Sketch: Redhead

Something a little bit cartoon-y, and an exercise in coloring and shading with different techniques in Photoshop.

The initial sketch was loosely based on Laura Marling, whom I absolutely adore. However, I made her a redhead, simply because I think redheads are cute and I felt like drawing one.

The initial sketch:

I simply took a picture of the sketch with my Samsung Galaxy S2 because the sketch was only going to serve as a reference layer so there really was no need to do a proper scan.

Instead of drawing a traditional outline of the face, I drew the background as the top layer in black to avoid having an actual outline stroke:

Next, I added a bit of a lighting effect...

The next step are really several steps, however, I got lost in the moment and forgot to save further individual steps. So here is the result of the next steps where I drew facial features and added some colour!

Next I sorted out shading with gradients, and finally got rid of that initial pencil sketch layer...

To finish things off, I played with different colours and gradients for the black background and ended up with soft shades of green, which I thought went well with her red hair... I also made a slight change to the shading on the neck. Et voilà!

I am fairly happy with the result, I achieved the clean look I was going for and the lack of black outlines is a bit unusual. Not groundbreaking perhaps, but it was a nice exercise!

Owls

After more or less "accidentally" watching an episode of Springwatch last week, I developed a sudden and unexpected infatuation with the magnificent barn owl in particular and owls in general. Never before had I realized how wonderfully funny and weird they looked - their faces must be one of the most expressive ones in the animal kingdom. No wonder they have always been a popular character choice for animated films.

However, I was quite surprised to find that there is so little variation in how owls are portrayed by, for example, Disney. From Bambi's "Friend Owl" to Fox and the Hound's "Big Mama" and Winnie the Pooh's "Owl", there is fairly little variation in their design, and also the characterization of owls usually follows the stereotype of "wise old owl" (although Archimedes in The Sword in the Stone is a bit of an exception). The only "evil" cartoon owl character that I have found is from Rock-A-Doodle (let's face it, a pretty crappy film). But owl faces, as found in nature, are PERFECT for crazy/evil characters in my opinion. I have also been unable to think of a white owl character, such as the barn owl or snowy owl, in any well-known animated movie (perhaps they exist and I just haven't been able to them).

So as a tribute to owls, I wanted to create three distinct owl characters.

First sketch:

Inked with my Wacom Intuous 4 tablet:

Colouring in Photoshop:

Simple background and the finished result...

I admit they ended up a lot less cartoon-y than I first planned. I might draw a more cartoonized version of Alfie, Crazy and Angry some other time.

Hope you enjoyed.

It's ALIVE!

I'm pleased to declare my new website live and open to the public. While there still is a bit of work to do to make it an altogether more interesting place, all features on the website are at least working (or so I believe)!

Though I have always hated links that lead to a "still under construction" page, I admit to having used this device quite regularly in the past when impatience or laziness prevented me from properly setting up every single page from the start. Well, not this time! Rather than a building site, I am able to present a finished home - although unrefined and somewhat lacking in content.

Now I guess it's time I stopped rambling and started producing more art.