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Ok, so I reverted the size of the piece back to how it was. I think it's for the best... though I worry that without a sky-scape in the back, that I will detract from the piece. I might end up having to switch it from landscape to portrait orientation later on in the piece and paint in the surrounding mountains and sky. But I'll see how I go on! I would prefer to avoid that, because this orientation ensures that Evelyn is the prime focus of the piece. Anyway. This is the sketch, done. I'll lay down some basic colours next and see how it looks.
Today hasn't been a particular productive day in terms of art or anything else! But I have managed to transfer the sketch I made of the castle into a digital lineart (on a different layer to the sketch of Evelyn and her horse, I will erase the overlap when I decide on final positioning!). It's neater, more geometrically accurate, and I've included some perspective distortions in it so hopefully it will sit well within the final picture.
I have also changed the size of the canvas, because it really didn't feel right as it was... I'm not sure though, I feel like I still haven't quite nailed the size/shape of the canvas... hmm.... Might need to take a breather to re-evaluate this piece. Anyway, hope you like the lineart so far.
So I designed a basic outlook for the castle/keep for the background... It's the castle at Arlyn (fictional place from my book) where Evelyn (one of the main characters) says goodbye to her father.
I looked around at lots of different places to reference for this, but in the end the one most close to how I picture the castle turned out to be Raby Castle, which is in County Durham I believe. I drew some of it freehand, and some of using a ruler just to make straighter lines! I only drew in one window as it's a basic sketch for now, though I think I will tweak the design slightly. Think I will enlarge and move the door too. It doesnt fit as well into the design as I thought it would sat there. I took inspiration from the door from a beautiful local church.
You can see how it fits in to the drawing as well. I will re-line it in Photoshop to make the lines both neater and darker, and to cut out some of the noise from the scan I took from my sketchbook. Wish I had picked a bigger sketchbook to draw this in - I ended up running out of room! I need to extend the building to the left.
Oh goodness me. Horses.... are REALLY hard to draw! I used to draw horses (and foxes) all the time when I was a kid! I got pretty good, actually. But that was... *cringe* over a decade ago so I'm 100% rusty!
I will be glad when I can get some colour down on this piece, because that's when humans really start to look like humans, and hopefully horses will actually start to look like horses! Still got the background to lay down in sketch form though. Hmm. Just trying to decide about layout. Drawing the bakcground required designing a fort.... which I can't say I've had any experience with! I need to pin down my vague ideas. :) It's going well so far though. I am enjoying this piece. It's always lovely to draw something that I have had in my head for a while. :-)
This is a work in progress of what I plan to be my next "big" picture, a.k.a. one I'll go all the way on, painting and everything, or so I plan to at this stage. This is a scene from my book. When I was writing it, and when I read back over that particular bit I just see this particular still image really vividly. The colours, the lighting... I have, of course, no hope of capturing what my minds eye sees, but I'll give it my best shot. :) It's a chance to attempt movement, horse anatomy, buildings, perspective, composition, and atmospheric lighting all at once! Frankly, that's quite scary! Wish me luck, haha.
I've wanted for some time to make a small head/shoulders bust of a dragon (out of polymer clay). But I just can't seem to get the plans right! This was me having another failed attempt. I don't know why I can't draw a really nice dragon head. So back to the drawing board with this one. I'm debating as to whether I should skip the planning stage and go straight to sculpting?
The dwarf is just a random doodle I felt like drawing! ImagineFX magazine had a great dwarf drawing in the Christmas issue which I had just read at the time.
So yes. Random sketches, enjoy. Hopefully I will post something better soon, eh? :-P
I didn't feel like doing more than one gesture sketch this day (Wednesday 7th December), so I spent time developing the shading instead. It's a hand, cut off by the edge of the page because I'm an idiot and didn't leave enough room to develop it! Hands are something I need significant amounts more practice on though, that's for sure!
I recently passed the 40,000 pageview mark on DeviantART, and two people caught the kiriban. This is the first of the two kiribans I've done art for (the second is to come). It was based on the first persons sketch (that person being this person!), which I've lined and coloured in. I picked this sketch of his because the feeling behind it really came through on the sketch. I thought it was lovely. :) Ooh it was nice to do cell shading, I think it's years since I have done!
Credit for the lovely sketch must go to : Tom Kiely
I'm alive! Ok, so assignments aren't quite done yet but the end is in sight. Anyway, I decided I should really start getting back into basics, and experiment with some gesture sketches. So hopefully this will become a regular thing. I hope to be doing a couple every few days as and when I can fit them in. I spent 10 minutes on each of these, but I definitely aim to cut that down significantly with practice. Hopefully over time I can become a pro at creating gesture sketches and poses! :-) This is the site I used for this set of gesture sketches, it's really good! http://lovecastle.org/draw/ Enjoy. :-)
P.s. I am unsure whether to watermark these gesture sketches. They're not exactly a big deal, I know, but eh. I can't decide whether it's still worth it to. I'll see how it goes for now.
