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Sketchbook Share: Ianthenna
This is the third of my November OC sketchbook spreads, featuring Ianthenna, from my In Between series (which… I have not forgotten about, I swear). I still struggle with a consistent look for my characters, where the features are specific and stylized enough. For practicing quick portraits, though, I consider this page a success. Because this character is often wearing fancy dressing gowns and pajama type outfits (living in a type of dream plane of existence), I also wanted to practice frilly lace collars and cuffs, as that’s what I envision them wearing most of the time.
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Sketchbook Share: Ariennha
Last post, I mentioned a series of OC sketchbook pages I filled, starting with Reiellasara and now moving on to Ariennha. Ariennha is a character very close to my heart, even if I haven’t drawn her much – I’ve spent many an hour daydreaming stories and world building in my mind over the years. She’s definitely got Mary Sue energy, but I honestly do not care, I love the character. But why haven’t I made very much art of those daydreams? The trick to getting those ideas down as drawings is to just Nike-style “Do It”.
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Childhood Drawing Redux
Oooooo, the dark theme with aqua text is back; you know I’m feeling nostalgic, ha! I just can’t stick with a light background. Maybe one of these days I’ll make a site theme that has a dark/light toggle, so if it’s really annoying to others it can be toggled off. Anyway, I recently organized a 3-ring binder with my oldest artwork from middle school and high school, and decided to tackle redrawing as much of the contents as possible, starting with the oldest.
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More Gestural Sketches
I suppose I apply a wide definition of what a gesture drawing is – if the spirit of the drawing is meant to be gestural, even if the end result becomes too detailed or tight, I think it still counts. While drawing these pages, I was thinking of the “not this / this” photo that is on Proko’s How to Draw Gesture guide. I agree that the action lines are the quintessential nature of a gesture drawing. I just don’t always accomplish them, hah.
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Gesture Drawings to the Rescue
I was really struggling to get started drawing tonight. I opened my sketchbook, sketching and erasing the same figure like 10 times before just sketching and inking a couple of face studies. Those also felt sloppy and forced. Fortunately, given I didn’t want to stay up too late tonight, the time crunch pushed me towards some quick gestures instead. And I really like how they turned out!
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Embracing Sketchbook Messiness
If I want to finish my current sketchbook before the end of spring, I calculated (a couple of days ago) that I need to finish an average of 1.5 pages a day. Is doing that calculation a sign that my need to control chaos is creeping into my art practice again?
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Butterfly Wings and Curtsies
I woke up feeling like I had no idea what I wanted to sketch today, so I decided to run with an idea from earlier this week of studying butterfly wing anatomy a little more closely. Then, because I wanted to have an ink drawing to test out my Ohuhu markers on, I sketched a fairy princess character. I’m going to behave and let the ink properly dry overnight before trying to apply any color to it this time.