It’s me again, what a surprise, huh? Now I am officially convinced that I am the last writer left on this website. Alex promised me the other day that he would be participating more, but that has yet to happen. But then again, I am not surprised by that, nor am I not surprised by Tala’s absence. As I sit here typing this, I see tumbleweeds bouncing across the workplace desert. I can call out to Alex and Tala, but I get is a lonesome echo-echo-echo-echo, which somehow reminded me that I need to print my Borders coupon. I get free coffee, yay! life is better when there is free coffee, that is a lesson I learned very early on in life. So kids, enjoy your coffee!

I’m sitting at work today, bored as hell. Why? No sessions (THANK YOU LORD!). This is good, since I can now write a post. When I signed on the computer today, I saw a lovely email from someone who ordered something from me on Ebay. Her item didn’t arrive yet and I shipped it over a week ago. Her solution? Send her another DVD. Pardon? I was only selling one to begin with, so how can I send another if I only had one? Once the item is shipped, it is out of my hands and I cannot predict what happens from that point on. I am an innocent victim to a horrendous mail crime, I tell ya!

On Monday and Tuesday, I watched the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, and I gotta say, I was happy that the Sussex Spaniel won Best in Show. Being a spaniel person–my 16 year old Cocker Spaniel passed away almost three years ago–I am happy to see when the those floppy eared, soulful-eyed, and sweet puppies win something. Stump was a cute dog and an old man–70 years old in dog years– and he kicked all the young dogs’ butts! How do you like that? Never underestimate the power of the elderly.

In honor of the dog show, I’m going to show you to create dog fur. I probably should show you how to draw the dog first, but this is me and I like to do things backwards. Fur is an easy thing to draw because all it is is a bunch of lines that are packed together, much like hair. Hair was fun to draw, right folks? I hope so. So shall we begin with drawing the fur? Let’s go! Click to read more …

Tags: Art Tutorial, Bookstores, Borders Books, Dog Drawing, Dog Show, Dogs, drawing, Drawing Dogs, Drawing Fur, Drawing Guidelines, drawing tutorial, EBay Rant, Free Coffee, Fur Tutorial, Realism Tutorial, Realistic Drawing, Realistic Fur Tutorial, Skecthing Tutorial, sketching, traditional Art, Traditional Art Tutorial, Westminster Kennel CLub Dog Show

My boyfriend is very inconsiderate sometimes. He does not have Internet access (surprise, surprise), so I ask him to PLEASE call me when he gets home from school. Does he? Not at all. Do I know if he got home safely? Not at all. So I called him and left two messages. Does he answer or call back? NOPE! But no, someone on his end can pick up his cell phone and hang up on me. Nice! I call because I care about him and I get treated like garbage. Is it my fault he can’t take some responsibility and pink up a phone? Nope. That would be his. I just hope he knows that that is his ONE REALLY ANNOYING TRAIT THAT I WISH HE WOULD FIX! Stop being an airhead and pick up the phone! It isn’t that hard! Guys, let your girl know you care about them and call when you leave somewhere late at night, okay? They’ll really appreciate the gesture. It’s a very nice thing to do and prevents worry. Not to mention that it helps build trust. Remember that, sweeties. And girls, if your guy asks the same of you, return the favor; maybe your call will help him remember next time. Then again, that last part could be wishful thinking. Who knows.

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? Click to read more …

Tags: anime drawing, anime how to, Art, art blog, artist sketches, artist's blog, Artists, characters, Digital Art, digitaL DRAWING, draw, drawing, drawing faces, Drawing Guidelines, drawing proportions, Drawings, facial features, features, frelance writing, how to draw hair, How to Draw, how to draw anime, how to draw clothes, how to draw faces, how to draw features, how to draw folds in clothes, how to draw fur, how to draw proportions, how to draw shoes, how to indicate light source, Improvements, original characters, Paintings, Photoshop, realism, realistic how to, sketches, sketching

I took a shot at drawing a character for a story I’ve been working on for awhile (months, years)? This isn’t really a tutorial but a record of the steps I took to draw her. This character is not done at all and she’s getting more folds and shading. I need to decide if I want to do cell shading again or try a harder type of shading.

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. Click to read more …

Tags: Alex, angle, artist, Artists, Blogs, blue, cartoon, cartooning, character, characters, clothes, clothing, Color, coloring, colors, dark, draw, drawing, drew, eye, Eyes, face, features, hair, lines, Lips, Love, manga, Marisol, Night, Nose, Noses, Plugs, proportion, proportions, real, Saw, school, shades, shading, side, sketch, sketching, Tutorial, Tutorials, Work, write, Writing

Hello everyone. It’s time to upload part 3. This time I’m going to town on the wings. They’re flat out boring and not really that well defined. So I spent yesterday transforming them from the left to the right.

A lot bigger change. The feathers could be made more realistic and slender. Maybe I’ll redraw them again next time in the same way that I redrew everything else except the hair :p

My inspiration for the wings was derived from J Peffer’s angel character, though I tried hard to make my wings look distinct from hers. For me, the hardest part was getting the reflection of light on the feathers to pop out, which means that i have to tweak the shadings and highlights. He needs better shading to make him look more 3D too. Maybe a background would help (hint, hint). Click to read more …

Tags: angel, Art, character, drawing, Photoshop, shading, sketching, staff, Tutorial, wings

Welcome to part 2 of my How to Draw Characters series. This time, I’m putting this guy in technicolor. But before that, I’m going to try to make his body more anatomically correct. Below is what we left off with last time.

Distorted angel, arms, hands, and feet badly drawn.

His wings could be better drawn, but drawing wings can be an entire tutorial on its own (hint, hint). But I was really unhappy with his hands and feet. His left hand (our left) was not even complete and wasn’t correctly connected to the wrist. His right hand was ginormous and his fingers weren’t proportionate at all. His feet seemed a little too long and his toes were tiny. His right arm was way too long. I also didn’t like how his right side curved in more than his left side, like he only got love handles on one side. Click to read more …

Tags: Art, cell style, character conception, coloring, drawing, highlights, Photoshop, shading, sketching, Tutorial, wings

I got my first A as a final grade in psychology! How exciting is that?! On the final exam, I got 105 out of 100 points: a perfect score plus the extra credit! And guess what, I barely studied! That’s nothing to be proud of; when in graduate school, you should ALWAYS study. That’s Marisol’s school lesson of the day! Now on to the tutorial…

Noses– most people have them and like lips and eyes, they are very useful. People can steal noses (hehehe, got your nose!), or get smacked in the nose every winter at least once. I get smacked in the nose at least once per winter because my boyfriend slips on the ice and I have to catch him, only to have him accidentally hit me in the nose and mouth. Ouch.

Some people have anxiety when it comes to drawing noses, but have no fear, noses are easy! In fact, noses are so easy that they can be drawn in four steps. This is going to be a short tutorial, folks. Click to read more …

Tags: drawing, Drawing the Face, Eyes, face, guidelines, light, Lips, Noses, Photoshop, sketching, Tutorial, wings

I decided to create a digital character and see how far I could go in a drawing tutorial. First a little sketching. Then some line cleanup. Lay over some lineart. Erase the sketches beneath. Add details. Add color. Do cell style shading. I don’t get how professional digital artists pull that off in 6 hours. I worked on this guy for 6 hours and I was able to get the lineart done only. Now at 11 o’clock, I’m yawning too much to even see my keyboard. Since I’m on break, I want to see how far I can take him. Maybe I’ll even add a background.

When drawing or painting, the artist has a boatload of choices. Painters can choose between watercolor, acrylic, and oils. Sketchers can use graphite pencils, regular pencils, or go straight to pen. Digital artists can use a mouse, tablet, or pen tool. You can even combine different tools. For instance, you can start off with graphite pencils on drawing paper, then scan the drawing with a really good scanner, and then use the pen tool to replace the rough sketch with smooth lines. You can even print out a piece of digital art, fix a mistake, and then scan the image again. Click to read more …

Tags: angel, Art, character, drawing, fantasy, figure, halberd, sketch, sketching, staff, wand, wing, winged, wings

Part One of the Hair Trilogy

Part Two of the Hair Trilogy

How to Draw a Long Hair Explosion!

Hello to you all! This is the last hair tutorial from me for awhile. I got really carried away with the drawing, but I created a bunch of new hairstyles that I’m going to put on my characters. Today I’m playing around with long hair. The really great thing about long hair is that there’s really no limit to what you can do with it. And long hair looks so… cool. *(^_^)*

Lengthening the hair on a character means only one thing… HAIR EXPLOSION! That’s right. Bangs, strands, flips, curls, and dos can go all over the place.

I really, really love drawing long hair. Hair can have a fine, coarse, or wirey texture. People with drier hair have all sorts of curls that flow and bounce all over the head like they’re taking over the joint. Wetter hair is long and free-spirited, blowing whereever the wind wants to take it. Some hair-owners try to make their hair symmetrical and pretty, while others let hair go wherever they want it to. The wilder the hair, the more interesting it is to look at.

I’ve seen cartoon hair in three styles. The most common seems to be the angle look, since the really sharp edges of the angle show up really nice on a cartoon. Figure one shows the basic principles of the angles. Lazier artists draw huge gobs of hair and then fill these gobs in with lines. But these gobs of hair can look really great, especially if colored well. You can see the gobs of hair in figure 2. They have a really nice cartoon look to them. But if you’re going for a much more realistic look, you might want to try drawing each strand individually. There’s really no limit to how realistic you can make each strand of hair, but you should keep two things in mind. The more realistic you make your hair, the more realistic you should make the rest of the character. Also, the more realistic you make the hair, the longer it will take to draw the entire head of hair. Really, there’s no limit to how detailed you can make a head of hair.

Figure 1                     Figure 2

Click to read more …

Tags: anime, Art, bangs, cartoon, cartoon drawing, comb, curly, Digital Art, do, draw, drawing tutorial, forehead, hair, hairbrush, hairstyle, how to draw cartoons, illustration, manga, paintbrush tool, scalp, sketch, sketching, spikey, spiky, strands, traditional Art, Tutorial, widow's peak

The next natural drawing tutorial is “How to Draw Medium Hair.” Short hair stays on the top of the head and sometimes throws a party, except when a comb comes to crash it. Medium hair often covers the ears, or extends down part of the neck. That includes my favorite hairstyle, the one that is made up of curved triangles and wraps around the character’s head, making it look really round. Its a common hairstyle in Japan both among men and women.
Click to read more …

Tags: anime, Art, artist, bangs, cartoon, cartoon drawing, curly, draw, drawing tutorial, face, hair, hairbrush, hairstyle, how to draw cartoons, manga, Pencils, sketch, sketching, strands, Tutorial

From a frontal perspective, features are mostly symmetrical. An artist doesn’t have to worry about the size of one eye in relation to the size of another eye. Drawing a face might become pretty easy, even routine. That is, until the artist is forced to turn the figure’s head. The eye that is closer to the point of view suddenly gets larger, while the eye moving away from the point-of-view shrinks. One ear gets bigger, while the other ear might completely vanish. The sides of the faces become distorted, with one side becoming rounder than the other. The face changes, and one of the illustrator’s biggest challenges is to adjust the proportions so that they look natural. Click to read more …

Tags: 3-D, 3D, draw, drawing, Eyes, face, features, frontal, illustrator, Perspective, profile, quarter, side, sketch, sketching, symmetry