So I spent a bit of time painting this project. I started out working on my Ipad with Procreate, creating a lineart. I really focused on getting the linework done completely, so that I didn't have to work on it in the middle of the paintings. So with this I had a couple of goals
Create a DnD style painting
Make the perspective something that was not straight on
Work with Facial Expressions
For references I found that these books were great, having several photographs from multiple angles.
I also spent the time working on 3d mockup because I felt like the tentacles were feeling flat while I was painting. So I quickly mocked up this 3d image in order to get a better idea of shape and form.
Not every project goes well, I had an idea for a hunter
The Hunter is based off of a Urban fantasy concept, a Dhampir, half vampire half human, who hunts things that go bump in the night. Sonja has been fighting the darkness for a long time, every night keeps her busy keeping the dark creatures at bay, and like most of use, tends to live in clutter, her clutter is just a bit more deadly than most. So are her cats.
I've had a student ask me how to draw with pencils and stuff like that. So one of the the things that I'm going to talk about first is the kind of paper that you have. It's really hard to show but honestly, every paper is a little bit different. There's hot press and cold press paper, and it ultimately has more of a textural feel, more grain to it, and it will hold pencils differently. A rougher paper will have the pencil lead go over it and leave white dots where the lead doesn't reach, while a smoother surface paper will allow you to cover more of the paper. You can get some Starter Bright White Paper https://amzn.to/3xf5RIh
I've got a couple of different things here. The first thing I've got is just a set of traditional pencils https://amzn.to/3d9Ktx5. They are nothing special but they're just pencils and they go in a range from 8B to looks like 2H. (Soft to Hard)
The softer the pencil the darker it goes, but also the harder it is to make a lighter mark. A softer lead will also fill a rougher paper.
You can blend it in different ways, You can either do it with your your finger to smudge it over. So I can just kind of just move it back and forth. But the big thing about the finger is you have to watch your oils on your hand. There's a lot of times that you'll be working and you can leave a fingerprint. And because it's oil, Wipe your hands on some basic cloth, before you smudge with your fingers, or you can use White gloves to help you blend https://amzn.to/3RLAUTU
You also wind up with grit over your work and instead of wiping your hand across the paper you can use something like this https://amzn.to/3L3Z2Px
But ultimately, what this does is just pushes the blend in there for you, basically allows you to kind of blend that outward as you work on it. And so you can get a much kind of cleaner line work like that. So there's the blending those. Now, again, there's different types of pencils like you can grab these sticks here. So this is a art station, graphite led. This is just a graphite block here, if you will. They also have like this. This is a graphite block. And ultimately you shave it with a knife and then you can get your side pencils like this. And it's pretty close to being the same thing as a side of a pencil.
The first thing I do. And this is kind of the the gestural sketch stage I've got, Gestures are about the basic energy and shape of the drawing, It's not about perfection at this point but to get your shapes and natural flow of the figure down
Next you are going to block out your figures, this is about measuring your figure and making sure you have the lights and darks in place.
And then we are going to put in the details, this is where you go from simple shapes to the lines of anatomy and the detail associated with it. If you have questions feel free to ask
One thing that you want to think about when drawing is how foreshortening works, It allows you to give depth to your drawings. Think of a cylinder as it moves towards you, The closer end gets larger and larger as it "falls" to you
This idea works with an arm, as the arm gets closer to you larger parts of the arm overlap smaller parts, so you don't see the smaller parts that would be hidden
With this idea in mind the overlaps then create a T where they overlap the part that is further back in space, it gives you a better idea of how to then build foreshortening back in space.
