30 day drawing challenge; day two and three

Okay so I started off really good with my first entries, but today and yesterday weren't as much of a succes. It's to be expected really, drawing every day is difficult on its own and I can't expect myself to make something brilliant every day, so I'm not too disappointed.


For the second day, I had to draw my favourite animal. Sounds easy enough right? Yeah well, I don't actually HAVE a favourite animal. Don't get me wrong, I love animals, I do. They're lovely and beautiful and wildly fascinating, but I don't have a favourite one. So instead, I opted for one that would be interesting to draw, an octopus. I had a very good idea for a final drawing too, but the sketches took so much time that I couldn't even properly start it. Ah well, it was fun drawing octopi all day, a bit confusing too with the amount of tentacles they have, but fun nonetheless. This was the best sketch of the day: (picture made with my phone)

Today I had to draw my favourite food, and I can't even begin to describe what a torture this was. I was hungry all fucking day because of this! Anyway, in the end I did manage some kind of result, which is a miracle in its own right because I had to distract myself with other things just to keep my stomach from growling like a mad cavewoman. Much like animals, I'm a big fan of food as a whole, I'm just happy it exists you know? Japanese style food is the definite winner in the category of delicious nomming stuff though, so I made a bowl of udon noodle soup, Jum!

Anyway, tomorrow I'll be drawing my favourite place. What in the--well, I'll figure it out.
Wish me luck!

30 day drawing challenge; day one

I'm freelancing this semester, and therefore I wanted to get myself in the habit of drawing every single day. In the field I want to earn my living some day, it's important that you draw quickly and can finish stuff as fast as possible. Which is why I'm doing this challenge to start off with. For a month I need to finish one subject, every day. Some will hopefully come out awesome, other's not so much. It doesn't really matter cause it's a practise, but I think I can learn a lot from this.

So okay, for day one I had to draw myself. I ended up with this:

I carry your heart, I carry it in my heart.

 I'm very pleased with it actually, I've been wanting to do an emotive portrait for ages and this was pretty close to heart. I can't say that's it's spot on, but I think I got the facial features and the body type right. The lighting was pretty difficult to get right, but I think I managed. Overall, I'm a happy bunny.

Oh and I also made this one a while back! It doesn't really count cause I didn't make it today, but I wanted to upload it anyway because I'm quite happy with it.:

Oh snap, it's a Hanny phone strap plushie. Be afraid. 

 

Meanwhile; in 2010

Like some people say, you are your own best critic. Or worst, depends on the case I guess. I for one, really like to reflect on myself and my work sometimes. It makes me happy, because it gives me an insight of how much I've grown and what I still need to work on. It's a bit tricky to give critisism on your own work objectively, but it's also very interesting so I thought I'd give it a shot! I've only been drawing digitally for about a year and a half now, I started doing it seriously and developing a real passion for it in 2010 and I somehow really felt like looking back at my work and see what I feel about it now, more than a year later. So, are you with me? Let's start then! In chronological order:

 My first time making an expression sheet, I still like this piece to bits! I guess because it brings back some good memories since I had a lot of fun making this. I remember pulling the faces myself to feel how that emotion looked, haha! I must have looked so silly. If I had to do it again, I'd add more highlights and shadows though. I'm also interested as to how it would look if I'd leave the lines out all together or if it would still work with more subtle emotions.

One of my first digital drawings. Do you notice how rough the lines still are and how many textures I used? At heart, I'm a very messy and sketchy artist and I just didn't have the patience to buckle up and give my drawings some proper TLC. I still like the colours I used though, I'm quite fond of this artwork actually. I can see the mistakes now and I've grown into an artist who can spend some proper time cleaning her drawings up so I could do a much better job now, but I can't deny the artwork as it is now has some kind of pull to it too.

Oh yeah, this one! The idea was that I wanted to make some giant big ass robot guy who could easily destruct everything in sight, with a little boy as his best friend. I still like the idea that they're jumping ropes together, and I'm still pleased with how I've drawn the emotion on the boy's face, but it's just been drawn so damn roughly. It's almost more a coloured sketch than a proper finished work, you can see that I'm still very much searching my ground here and making a lot of mistakes. On the other hand, I think the use of light is rather lovely. So kudos to the Hanny in 2010.

At the time, I just wanted to do something with movement I guess. You can see I didn't use any references whatsoever, there's so many things wrong with her anatomy that I'm pretty sure she wouldn't be able to tie her own shoes if she were to excist in real life. The linework is very sketchy and atrocious at points, but at other parts it seems to fit the drawing well. I like the colours and the lighting, the pose in itself is interesting too but boy..so many mistakes! It's quite obvious I really focused on the bits I'm good at so people were less inclined to notice, haha!

Ah, my brave attempt to draw a house...without references. I was becoming a bit more used to drawing digitally here, and I think it shows. It's a lot less messy than some of the previous ones. The subject was way out of my league though! I have the technical insight of a very brave blowfish at best, so I shouldn't have tried to draw a mental weird fucking house without any references, in a night setting...gosh! Anyway, I quite like the night sky in here and again, the use of colour. Too bad the lighting isn't as good.. It's quite lovely up there with the little lights and the tree, but the lower part is just aweful. I must have been getting bored around there and I think I just wanted to finish. Oh impatient insufferable me.

 My first real speedpainting (meaning I worked in one layer, finishing a painting in an hour or so). Ironically, I did use a reference picture for this! Haha, I guess I learned a bit from my previous struggles. The underwater colours are fine I guess, nothing truly spectacular. The brush strokes are pretty rough, but that's okay with speedpainting (it's quite the whole point actually, you just want to finish something as quickly as possible so you end up with rough paintings that have a lot of suggestion and mood). I like the lighting from above the surface though, I do believe I used a gradient and a filter for that, heehee.

Ugh, don't like this one at all anymore. THERE ARE NO WORDS FOR THIS MONSTROSITY.
Okay the flying creature thing is pretty cute I guess, but that's it.

I remember doing this one a year ago for my project groupmates; Quark. I really love making silly little cartoon portraits like this, I think they came out pretty well too! I would do some things differently now though. I'd be a bit more careful with the linework and the colouring bit. It looks a bit smudged and muddy in places.

One hour before we had to give a presentation about our concept, and we didn't have any concept art yet. The project was about psychology and facing your fears. That's all we had at the moment to work with, so I sat down and drew this in an hour. I don't quite know how I managed to make it eerie and cheerful at the same time, but I somehow did.

Ah, now this is starting to look like something! A lot more time was spent on shading and cleaning up properly and it shows. There are still some mistakes here and there, and you can clearly see I spend much more time on the face than anything else (still an impatient git, but a less impatient git nonetheless) Actually, I still really like this artwork, it's one of my favorites. The top half is anyway.

One of my last works in 2010, and my first matte painting. Matte painting basically means cheating like fuck in Photoshop. You take some pictures, you shop them together (you don't even have to be precise about it, just slam that stuff in there) and then you paint over it. Over...it.... I think it looks rather lovely, but I haven't made a matte painting since. It feels too much like cheating, I can see the whole benefit in the mixed painting/photoshopping idea since it's much quicker and it looks quite impressive..but it's just not for me. I need to learn how to draw properly first, then I can cheat my pants off whenever I fancy.

So, that concludes my timetraveling. I do hope it was a bit entertaining to read, and if you've just looked at the pictures that's fine as well. I put quite some effort into writing some damn critisism -and even some jokes- in though, please excuse me so I can go pout in that corner *points*