Pencil Sketch: Sacrifice

In preparation to face Ash Wednesday, I tried to make a pencil sketch of the Big JC based on the portrayal in King of Kings. Not that I succeed in reinventing the portrayal. It was a lousy screen printing. I mean, screen capture. Or something.

I thought I was going to return to basic by using the common 2B carbon pencil, cotton bud, and of course, the shabby sketchpad that I've abandoned for a couple of months. At first, making the outline was difficult, the hand's a bit rusty at the joints. Little by little, with lots of erasing and redrawing, the outline was done.

Now the hard part, the Shading. Did I ever mention I suck at shading? Yes, I did. By meticulously following the black and white photo caps, the face definition emerged. Not good, but not too shabby either, methinks. I spent hours and hours just doing the thorns. It didn't look exactly like thorns, more like wire. The hair was a nightmare. Because I suck at shading and highlighting.

But I'm kind of happy with the result. The image looks human, at the very least. I hope I don't go to hell because of this. What can I say? Still need some training and practice to reach professional level. Still a lot of work to do.

Digital Image: Carol Singer

This is practically the first ever humanoid image I've made using only digital means. Most of my pictures are based on hand sketches.

First, I used Corel Draw to make the outline. I'm not an educated graphic designer, so I won't know about any special feature in that software, hence, the usage of only a simple pen tool. It's kind of easy too. Not as complicated as Illustrator, I'll never get the hang of it. The pen tool can only draw straight line. That's why I have to continuously press Ctrl+Q to create a curve. It's still time-consuming for me, despite the simplicity of said tool.

Then I painted the colors with Adobe Photoshop. Also only using fill option and gaussian blur. Very simple procedure that anyone can do. Shading and highlighting are still a mystery to me. See?

First Sketch with Digital Paint

I made this image just yesterday. It's based on my first sketch from the previous post. I kind of skipped the tracing step, and went straight to painting. Alright, the painting was basically only filling the blanks with paint bucket tool. I'm still not brave enough to erase the outline.

The result is so very flat. I don't really have the ability to shade and highlight images, but will try, though. Will try the hardest. Hopefully it can be better. More 3D-ish. I'm a bit happy with red color on the heart. Very simple to make, too. I only use gaussian blur for the shade and highlight. No idea what to do about the wings. How do you make some wispy effect? Wispy is good for wings. Maybe airbrush from the brush preset with additional spatters can do the trick. This is the time to experiment ....

Kiddies Sketch

I made this drawing for my niece last valentine. I never really thought about what I drew. Only now I realize, the sketch might imply inter species love relationship and an Easter bunny without the eggs. And the girl has a fox dolly. And they all live happily over the rainbow. Talk about psychosis of the craziest order.

The sketch was drawn on an A4 paper, using pencil and black ink. Ballpoint, not drawing pen. I can't think of the color scheme. Pink is definitely a must and the bear should be brown. Other than that, I haven't got a clue.

Sketch of Mermaids

I don't remember what I was thinking when I drew this. Only that my little sister whined about a Barbie movie, ... Mermaidia, I think. She's obsessed about Ariel too. Probably because of her voice.

The sketch is a bit messy. I don't have drawing pen, so I have to use ballpoint pen. The result is not so good. But, at least, the whole paper is not filled with white correction fluid. Ballpoint pen ink does not bleed. I never can get the clouds and water. My hands are not natural enough for it.

Still haven't found a faster way to trace my drawings with the computer. And most people say digital art is easy. Maybe I'm just dumb.

First Sketch on Blog

This is an inked sketch using black ballpoint. The inspiration came from Cardcaptor Sakura. She had this backpack that was heart-shaped with little wings on it. Most of her things had this symbol. Don't know what it means though.
Want to color it with photoshop. But first, need to find a way to trace this fast like.