Clothed, Clarice and Igraine - ink, pencils

It's forever since I managed to do any drawing. But, inevitably, I start playing a new character and want to draw them in a variety of compromising situations.

Bits of this are borked and it's too late to unbork them, but feedback is as ever very much appreciated. Tell me what works and what doesn't, stuff am getting worse or better at  - and why, if you can! :D It's all immensely useful.

This has ended up being something of an exercise in colours - it's finally dawned on me that if I'm using white to prevent colour uptake, it's because my control is shite and I should work on that. Also in fabric folds, ugh. This is partly Porange's fault, for voting that it was funnier to colour Clarice Obviously Unwell than Obviously Fine. Pale humans are really difficult to colour - probably because the colours become that much more subtle. Good exercise for me - I'll have to keep working on that one in particular, maybe larger face next time so I have more area to play with the shading. I redid the shading on this so many times, the paper started to die. It died really badly around Igraine's face, mostly because I fucked up her jaw and ended up rubbing out ink. She's a draughir. Clearly she's just peeling.

Finished - colour. Clarice does not like physicks. Not one bit.

Finished - colour, slightly cooler lighting. That bastard shield curve is somehow borked.

Not sure which shot is more faithful to the colours. I don't know what possessed me to try and draw Igraine's hand like that, it's awful. Also ugh, the arm. Her proportions look out of whack generally - the HAIR makes her head look even more disproportionately large than it already was, and makes the face look too small for the head as usual. Hair doesn't fall like that, but I'd inked it before I realised. Grr. On the other hand, drawing other people's PCs scares me, and I'm not displeased for a first attempt.

Closeup - Igraine. It doesn't matter whether it's true, Clarice. She doesn't believe you.

 Closeup - Clarice. Are all Dawnish terrible liars? Enquiring minds want to know.

Inking stages, for completeness:

Brushpen.

Fineliner only.

Pencil, draft 2.

I always make the sodding heads too big. Thanks to porange for her help :D

Initial pencil draft. Attack of the giant heads. Yeahhhh.

Bath - Meredith, naked, NSFW, colour

It's finished! Thanks to porange for suggestions on how to colour the water. Tricky. Does it work? Stupid camera has rather bleached the colours, but such is life. (I blame porange also for the higher indecency level in the coloured version. Because I can.) Her right hand is the wrong way around. This will annoy me forever but OH WELL. Skin is really hard to do with my pencils. This is white underlay, then yellow ochre, then rose. Underwater skin omits the underlay, because otherwise there is no colour uptake at all by the time I want to put the blue for the water over the top. Maybe I should get myself some skintoned pencils.

Full length. NSFW

Head. NSFW. I'm fairly pleased with her expression. (Sodding bloody philtrum.)

Lower half. NSFW.

What works and doesn't work with the colouring/anything else? It's hard to tell onscreen I realise, but I'd especially like to hear comments/tips on the water and such, as I've never tried that before and it's difficult.

Bath - Meredith, naked, WIP, NSFW

Aaaaages since I've properly drawn anything. I've forgotten why I started drawing this, but I blame #larp and porange. Morvanian pinup! Or smut. Or something. Whatever it is, Meredith can be saucier than she dresses. Ask Keshrel.

Pencil. NSFW. In the first incarnation the hands were the wrong way around. XD

Fineliner. NSFW. I cocked this up - I've done that thing I do with the philtrum. Rarrgh,

Brushpen. NSFW. Surprised how much better it looks this way.

I cocked up the tub, but it's the figure and the water I'm more interested in - the tub was just me being careless. Tried to address the recurring face-too-small issue in this, but have I gone too far the other way? She has so much hair I can't tell. I have no idea what possessed me to combine the horrors of hands, feet, nudity, water and perspective. Eurrgh. Is that foot still too damn small? I think it might be. Bastard thing. Debating whether to go for Magic Opaque Water, or try something far beyond my skill level with colouring. Hmmm.

What's wrong (and/or right) with it? :D

Lying down, Heresy and Evelyn

What with the culture shock of full-time work, it's forever since I've drawn anything. I'd had this image in my head for a while, so I decided to end the shite-drought by attempting something with two figures in awkward positions! Because I'm a masochist! :D

Heresy awake before Evelyn is not something that happens every day. Or even every month.

With permission from Evelyn's player. He looks slightly grumpy. Or pained. Maybe it's his disposition. Maybe it's because he's attached to Heresy, the poor mad fool. Maybe it's Maybelline.

Things this picture contains that I suck at: 1) fabric folds b) awkward postures c) composition. She's too close to him - her left leg must be right next to him d) men, generally e) people larger than me, generally f) someone else's actual face g) everything!

Despite this list I'm currently fairly pleased with this one. Doubtless this will change. I remain convinced that her head is too big, but the ruler and skull ref tell me otherwise. I dunno.

What's wrong with it? :D

Clothed, standing, coloured

Quick and dirty (but SFW), this - was bad and didn't draw the skull. It probably shows. Bloody hands. Slipped up on the inking a few times, which is annoying - made her neck too wide, and correcting it has left her with uneven shoulders. Oh well. Compositionally I probably shouldn't have gone for blue for the dress, but she isn't the sort to much care. Colour has been bleached a little, but it was shoddy anyway. I'm fairly pleased with the skin though - rose on brown on yellow ochre, no underlay.

This isn't actually Heresy, the nose is different and she's younger. Could be her first cousin in another universe though, she has the same attitude to life. I think her name might be Gifreda.

I think they had a small decorative rapier-type sword in mind, Gifreda. Would you have the heart to take it away from her though?

Inking slips apart, what's wrong with it? :D

Clothed, sitting (Halhigil)

I was too lazy to colour this, so I had a go at shading in biro instead. This one is fudged all over the shop; I have no excuse but idleness. His hands shouldn't be hidden by that paper, unless they're both curled up, but he has hyooge hands so they shouldn't be hidden. I just started inking then couldn't be bothered to fix. Very Bad Self. He should also have a foot visible but oh god feet.

So yes, not very polished, this. Halhigil is a very old RPG character of mine. This is not amazingly faithful, but it's the best I've ever managed to get him yet. Elves are usually of the willowy persuasion. Halhigil... isn't really. Don't mention it to him. He's a little touchy about it.

Brush pen, fineliner and biro. What's borked apart from the above? :D

The plaits are the only thing stopping the hair from taking over the world. He has *gratuitous* amounts of hair.

Clothed, standing (Heresy) FINISHED

Finished the bugger! God her skintone is difficult. I'd have thought fair skin would be harder than a deeper sligtly sallow complexion, but it's really not. Suspect my lack of a decently brown-toned pink doesn't much help, but I'm reasonably satisfied with what I did with what I have. (brown on yellow ochre, no white underlay) Salt-and-pepper hair is difficult too - haven't managed that very well.

Curious how much more manic she looks in this than she did in pencil. Colours a bit dulled by the fading daylight.

Full length. She looks orders of magnitude more manic in the fullsize original.

Top. OK, she does look fairly manic here. I think it's the whites of the eyes. Also her irises are off. Grr.


Plain inking, for completeness. Is kind of terrifyingly psychotic.Was thinking about doing it monochrome ink except for the red.


What's borked? :D

Clothed, standing (Heresy) WIP

Another WIP. Not sure why I thought drawing someone holding something straight in front of them was ever going to be a good idea. It's actually quite hard to hold a single sheet of paper like that. Looks better than the other ways though and nicely obscures the ARM OF HORROR.

This may be a vision occasionally haunting the nightmares of a couple of Heresy's old friends-the-enemies in what is now the Church of Justice. Nobody in their right mind wants to work with someone like her, even if they weren't routinely locking her up ten years ago. :P

Heresy Smith would never forge Temple papers just for the entertainment of trolling some old enemies... Probably. (Full view)

Top half. might have overspaced the eyes, but usually I do them too close together.

What's wrong with it? :D

Clothed, standing (Meredith and Mary Sue) FINISHED, coloured

FINISHED! The pencils work much better on this rougher, cheaper paper, which is worth knowing. Reasonably pleased with this now, apart from Mary Sue's borked left shoulder, which is annoying me greatly but it's too late to do anything about.

Drawing plate is fun! Mary Sue, naturally, has the right to wear all the colours in the Morvanian hierarchy and is a blonde Norscan stereotype. Meredith only has the right to wear brown and has somehow entangled herself in an old bandage, which sums up her standing in the Church pretty well actually. :P

Full view. Rotated just a touch to compensate for having drawn it at a slight angle.


Meredith closeup. Screwed up her mouth a bit. Quite pleased with how the skin turned out given the paper was dying a bit.

Closeup of dear Mary. She has a slightly odd-shaped head to my eye. Oh well.

Just because it's finished doesn't mean I don't still want to know what's wrong! :D Thanks to everyone who commented on the WIP, your comments were really really useful! :D Whether I draw too much hair visible because I'm taller than a lot of my friends and so usually see people that way is an interesting question. Working on correcting that tendency may be my next goal.

Clothed, standing (Meredith and Mary Sue) WIP Mark II

ETA: Inked the bugger! :D

INKED. I think dear Mary *is* listing slightly backwards. Perhaps she's drunk. Even Sues aren't perfect.

The consensus of comments on the last incarnation of this bastard was really helpful, thanks guys! :D Seems I was massively overcompensating for previously making heads too small. Hopefully they're at least somewhat back in proportion here. Changed what Meredith was doing to make her slightly more disorganised. I'm not entirely sure how she managed to get a bandage trailing around her leg, but shit happens. Finally referenced a pair of boots and tried to fix Meredith's shoulder. They're the work of the devil.

The paper over Meredith's head is now so rough and bastardised from the amount of rubbing-out that I'm not sure I can colour this. Hmm. What's *still* wrong? :P

Morvanian Sue is very tall. But she has a nicer spear. And Sues are larger than life. :P

Clothed, standing (Meredith and Mary Sue)

Another WIP in pencil. This is Meredith and a Morvanian Mary Sue. Meredith's Mary Sue, in fact. Meredith would like very much to be tall, look impressive in plate, have neat hair and look her age. Unfortunately she's on the short end of average, baby-faced and will never, ever have neat hair.

Morvanian Mary Sue is kind of a smug bitch.

Tell me what's wrong! :D This one is a clusterfuck of annoying difficult angles and HAND WOE. The feet need a lot of work. Ugh.

Sitting and standing, clothed (Robert and Sophia) WIP

Another WIP, this time of my M&M character and her cousin Robert, played by Entimix. I don't know what even possessed me to try someone playing the piano, let alone at a horrible angle like this. Madness.

Robert, incidentally, is intended to look a bit girly, or at least ambiguous. Difficult trying to do that, keep some family resmblance between him and Sophia, and preserve some of the physrep's features too. He is not supposed to look like his arms are on backwards though. I think I might have made his face a bit too long - are the eyes a shade high? Sophia's hands are fucked and I can't seem to unfuck them. She has a much longer nose than me. I think she may have just discovered how good a pianist her cousin Robert is. She looks excited, at any rate.

Not sure whether to ink this or colour it. I dunno. What's wrong with it? :D

Full view. Goddamn Regency pianos aren't tall enough to obscure his hands.

Detail. Mr Robert Faulconer is a very... *pretty* young man.

Clothed, standing (Heresy) INKED

Finished the bugger! Dunno whether to colour it or not. I might just leave it. Not sure about her jaw still.

Brush pen makes the fineliner much less scary! :D Thanks to porange for holding my hand while I flailed and went "wargh what do I do with the scary ink" :P

Heresy does like singing. Just not with people listening. Full length,

Headshot

Commentry, criticism and advice still as welcome as ever! Anatomy, technique, composition... you say it, I'll listen :) :)

Clothed, standing (Heresy) WIP Mark III

I fiddled with it some more. Then - gasp - I had a go with a fineliner! May have a go varying line weight in the next incarnation. Scary scary. Surprised and pleased that I didn't utterly fuck up - I was dreading the face, especially the mouth. I think I prefer it in pencil, but it's good for me to ink. Also I've still overdone the chin probably. OH WELL.

Next question is do I colour it... and what's still wrong? :D

Pencil, full length

Pencil, top half

Things learnt: ink spreads on this paper. Pencil lets you fudge things much more thank ink does. The hands are never, ever big enough.

Inked, full length

Inked, top half

Clothed, standing (Heresy) WIP Mark II

I had another stab at the head, did the skull underneath using Henrietta as a ref first, though doing it at a slightly different tilt was hard. (Also looking at lots of boobs on the web. My life is so hard.) I'm convinced there's something wrong with the chin, even though the Skull Says Yes. I disbelieve. My soul also insists that the ear is fucked and can't possibly be that far back, even though the Mirror Says Yes. I dunno.

If you can work out what's wrong, please tell me! :D I'll probably have one more stab at getting this right before I have a go at getting everything wrong with ink. :)

Full length. Chin is a bit exaggerated in this shot, don't know why.

Headshot. I think the "underpinnings" are still visible in some bits. This paper dislikes erasers.

Things Drawn On Skulls

What goes on skulls?

KETCHUP.

But also, faces. So I drew some over some skulls. Playing with ink, also trying to get a feel for how faces go on top of the skull structure. The one I drew from Henrietta is stupidly too long because my second sketch of the first sketch was, surprise surprise, shoddy and I failed to check it, so I didn't realise it was wrong til the face looked weird. Oh well! I have named her (him?) Elsa.

Elsa on top of stretched Henrietta.  Followed the bones rather too closely  here.

Leaf dude of indeterminate sex. Neck dodgy as cribbed from a dodgy picture online. WHy do they have a vine tattooed on their head? I don't even know! Why don't you?    The chin may take over the world someday.

Words of criticism and advice much appreciated! :D

Here there be SKULLS.

I've been mooching around ebay for a while, after a cheap anatomy atlas and not finding one. Then I remembered that I, er, collect such things and indeed have an anatomy book on my shelf. From 1942, admittedly, as I collect *old* medical books - but it has some nice plates in it. And so began the skull menagerie and its bastard offspring. Mostly for my own reference really. SKULLS. I may have got lazy on teeth. Bad self.

Murray the skull. Bob to his friends.

Boris the skull.

Henrietta the skull, commonly known as Hettie.  Henrietta was reffed from a photo online of a skull that's a hundred thousand years old in China or something. I dunno.

The inside of the human neck looks like a jungle gym.

Clothed, standing (Rosien, Calemir) WIP

Last one! Another A3 WIP that looks blue for reasons best known to my mum's camera. Rosien again, this time with her older brother. I'm not sure what's on the paper, but I think she may have impressed him. She looks smug enough. Not sure whether to colour this. On the one hand, A3. On the other hand, her HAIR.

God almighty I really cannot draw men. At least he doesn't look actively like a girl. I needs lots and lots of practise at drawing men. Also argh folded arms. Tell me what's wrong with it! I can even attempt to correct it! :D

In which we observe that I can't draw men.

Clothed, standing (Heresy) WIP

One day I will manage a batch without Heresy in it. One day. But look! She's happy! And not in trouble or anything!

She hates me so much for this. Nobody is allowed to see Heresy singing. This one is A3 and unfinished. I'm in two minds whether to colour it or not. I don't know why it looks blue. What's wrong? I can even attempt to correct this one as it's WIP! :D

She's actually a good singer. Full size.

But not what she was thirty years ago. Top half.

Colour, clothed (Rosien, sitting)

COLOUR!

This batch comes with the caveat that I am tipsy. :)

So after a fair old while of restricting myself to pencil only, I finally caved and got some pencils. Not expensive ones. I think they're Derwent academy ones. I've used much nicer, but these will do for the likes of me, as it's not like I'm producing anything stunning anyway. They seem kind of reluctant to give up their colour to the page. Am finding it hard to get a deep or even shade with them, which is probably me rather than them. The greens are the hardest though. Difficulty in getting them to blend or layer effectively. PRACTISE. I'm not going to buy expensive kit for now, I'm not good enough to justify it and anyway it's probably good for me. (See under why I'm not trying to get to grips with image correction on a computer. If I ever get actually good I might look into it.) If I can do it without all that then I know I can do it properly. Does that make sense outside my own head? I don't know, I'm tipsy.

Here's someone new: Rosien, who I chose partly because of the HAIR. I have colours, let's use them! :D Alternatively, "Adventures in attempting fair white skintone without an appropriately coloured pencil, and subsequently getting camera to report it." Scanner failed utterly. Camera variable, hence more than one shot - the daylight one is true-ish to everything but skin, the warmer one true to skin and little else. :P My current best effort for pale white skin is white-->yellow-->rose, as I can't seem to do any colour straight onto the paper pale enough, and the white pencil stops it laying down too much colour.

Any and all criticism and tips on this gratefully received. Things I have learnt: Colour offers 43567 new and exciting ways of getting it wrong! Woo! (Sodding bloody fabric.) Also her nose is too long, I just noticed that. I have an odd feeling this needs inking or something but am too afraid. Does it want inking?

Rosien does not like being interrupted when she's working. Daylight.

Not even when the colours are warmer.