shall we?

Here’s a picture of one of my dogs that I took a few years ago. Besides the fact that there’s 20 inches of snow on the ground, look at the shading: it’s grey.

In the image, the white does look white given that it is real life. However, let’s apply the same grey shading to a drawing. I took a portion from the lower left-hand corner and tried to duplicate it in drawing format. Let’s take a look:

Some of the shading seems over-exaggerated, but that’s okay.  But do you see what I mean? The white looks dingy and not as bright as it should look. That’s sad. But do you see the difference? Now, let’s try the same shading technique with the aqua coloring.

Look at the grey in this wedding dress composition. Sure, it’s striking, and with the lighting, the white does look white. But toward the back, the dress doesn’t look as fresh and clean as it should. Now let’s see an image using shades of aqua for the shading. If you look at this image, you’ll notice how bright and clean the white looks. The shadows actually pop at you and really say “I’m shadows!” I think this looks cleaner than the grey shadowing.

So how do we shade (recall the shading tutorial from December) using aqua? The same way you would when using grey. First, start with your dark tones in the areas you want to be darkened, then move on to your medium and light tones. When drawing in white though, remember to not go to overboard with your shading because you’ll end up with a blue outfit instead of  a white one, or grey if you choose to still use grey. Also, I need to take my own advice. I tell you, oh faithful viewers, to go from dark to light tones; I do the opposite. I find it works better for me to build on my tones. I suggest you work with whatever makes you happy.

There you have it folks. Keep your whites whiter with shades of aqua.

This is Mari signing out!

Hopefully, these images aren’t as blurry as they appear.

Hello everyone! Mari here. Boy, have I been busy! Between cleaning, cleaning, and cleaning (as well as yard work), I haven’t had time to breathe, let alone post anything. However, the past two weeks, I have been working on the above two images in order to show you what effects you can achieve by using downloadable Photoshop brushes. The majority of the brushes used were found on My Photoshop Brushes, a site I mentioned in a previous post. As I mentioned before, I love unique brushes simply because the default brushes are dull and don’t have much leeway when it comes to creating awesome images. For instance, if you want flower petals floating around, there isn’t a default brush for that. For example, there’s a grass brush in the default brushes, but it faces one direction or comes out in a string of multi-colored clumps that look like confetti at a parade. By searching a brush database, you can find a grass brush that suits your needs if the default brushes don’t work for you when learning how to draw.

Now, I’m not totally dissing the default brushes, since some of them are great. For instance, with my skies, I often use the Maple Leaf brush (default 74), which is great for creating Milky Ways and dark tones. I love the mottled effect of the maple leaf brush and how each stroke goes all over. This brush is great for creating POPS of color in the sky. However, when it comes to creating actual tree leaves, I’m not a fan of this brush simply because the leaves sometimes go in places you odon’t want leaves. So there is an instance of pros and cons for the default brushes.

With the downloadable brushes, the creators seem to know many of the frustrations that digital artists have, so many of the designers seem to cater to these issues by creating brushes that create streams of petals and leaves, and grass clumps that occur in multiple colors and unnatural groupings. My personal favorites are the water brushes, which really help with making realistic oceans, lakes and rivers. The only complaint I have with those is the fact that they are square brushes, so you have to use the eraser tool in order to get the brush’s effect to fit the particular portion you’re filling. Yes, it is a minor nitpicky thing, but I am critiquing after all. I used the water brushes in both of the above images, but I think the effect is more clear in the image on the right (which happens to be one of my most favorite images I’ve created).

Another thing I use the downloadable brushes for is for my own tutorial purposes. I admit, there are PLENTY of things I do not know about art, and there are many things that I am still learning. For instance, I cannot draw a moon to save my soul, so I downloaded moon brushes. I used the moon brush on the righthand image, but on the left, I learned how to create my own moon without the brush by paying attention to the contours and grooves of the actual moon brush. So for me, and maybe for others, the downloadable brushes are learning tools. For the aforementioned, I would like to thank the brush artists for creating their brushes and for sharing their skills with us fellow digital artists.

As you can see, there are many great uses for downloadable as well as default brushes. However, for digital artists, downloadable brushes make our job considerably easier. When you create a work of art though using these brushes, just make sure you give the creators credit. So without further ado, I would like to thank

Obsidian Dawn for the Sakura petal brushes.

Midnightstouch for the Grass Brushes

and

Keepwaiting for the skin tone brushes

Thank you so much for visiting, folks! Have a great day!

Mari

Paint.net

Pros

I think Paint.net is the best starter program for those just learning how to do digital art. Paint.net lacks a lot of bells and whistles. The program runs a little faster than Photoshop and much faster than GIMP. In fact, I still use Paint.net for really simple edits because it runs faster. Also, their filters rock almost as much as Photoshop’s and you can download free plugins in order to expand your arsenal.

Cons

Paint.net is kinda skimpy on its features and their brushes really suck. The only brush that’s useful at all is the basic brush, unless you’re creating simplistic designs.Paint.net also doesn’t have a lot of the features that I’ve grown to love and rely on when using Photoshop. They have the lasso tool, which allows you to select specific parts of an image you’re working on. But they lack the polygonal lasso, which is great for artists who don’t have steady hands. They lack the pen tool, which makes it difficult to select very specific sections of the art and also makes it difficult to create complex polygons with curves (though they do have the curves tool). But for me, the most unforgivable sin for Paint.net is that they lack a blur and smudge tool. Without those tools, a lot harder to blend different parts of your image together. They do have the blur filter, which can replace the blur tool if you select certain portions with the lasso tool and you have a really steady hand.

GIMP

Pros

GIMP has most of the really important features on Photoshop. They have the coveted pen tool. They also have the essential blur and smudge tool. I can’t remember if they have the polygonal lasso or not. But that tool can be replaced by the pen tool easily. They have some good filters and plenty of plugins. This is a good program for those who want most of the features of Photoshop but never want to pay for the Photoshop program.

Cons

Oddly enough, the size of GIMP’s brushes are limited. This is a strange feature, since it can’t be that hard to increase the size of the brushes. GIMP also has the slowest running time. When using GIMP, I was met with frequent crashes. Also, for some reason, the lines that I created using the pen tool weren’t always perfectly smooth.

The Moral

Adobe is a little absurd charging nearly $1,000 for their Photoshop programs. Yeah, Photoshop is seen as the absolute best graphics program out there for most digital artists. But how do they expect starving artists to ever afford that much money?

Download GIMP http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gimp-win/gimp-2.6.4-i686-setup.exe

Download Paint.net http://www.dotpdn.com/files/Paint.NET.3.36.zip

Alex

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Hi, everybody! Marisol here. Alex offered some ideas for free programs, but if you are heavy into digital art and you enjoy doing it, there are programs that are under $100 available. Yes, they’re not as fancy as any of the Photoshop CS programs, but they are just as good. Alex mentioned that there is Photoshop Elements and Corel Painter, both of which have their pros and cons. I own both and I was fortunate enough to receive them free with my Wacom Intuos Tablet. However, both programs are well worth the money if you’re willing to spend it, especially if you’re really in to digital art.

Photoshop Elements

I happen to like Elements more than CS. Sure, Elements is what the title implies: the elements–your really basic digital tools. As Alex mentioned, Elements doesn’t have a pen tool, but everything else about it is great. You have your blur and burn tools, which are essential in digital art creation, but you also have the option of creating brushes and downloading brushes like its nobody’s business! Photoshop Elements has fantastic calligrapher brushes which make up for the lack of pen tool. However, I never really understood why the pen tool was so important. Basically, if you use the right pressure and you go along in small strokes, any brush can dublicate the pen tool look, but that is my opinion. I’ve never had a pen tool and when I did use it, I found it difficult to handle.

Photoshop Elements is basically the same as PSCS, just without the bells and whistles. A lot of the features are the same and the program is easy to use. Personally, I love Elements because of some of the cool effects you can create with it. There is a photo fram feature and a feature where you can create Andy Warhol-esque images. Very cool. Photoshop Elements is the best bang for your buck.

Corel Painter

Personally, I am not a fan of Corel Painter mainly because I find it difficult to use. Sure, the features are great, but I find the program to be glitchy and lacks that special oomph that makes it a great program. The drawing feature on Corel Painter is hit and miss because sometimes the lines pick up, others times they don’t, no matter what the pen pressure is. I find it to be very lax on features, however, it’s a great beginner’s tool. If you are a beginning artist, practice with Corel Painter, but I highly recommend you download the free trial. However, a lot of hardcore artists do use Corel Painter and love it, so maybe I have had bad luck.

Marisol

For one, I’m trying to post on here as often as possible, but I got bogged down with a lot of papers for class, but all is well with that spectrum of the universe now. I can finally catch up with all my articles for Demand Studios and for here. Another reason why I haven’t been posting so much is because I got a new job teaching a few Korean computer graphics professors English. They already know English, of course, but they want to learn it better so they can get teaching jobs in the States. I’m excited about this opportunity and it will help me get a job once I graduate with my Master’s degree. Today, I got to help one of my students practice for an interview she has with the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. I’m excited that I got to help with the interview and I wish her luck. To me, working with students is like raising children. You give them wings to fly and once they leave the nest… it’s so sad. One of my coworkers said I should be happy when the students leave because it means they gained confidence in their writing and speaking abilities, but for some reason, I don’t feel that way. A deep sense of sadness overcomes me. I don’t know if I’m suppose to feel that way, but I always do. Maybe someday, I will understand that feeling.

On Monday, someone stole my flashdrive from the computer lab. My resume, art portfolio, Writing Center work, ESL worksheets, and all my thesis work was on it. I posted fliers all over campus pleading with the person who took it to give it back, but no one has integrity anymore. We live in a pathetic world anymore when someone would even steal a flashdrive. All I did was go print a paper and staple it. That’s all it took. Honestly, the person can have the flashdrive, but I would be super happy if they would just send my work to me. My email address is on the flashdrive, afterall.

In other news, I previously mentioned a forum I was part of that discusses the show All My Children. I am now officially an outcast on there because people think I’m a troll. The thing that kills me is that on a forum, we’re all just a bunch of screen names. No one has faces. Some of the people on the forum have been trolls and I’ve been a regular poster during those times. Suddenly, everything turned on me because I reported on a bad day I had and everyone’s like “OH! TROLL!” No one gives anyone the benefit of the doubt; it’s instant paranoia. If you talk to some people more than others, you’re automatically accused of being that person if someone doesn’t like that individual. You can explain everything until you’re blue but they still won’t believe you. People automatically think that they know someone when they really know nothing. Only that person knows who they are, no one else, and I think that’s something a lot of people haven’t learned yet. Everything is so high school still. You defend yourself, call others on their follies, but it’s still never good enough. Unfortunately, it’s not behavior that’s only familiar on forums, but it’s becoming a common problem in society. Sure, it’s been a large problem for years, but it’s only getting worse.

In other news, I finally found time to write. Tala and I are probably going to start working on our manga very soon, and she’s working on a web comic. Alex is also working on his story. As for me, I’m working on a short story for my university’s Stark-Tinkham writing contest. I haven’t any idea as to what I’m going to stick with, but, right now, I’m writing a short story about two girls in Arizona who are sold into sexual slavery; another story about two friends who don’t realize they’re in love with each other until it’s too late; my third idea involves writing about my hometown. There’s always crazy things going on in my town. I turned a short story in for my advanced composition class once that focused on my life in my crazy neighborhood. It was great because my professor knew what I was talking about because she lives in the same city as I do, so we were able to talk in-depth about the crazy happenings of city life. She’s the one who encouraged me to expand on my piece. We’ll see where that takes me.

Technically, I don’t have an art tutorial to post today. Instead, I want to pass on some words of encouragement when it comes to photography. Personally, I’m not that good of a photographer, but I have fun taking pictures nonetheless. A while ago, I had a good camera, but my niece and I broke it running away from the Baptist church in hopes of breaking my “Baptist Curse” (this was 4 years ago, LoL). I have a Kodak camera currently, but it only has 3X zoom and sucks. All the pictures are still pixelly, but what can I do? But I’m getting off track.

There are a lot of people who are afraid of delving into the wonderful world of photography because they’re afraid their pictures will be ugly and blurry. Like I mentioned, I’m an amateur photographer, but I find the art to be very relaxing. A lot of times, I take my camera out and I take pictures of the sky, my dog, or geese (Alex says I have an obsession with geese ). Sometimes, buildings intrigue me or just random things lying around the house. Sometimes, I just feel inspired. Today, Alex and I skipped our Chaucer class because I had a headache and it was the last class before spring break. Our professor for Chaucer doesn’t usually assign work so Alex and I went out to have fun (we have a hilarious story to tell also!). We went to JoAnn Fabrics where I needed to take pictures of topiary things for a tutorial I’m doing for Demand Studios. I found some lovely fabrics to use for a skirt I wanted to make, but that’s besides the point.

Anyway, as we were driving to JoAnn’s, I felt inspired to take pictures as we were driving. So as we were driving, I took pictures of the road, restaurants, and random things along the way. Why? Because everything is aesthetically beautiful to a certain extent. I know a lot of budding photographers get psyched out when they go to professional photography sites and see all these beautiful portraits and say “I can never be like that!” Truth is, with practice, you could be like those photographers. For me, I’m really not interested in becoming a professional photographer, I just like to take pictures for fun. Here’s my advice, start taking pictures for fun with whatever camera you have, especially if you’re like me and you have a piece of crap camera. Take it slow, shoot things that are simple. When you’re ready, begin playing around with various shots at different angles and get creative. With photography, the possibilities are endless! Here are some shots I took from today:

Fireworks store: There

Ortega Supermarket near my campus.

You may see a lake; it's a flooded golf course.

It's me! It was very cold out today.

See, my pictures suck, but with practice, I’m sure I’ll get better over time.

Happy days ahead!

Marisol “Kita”

Property of CNN

*Sigh* Another day, another headache. I’ve come to the realization that I am my workplace’s little slave girl. I called off work yesterday due to ice and the fact that I just badly needed a day off. Alex and I went to breakfast and we didn’t really have anything planned (although I wished we did ), but I just love being with him and sometimes, I just need time alone and away from everything to clear my head. During the time I was with Alex (mind you, I CALLED OFF), my workplace called FOUR TIMES asking if I could come to work. FOUR TIMES AFTER I called off! I ended up going to work, killing any feelings or good karma the two of us had. Alex had work to do anyway, he posted a blog yesterday. The whole thing made me cry. When I get to work, they slam me with paperwork (”This isn’t for punishment, I promise”) and difficult students (spread the love around) because someone wanted to take off early, therefore, I was left with the mess. Furthermore, I was suppose to get off at 5:00– as I do EVERY THURSDAY– and I finished my 4:15 session and left. *RING RING* There’s my cellphone; “you have a 5:00 appointment, you need to come back!” WHAT!? I’m OFF AT FIVE! Well, without consulting me, they scheduled me until 6 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Nice, huh? Better yet, the idiots are running the asylum, and I’m just a slave. To top it all off, they want me to miss class next week in order to hold a workshop. Say what? Um… no.

Now to shift gears.

How many of you have had trouble drawing clothes? I’ll be honest, clothes aren’t easy for me. For me, textures and folds are an issue and it’s something that I’m working on, however, I do know how to create a basic form for creating outfits. Today, I’m going to show you an extremely simple tutorial on creating basic clothes, which is better than having a naked figure. Artistic nudes are nice, but you can’t always have naked people in all your drawings. Moreover, there are simple ways to create texture in drawn clothes.

First, draw your figure. Create a pose and an interesting body shape.

Charles Gesmar piece

Usually, I draw figures that are slightly chunkier because I’m a big girl myself. To me, heavier girls are very under-represented in art today mainly because we’re not considered to be as beautiful as thinner, model perfect women. The reason I used a thinner model for this tutorial was because I wanted to somewhat mimic the French models featured in vintage-style art posters by Charles Gesmar. I think Gesmar models are rather stylish and are great for showing off the latest fashions. In this tutorial, we’re going to try and mimic a Gesmar-esque fashion. Of course, my model happened to look anime-ish. C’est la vie. Notice, also, how I cannot draw feet.

Now we’re going to imagine an outfit for our figure. What shall she wear? For me, this girl has sass, yet, she looks classy, so I’m thinking about giving her a suit. In order to create a basic outline for our figure, we’re going to create an outfit shape along the outside. I usually start from the shoulders and create a shirt outline. In my case, I created a vest. The straps of the vest cover her whole shoulder area, but not her arms. The outside-line portion of the “sleeves” is drawn down to her full bust; the vest accentuates her bust and her bust line because I used a deep-plunge. Finally, I carried the vest down to slightly above her hips. Now, with your outline, you can create designs or keep the lines basic. For me, I used I a basic design. Down the center of the vest, I created a zipper-line because I think it breaks up the blandness of the outfit. I also added an open wedge to the bottom of the vest in order to create the illusion of movement or openness.

Next, I did the outline for the skirt. All I did was trace over the curves of the model’s hops and drew the hemline above the knees. My hemline is kind of swoopy because of the position of the model’s hips.

Finally, I added plume-like sleeves to the vest (I think they’re called bell sleeves). The sleeves come slightly above the elbows. So far, I like this outfit, and it looks like something I would wear.

Now to add texture to the clothes. I made my skirt and vest denim. To create a denim effect, you will use a crosshatching shading effect. What is crosshatching, you may ask? Crosshatching is created by overlapping diagonal lines. I did this throughout the outfit in very small crosshatches. Where I felt there needed to be shadows, I overlapped the hatches to create darker tones.

For the hosiery, I used a wider-spaced cross hatch to create a netted appearance. I thought that was haute couture… or however that’s spelled. And since feet and shoes are a weak spot for me, I just did a simple black closed-toe shoe.

As you can see, I have slight wrinkles in the clothes. I just added random lines all-over the place to indicate folds, but it looks unrealistic and cartoonish. I don’t like how the folds look. I’m going to practice folds and come back with the ability to draw folds and wrinkles in my next tutorial! I may also do a tutorial on facial expressions, so keep your eyes peeled!

Love always,

Marisol

I’m suppose to be studying for a Linguistics quiz right now, but I’m very far behind on things. I have six articles I need to write for Demand Studios, two blogs for Divine Carol/Country Living, help Alex with some of his blogs (if he would ever sign online and let me know where he needs help at) and I need to come up with a ten page paper for my other job. Yes, for my tutoring job, we need to write papers to be reviewed. We also need community service. What is that? That place is ticking me off something horrible and I’m terribly close to quitting. If it wasn’t for the fact that I like working with the International students, I would leave. But, I guess I should be grateful for the fact that I have a job, that I’m not amongst the unemployed. But everything is looking desperate anymore. C’est la vie. However, yesterday, Alex and I developed a plan that would fix the economy for awhile… now if we could run for joint presidency…

On Valentine’s Day, the best possible thing happened. *Jumps around excitedly.* Pitchers and catchers reported for spring training! YES! The baseball season is right around the corner (Go Yankees! Go Cubs!)! Woohoo! And today is the Daytona 500! I hope my beloved Denny Hamlin wins! He’s my Sunday boyfriend, unless he races in the Nationwide Series on Saturday, then he’s my Saturday and Sunday boyfriend. All my boys of summer are back. Feel the speed, smell the green! Boogity, boogity, boogity! Let’s go racin’ boys! Play ball!

As mentioned, yesterday was Valentine’s Day. Alex and I went out to breakfast, went to the mall, took a long walk, had smoothies, went for dessert, went to Borders, and watched a movie called Towelhead (if you haven’t seen this movie or read the book, I recommend you do). It was a simple day, overall. I like simple, but I guess there’s a part of me that yearns for more romance. I guess I’m just a hopeless romantic at heart: always hoping for more.  I guess the romantic side of me is the side that wishes for “the next step,” even though it scares me at the same time. I’m very afraid of that “next step” because of the drama it will cause. I’m tired of drama, fearful of monster in-laws, and all the meddling. Thinking of that “next step” makes me anxious–good and bad. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t want a whole big shabang, instead, eloping sounds nice. Think of the money we’d save! But, taking that step is just a distant and frightening thought. I’m not going to bother with it any longer. But, I’d give up my heart for him, since he already owns it.

So what kind of tutorial shall we do today? I’m not exactly sure what I have to offer today. Since I haven’t had time to draw in awhile, I’m going to have to use a tutorial I did over the summer for another website. Let me see… how about how to draw elf ears? I promised an ear tutorial a long time ago, so I guess this counts.

Start by creating your basic ear shape. The basic ear shape can be described as C-shapes–one facing the correct way, the other facing the opposite direction. Inside, place a curvy C-shape inside and connect to a loosely drawn wavy E-shape.

Add details to the ear you just drawn. Create the ear ear canal entry and all the curves (what I like to call peaks and valleys) inside the ear. Look at pictures of ears in order to see the structure. All ears look different, so practice with a lot of different ear styles until you reach the desired look.

Create a dotted line that stems from the ear you just drew. This dotted line will indicate how large you want the ear to be, as well as the shape and width.

Trace over the dotted line and create a secondary line inside this now extended ear. This secondary line should be about a quarter of an inch away from the new ear line. Erase the outside rim of the old ear shape. Add three curved lines to the inside.

Next, shade the ear. Start with the dark tones and lead into the mid and light-tones. If necessary, create shading guidelines for this task. Once shading is complete, your ear is finished. Hopefully, you have a character for this ear (as well as another ear) in order to have a finished drawing.

So there it is: an ear. Did you find this tutorial useful? I hope so. Any questions? Comments? Well, we do love feedback. Comment below or shoot us an email at sketchinghouseonline@gmail.com! I’m off to go cry in my coffee. Dale Earnhardt Jr. caused a major crash during the Daytona 500, knocking my beloved Denny Hamlin into the grass. Denny had a chance to win the race, but no! Fate was not on his side. Rain in Daytona shortened the race to 151 laps; Matt Kenseth won. Now I am sad.

Until next time,

Mari

So I’ve been busy with school work, tutoring and orientations, and freelance work. So far, so good on all fronts. I am able to keep up with everything, I just need to stop procrastinating so much. I have the ability to finish things on time, I seriously do, I just don’t. The other day, I finished 4 articles for one of my jobs in under 30 minutes. This week, it took me 5 days to write a one page paper for a class. Um… bad me!

Okay, now for the art stuff.

Tala asked me for some old drawings of mine, and I was surprised I still had them! Looking at some of those old drawings, I am amazed at how much I improved over the years! Right now, I feel like my drawing ability has been sub par, but overall, it’s improved immensely! My porportions have gotten better and my realism has improved. Let’s take a look, shall we?

ANIME DRAWING

2002:

A picture I drew in 2002... wow!

Wow, this was one of my first anime drawings I did. This was when I first met Tala and we worked on her story, Future Tellings. Kitana’s (silver-haired chick) face looks decent, but everything else is just… off. Look at the arms; they look so wooden! The dresses have no shape nor is there any movement. I didn’t shade much in those days, either. Kitana’s cat ears look stuck on, like little pink triangle-shaped gum. Wow, I can’t believer I thought this was good! And Kojiro, his hair was gold and he a tattoo! And his muscles look like a muscle suit! I should have ditched this! But then again, I’m glad I didn’t because now I know where I need to improve more on.

2002-2003:

Here’s an anime-ish drawing of my OC, Tsuyoi Seishin. She’s cute and an overall improvement from my 2002 attempt at anime drawing. I attempted shading this time, although barely noticeable. To me, the head is too large for the body and the outfit is still shapeless. My light source is a bit eratic and the overall look is sloppy. The lower arm is still too long compared to the upper arm, and the hand is still disproportionate. I improved overall, but there is still room for more improvement.

2003-2004:

So here’s Mayu (left) and Kotou. I improved a lot in 2004. My shading improved a lot with this. My proportions improved also. Notice how my clothes started to have more shape? However, I still feel as if the heads are way too large and Kotou’s legs are bent at an odd angle. I practiced depth, as well. Although there’s shading and a horizon, the image still feels 2-dimensional. My light source is still a little wacky, also. I also enhanced this image digitally; this was when I got Photoshop for Christmas.

2005:

Whoa! Psychodelic! Obviously, I loved Photoshop too much! This was an image I did when I got 7,000 pageviews on Deviant Art. This is my character Kitana. I love this picture! I think my shading was awesome and the proportions are great. My light sourcing also improved. However, I still have the issue of gigantic heads! GRR! But the outfit is cute and there’s more depth. There is still room for improvement.

2006-2007:

This is another favorite picture of mine. I think this shows my improvement the most. I learned to add depth and folds in the clothing more, as well as more detail. And finally, the heads aren’t gigantic! Woo! However, I still need to work on arms…

2008:

This is my most favorite! However, this isn’t really anime, but my own twist on it. This picture shows my growth over the past few years the best. The shading is great and I love the proportions. The hands are beautiful. However, I can still improve on the eyes….

REALISM:

Now realism is my favorite form of drawing, however, I don’t work on it enough. My niece far surpasses me on realistic drawing and I hope to feature her on this site in the future. But for now, let’s see my improvements on realism.

2004:

no shading, no depth, not much of anything here. It’s a cute drawing, but as you can see, I’m still an amatuer at this point. My proportions are off, too. The arms look funny and you can’t really tell that’s she’s sitting. The hair is really stringy. I give this picture a D-!

2005:

This is a very pretty puppy. The fur looks nice, as do the eyes. However, the shading is poor. This is a nice attempt, but I can still improve.

2006:

Ahhh…. BoA Kwon. She’s lovely and I love her music. I did this picture as a tribute to her and if I gave it to her, I bet she would gag! The eyes are messed up! The face looks crooked and the hair is haphazard! Ugh! The hand looks weird and the shading is bad. How sad. Thankfully, I lost the hardcopy for this image.

2007:

This was right after I took my art class. WOW! Mass improvement! I can shade! I can create fur! Do you see?! Look at how I improved over the years! YAY!

Keep all your drawings, folks. Check back over the years and see how you improve! All artists can improve, even good ones. Check your progress weekly, monthly, and yearly. Keep striving for perfection.

Happy drawing,

Goodnight!

Marisol

I’m not even sure who this character will be but she’s temporarily named Angora. I might not even use her since I don’t hold on to characters unless they feel right. Maybe she needs some redesigning.

My story takes place in a setting inspired by pre-history Philippines. I’d draw her wearing the clothes that people wore during that time frame, but they mostly wore nothing. That reminds me of a museum exhibit I saw of Native Americans. Some of the figurines of the Native Americans were completely nude. That was so weird since I was shielded from all nudity as a kid and then I’m exposed to a culture that sometimes runs around naked. I guess I learned from that how values can be way different from culture to culture.

You might think “hey, she doesn’t look Filipino.” Well, actually she’s Negrito. From the research I did, Negritos settled in the Phillippines before the Austronesians, an indigenous group from what is now called Taiwan.

That is the initial sketch I started off with. I like that sketch and might use it for a different drawing. How did she change so much? A whole bunch of reasons. The main reason was that I wanted to practice foreshortening, which is something I need to learn how to do with the body. Well, I didn’t really succeed at foreshortening her because that is tough!

What’s foreshortening? Foreshortening is how objects seem deformed at different angles. I guess I made her arms somewhat foreshortened, but their sizes are roughly the same and not large enough to show a real contrast.

So now what? I drew new torso lines in order to make her body appear turned to the side. I also foreshortened her shoulders, making one appear larger and one smaller to indicate that one shoulder is turned farther away from the point-of-view.

Next, I made her sides more shapely and raised her chest. Now she doesn’t look like she has the body of a 90000 year old woman. (I meant to say 900, not 90000).

At this point, I decided to redraw her clothes. Why? She looked like she was wearing a kimono or tunic, which doesn’t really fit with her character. But nudity doesn’t work for me, so I made up some clothes. I also redrew her arms. I liked how they looked, but they look way too long right now. I think this is where I was getting tired two nights ago because her proportions are extremely out of whack. I started drawing her legs because I wanted to shorten her dress. With dresses, its really important that you draw all of the legs out in order to make sure that you have the proportions right.

I did a little resizing and drew out the basic shape of the head.

Then I drew her face. I was aiming for a face that was both delicate and Negrito, but I ran into a problem. Most cartoon and manga faces are European/Asian inspired. Rarely do you see other races represented. I really had nothing to go off. I wanted to emphasize this character’s ethnicity, but I also wanted to keep her features relatively simple. So I experimented with the nose and lips until I got the results that I wanted.

I also added hair, my favorite part.

Then I added lineart and widened her features. I don’t know why I did this and I think I’m going to change it back later.

As you can see now, I colored her. I don’t know if I gave this advice out yet or not, but setting your coloring layers on multiply allows you to color without coloring over dark lines. This is good if you have a hard time coloring within the lines.

Then I used a handy-dandy color scheme generator at: www.colorschemer.com/online.html

Just plug in the value for one of the colors you’re using and it’ll generate colors that are compatible. These colors should pop out more when put together.

So I drew her and showed her to Marisol and she drew all over her. She took her mouse and drew all these lines all over my drawing like it was nobody’s business (joking. I asked her to).

This is sort of like an artist’s version of proofreading. It really helps to have someone else look at your artwork before you finish it because they can see mistakes that you missed. Being an artist doesn’t have to be lonely.

I took her advice and adjusted her. But I gave her brown eyes instead of blue.

Like usual, I have to finish most of my tutorials in multiple blog posts. This isn’t because tutorials take that long, but because I have to write these in gaps of time between school and work. I wish I could write more tutorials, but time is always so short. Still, Marisol and I promise that we’ll always keep updating. We won’t be those people who stop posting out of the blue.

I love you all,

Alex