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

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