Sketch Diary: Watching you indifferently ink

I enjoyed this sketch enough that I thought I better ink it and try to color it. Haven't colored anything in a while so I'm looking forward to it.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Orange hair, don't care

This little note card is throwback from 2010. I had all these postcard size cardstock paper things, originally meant to be used material for wedding invitations for someone but ended up not being used. Not one to waist good card stock, I tried out my Copic markers on them. The weird background of the cards (kind of marbled) didn't quite work though and made solid color areas look blotchy. Also, I wasn't so good at taking my time with blending yet. The white you see is acrylic paint added at the end. I don't do that method anymore but could see my self going back to it if I worked on bigger pieces. On small things like this though, it's way easier to just use a nice gel pen or something similar.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Adventure Time fanart - Finn and Jake

And part 2 of some copied drawings - I do not own these characters! This style is SUPER foreign for me so it definitely helped loosen me up to practice drawing in this style. I would love to draw like this from time to time but I'd feel better about it if I made my own characters and maybe altered the style a bit so it's not just blatantly copying from the wonderful Adventure Time folks.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Adventure Time fanart - Bubblegum and Rainicorn

Copied these from Adventure Time, I do not own these characters in any way. I wanted to share these drawings because for a sketch diary, copying and studying other artists' wonderful styles can be really helpful to me. So... I assume, that might be helpful for other folks to know.

I have very mixed feelings about fanart as a whole especially when an artist creates a piece of fanart and then sells it and doesn't own or pay any rights to the original creators. There have been stories about anime/game conventions that have limited or even banned fanart in one way or another in the last several years. I get it though, it becomes overwhelming when all you see is fanart everywhere and what you really want is to see people's original creations, ideas, stories. Something about profiting off someone else's artwork just doesn't feel right to me. That said, I also don't think it's right for me to say that people can't do that! If they wanna risk getting in trouble with copyright infringement, that's not for me to have any say on unless it's my own artwork they're copying. But everything comes from something, yeah? So let's all try to be a little kinder to each other on this topic.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Medusa crazy hair woman in ink

Holy smokes this thing is old! But I still vividly remember drawing this and being so freaking proud of myself haha. Still am. This was definitely a trophy of a point when I was really taking my drawing seriously. September 2004 was the beginning of my Senior year of highschool and there lots of cool artsy things going on for me. I was in AP Art Portfolio and was learning how to build a real collection of my own work as well as trying all different art mediums from acrylic paints to soft pastels to dress making to knitting to digital painting (with a trackball!!!).  So hopefully I've improved since then but it feels good to be able to look back and still be proud of all that I accomplished at that time.

Try not to beat yourself up, fellow artists. It's easy to do. The real challenge is appreciating each drawing what it is and what it's taught you. I may not want to stick every drawing on my fridge but you better believe I make sure to thank each one... some just might see the recycling bin sooner than others.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Tilted concern - up close portrait

Ta-dah!  This was therapeutic to draw. I definitely enjoy drawing portraits the most. The placement of the nose and lips gave me some trouble but uh... they're stuck there now! I was trying to get a more youthful looking face but still serious.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: My Fair Lady warm up

Quick warm up before getting into a more serious sketch. It was super serious. You'll see it tomorrow. Be patient. I know, it's difficult. I believe in you. Don't give up. Stay strong. Bananas.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Long eared curly haired cutie - no erase

This was a quicky in my tiny 4x6 inch sketchbook. No pencil so no erasing. Just a pen and some mad skillz. IGNORE THE ARM OVERLAP. Shhhh.

Somehow I managed to not do a single inked drawing during actual October for the Inktober challenge. I think that's an achievement in and of itself  >.<  Of course then all of November, all I wanted to do was that challenge. I should just do it. Just all of December. And call it Ink-cember or something stupid like that. I'm always late to the party. Ink-uary...Ink-ruary... yeah no.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Horned girl blue colored

I uh... I can't remember if this was pre or post Copics when I colored this beauty. Wow. Welp, here's to 2008 in all it's glory. Jeezey Petes. Why did I use the same blue for the... no, I'm not breaking down a drawing from  years ago. Totes not worth it lol. NEXT PLEASE

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Boy at sea - pose practice

Welp, that didn't go as planned. I think I erased and retried that hand about 20 times. That's what I get for trying to squeeze out a sketch right before bed. Sleepy sketches have a 50/50 chance of being junk.  But look I did a quick background! At least he's not floating in oblivion.

with love - M

List of Monthly Drawing Challenges for WHOLE Year

Update 01-04-2018: I did it! I uploaded for Inktober 2017! Well, I'm still uploading for it. But that's because I want to hit my goal of 31 inked drawings. I did 15 (about halfway!) before getting sidetracked. Still a pretty good personal improvement. 

Also, if you're looking for daily inspiration, check out Sketch Dailies on the Twitter-verse!

After totally missing out on Inktober recently, I decided to seek out some other monthly challenges. Why shouldn't we have some set challenges EVERY month? Surely they're out there. But then I remembered, these are artists we're talking about. Organization may not be high on their/our priorities list. Working for food might be a little more important. Also cat videos.

Please check out the list below and let me know if you have any suggestions, amendments, whatever. There aren't a whole lot of monthly challenge things that are official for drawing so I pulled some writing ones and altered them. I also made up my own ideas for a couple because I couldn't find anything. Bear in mind, some of these months have other challenges available to them. That's not what this list is for - this just my list of my chosen fav ideas for each month. If there's enough interest to make a wiki that has ALL the challenges for each month, I might look into that (or you can do it, good luck, sir).

I'll update this list as I get more info or flush out my own ideas on the challenges.

January
Random Genre Month - Meant for writing prompts but I think this would work equally well for doing a drawing challenge. Grab your random genre for the month (or each day could be different) and use that to create a drawing each day for January.

February
A Month of Letters - I thought this would be cool to alter it a bit for drawing and instead of just writing a letter, you drew something. I like the idea of using artist trading cards for this challenge. No pencil drawings unless sealed with fixative spray or something, ink or watercolor are probably the easiest.

March
30 Characters - Every day, you'll create a NEW character. Now I don't know if this means you can't pull from deep in your past. I feel like, if it's a character you haven't drawn in several years, that's fine. The point is simple to get pen to paper and get you thinking. (This is supposed to be in November per the official site but there's already Nanomango in November so I moved it here. You're more than welcome to do it in November with everyone else.)

April
Blogging A-Z Challenge - Each day uses a different letter so for April 1st you could use the word Apathy as a prompt for your drawing that day. Next day could be Beauty and so on. Looks like the official site reveals a theme in March each year but you could pick your own or just be random.

May
Story A Day - Another writing challenge that I think would serve well for drawing. On that official site, one of the prompts is to steal the first line from a favorite book and write a totally different story from it. For drawing, it could be to steal a character from your favorite artist and draw it in your own style. This one might require some well thought out prompts ahead of time.

June
Time Challenge - Something I just made up. Take 10 minutes each day and sit down with some drawing tools and a timer. First drawing - 1 minute. Second - 3 minutes. Third - 6 minutes. Typically, I've done this exercise when drawing something physically in front of me but I don't see why this couldn't also be a gesture drawing exercise or something else entirely from your imaginiation.

July
Color Challenge - Another made up challenge by yours truly. Draw in color every day! This could go a couple ways. You could sketch something new, color that in. Or take an old sketch it and colorify it up. Or don't sketch at all in pencil and instead draw entirely in color. Medium can be whatever so long as it's not just black and white.

August
NaNoirWriMo - Stands for National Noir Writing Month I believe, not much on that site there. But I do like the idea of a month of drawing dedicated to darker stuff. I think this could be anything from straight Noir style with a detective, spy, serial killers, or more fantasy styled monsters like Cthulhu.

September
3-Day Novel Contest - I think this one could be really cool. Couple ways you could go about this for drawing purposes. You could totally participate in the actual contest (Labor Day weekend) and then use the story you came up with to fuel your drawings each day for the rest of the month. Or could draw a short story via comic, one page each of the three days. Then spend the rest of the month working on those characters, continuing the story, whatever to do with that original short comic.

October
Inktober - Ah my nemisis. This one is pretty well flushed out already, very popular. I do like the added challenge of no-erasing. So drawing entirely in ink, no pencil sketch first.

November
Nanomango - This one is geared towards comics. So instead of a single drawing, you make a comic page every day. I don't think it matters is it's a 'slice of life' style comic or an actual storyline.

December
Character Drawcember - Check out the prompt list that this kind person made. This would be the month to pick a character and real focus in on it.

*Several of these links found via a WikiWriMo list

Good luck everyone! I'll post my progress on these and please link me to yours if you feel so inclined to participate.


with love - M

Sketch Diary: Sea witch concept

As the note on the sketch suggests, I realized about half way through drawing this that I was totally channeling Tales from EarthSea, the Ghibli movie based on Ursula K. Le Guin's book series. I really enjoyed the movie and I bought the first book recently and am excited to read it. I really enjoyed The Left Hand of Darkness, one of her Sci-Fi novels. It had a lot to say about social norms/labels and, for me anyway, why they don't matter except to those who seek to oppress.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Pose practice - long ears

I didn't notice until just now how sweet that leg is... the rest of the sketch is pretty blah but that bend on the front of the leg is really doing it for me right now. It's the little things.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Ruffle bikini girl

Ah high waisted bikinis. The best. This was the only thing I sketched during my vacation at Punta Cana this summer (first time there). I just have too much to do on vacation... like lay in the sun... and drink pina coladas at the wet bar...much busy haha.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Wild side ponytail girl

Oh man I remember sketching this and being so dang proud of myself at the time. It was one of my favorite drawings I did while I was living in Japan. I guess it was sort of subconscious self portrait, accidental. I don't have bangs... can't... so it's in spirit mainly lol.

My teachers at school were vocal about enjoying it and one teacher even drew her own version of my drawing and gave it to me. I took it as an immense compliment - she was quite good herself though very different drawing style. I still have her drawing! I keep it in my memory box with my other cherished keepsakes from that crazy year. I think that wild hair was what my life felt like that year hah. Loved it. Would do it again in a heartbeat.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Watching you indifferently

I visited Hawaii over the summer for the first time (totes a blast) and sketched this while waiting for my first of several flights during that trip. I made it to the airport at, what I thought was on time. Evidently, I didn't need to be so early. I ended up with almost 2 hours of waiting time hah. So I lounged and sketched. Better than being rushed I suppose.

This sketch was funny because thought I went in wanting something more androgynous but didn't expect it to actually work. I'm pleased with the result... just don't look too hard at how the eyes don't quiet line up... oops. This duo of ladies were passing by and I felt them stop behind me while I was drawing, which I don't mind. Eventually they moved on but not before tapping me on the shoulder and saying how much they liked the drawing. It really made my day/week. Was a great start to that vacation/adventure. Thank you ladies, where ever you are.

If you see someone being creative, whether it's drawing or making a mean latte or washing a window with gusto or whatever, and you happen to appreciate their efforts, say something! I can almost guarantee we'll always love to hear it. Like 99% of the time. You'll always have that one grump that can't take a compliment. But they're probably the ones that need to hear your love the most!

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Back bend casual girl

Another quick sketch while waiting for food one day in my little 4x6 inch sketch book. It's so tiny. I usually sketch on 8.5x11 inch. But switching to a smaller (or larger) sketch book definitely shakes things up. I think less about what's actually visible on the page and more about the composition or what could be going on outside the page.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Quick and casual girl

Quicky done in my tiny 4x6 inch sketch book while waiting for my food to be made at a Zoe's near my work. Yum.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Monster concepts

Just a few monsters for your consideration. Well, some might say monsters. Maybe they're just different. I'm not sure I'd take the chance to find out, especially with the one on the right. The one on the left, the spikes are supposed to look like they're coming from the inside, breaking through the skin rather than growing like horns might. I always feel at my most creative when making creatures that are at least a little bit 'off'.

In case my shading isn't contrasted enough (heh yes), if you zoom in on the middle dude, you might be able to see the teeth better. It's my fav.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Fan tail mermaid plus fish

Just my weekly dose of mermaid drawing. Tried a spray paint brush in Krita. I have a trouble remembering to switch to a bigger size brush. I think I forget that I'm drawing with an amazing tool that defies my perception rather than a IRL pencil haha.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Long eared girl

Tried out a different brush in Krita for this sketch. It's supposed to look like a pencil - I didn't think so while I used it up close but zoomed out like this, I changed my mind. There're even brushes to make chain links and different kinds of grass and all sorts of stuff. I'll have to do a post about the cool ones once I get a chance to use a few of them.

I must have been channeling my inner feelings about heavy earrings when drawing this heh.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Fin-tastic mermaid in color

Wooooo now we're talking. This was sketched on slightly better paper and it was a definite difference. I was worried at the time that my color choices were too safe, too boring. But I'm feeling it. It's a little weird but it feels right for what I was going for when I originally sketched her. A 'go with yer gut' thing that turned out well.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Posture warmup ladies

Another midnight sketch when I couldn't get to sleep and needed some creative activity to settle my mind. Slowly getting more comfortable with the new Wacom settings. I think I'll need to search from some good brushes though, something like oil and watercolor and such. I'm a blender. I like soft pastels and watercolor and copic markers because of the blending ability.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Snake Wedding in color

Snaaaaaaaake! So here's a quick color practice, thin paper unfortunately. But I still enjoyed coloring this drawing... despite the weird color choices on the snake part. Whatevs. I'm over it.


(...not over it)


with love - M

Sketch Diary: Star girl digital

So along with traveling a bunch this summer, I ended up totally cutting myself off from my desktop computer without really noticing. It was pretty weird. I think I was just really burned out digitally. I ended up spending a ton of time cleaning out my material stuffs, cleaning in general, gardening, and trying to spend time each day on myself (meditation type stuffs).

Can you see that in the sketch? I'm tired of being stiff and uncomfortable both physically and emotionally. Feels like all this time spent on myself is paying off. Unfortunately, all that meditation did NOT include drawing of any kind so I barely drew anything this summer. But I'm excited to get back into being creative everyday. Or at least creative in a drawing kind of way. I still think downsizing and reorganizing my kitchen cabinets requires its own creativity haha.

So to the universe I say - take time for yourself. It may seem like a lot of work to slow down and calm your mind but trust me it will pay off.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Colored - Portrait of a girl in my mind

And POOF just like that, it's colored in. I was trying out a couple different techniques and such on this so I'm relatively pleased with how it turned out. Skin is still a bit... blotchy. But that's what happens when I use cheap copy paper hah. Maybe I'll call her Cotton Candy Girl.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Inked - Sherlock movie clips

I've been cleaning up my old sketches and sketch books, scanning everything in, tossing old stuff that means nothing to me, and, in the case of this sketch, rediscovering those old sketches that I still love. So I inked it in! Always need more inking practice. Drawing in pencil doesn't really have to require a steady hand, smooth stroke. But ink is more unforgiving. Going back over a line to smooth it out can be disastrous, ending up with a line way thicker than what was originally desired. Stuff like that.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Inked - Portrait of a girl in my mind

Little bit of a hiatus there - vacation and then heavy workload (doing my team manager's job while she was out unexpectedly). Anyway, back on the tracks here.

Feel free to download this pic to color it in... under one condition: I wanna see it! For realz. Also, please give me credit for the original drawing if you decide to post your colored version somewhere. Thanks a bunch!

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Fairy Princess from Faeriecon East

Ah an oldie but a goodie. I sketched this during Faeriecon East 2010 after seeing a beautiful cosplayer there. This sketch only has a small amount of the detail she had put into her costume though. It was really impressive at the time. So I just scribbled down the stuff I could remember. Then I colored this while in Japan, 2011. Not a whole lot of color though... I think I would definitely color it differently nowadays haha. Just because a costume seems white as snow, that doesn't mean there are no colors there.

I miss costuming. But I like that I've incorporated some of my costume pieces and style into my day to day wardrobe. Win some, lose some.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Stargazer redo

Guh. This is what happens when I try to force myself to draw when I'm too tired. I didn't bother to give myself a reference to use for the figure posture and I didn't stop when I could plainly see this wasn't going where I wanted it to go. I didn't even do warm up sketches. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?! I hate it when I don't do the very things that I recommend to other people.

Inevitably, my brain decided to sort of recreate an old sketch from highschool (over a decade ago). I've been sorting through old sketch books because I have too many papers and too many sketch books taking up space. I organized everything and am no slowly going through them all and scanning them. So I must have seen this old sketch and gone - huh, I should try to redo that. And after staring at a blank page for OVER an hour the other night, this is the disaster that happened.

I know, I KNOW. At least I drew SOMETHING. I keep telling that to myself. Joel keeps reminding me, too, bless his little heart. But that's all this sketch is to me. I promised myself I would not burn any drawings... I promised... BUT HE LOOKS LIKE HE'S HOLDING IN A FART?!

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Ram's horn guide and her ward

At the time, I had some kind of story in mind for these two. They never made it so far as to have names but they had personalities. The girl/woman there with the horns was this kids guide, his guardian. I think the idea was that she could only be seen him and other people that had their own guardians. Now in my defense, this was before I knew about Deathnote and such so no, I was not pulling my idea from there. It was more of a Faerie world kind of thing.

The young man pictured here, clasping his papers tight was supposed to be a bit melancholy and his counterpart was the opposite. She was realistic, however, about his chances of not making it ie. being killed by some monster or another sometime soon. She just had a good hold on making peace with whatever might happen before it actually happened or something like that. Something I find myself aspiring to quite a bit nowadays interestingly... Maybe I should revisit the idea.

Oh and she isn't really a she... or he. Just a being. No private bits to speak of and no need for that sort of thing for any of the guardians. There was a reason for that... but I can't remember anymore. I just knew that I didn't want any sort of sexualized relationship between the guardians and their wards, it was to be more... simple but also much more complex.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Colored Calm Grace

Here's the original sketch. I zoned out and didn't scan it after inking it, oops. I used a brush pen for some of the lines but ultimately went back to my microns. I just need more control sometimes. The problem is me, not the brush pen haha. Also, was having a really hard time with the skin blending. Yeesh. What NOT to do.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Inked fin-tastic mermaid

I liked her so I inked her. She's on nicer paper so I'm looking forward to coloring her. What is with this mermaid kick... gotta get it out of my system! Could take years... haha or eternity.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Inked crow practice, perched

If I remember correctly, I drew this little dude in Japan while looking at crows IRL (in real life). I was so impressed with myself at the time because I don't draw from life like maybe I should. Still love him though. Finally got around to inking him to practice my inking skills more. He's actually on nice paper so I might color him too. Might go crazy and make him a psychedelic crow or some such haha.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Colored redhead like fire

Soooooo old! This is from 2005?! Madness. Still kinda love it though. Always grateful to that first set of Prismacolor markers. The didn't like to blend much but the colors were bold and I learned a lot before saving up for my Copic set in 2009. Of course now I like to go back and use crappy materials sometimes because they help challenge certain skills. So... irony.

Use what you have, people! With enough patience/practice and a little ingenuity, you can make art out of anything.

with love - M

PS
Note for my own sake - this was inspired by Catherine! She's one of the few true redheads I know. Thanks for being fabulous, Cath!

Sketch Diary: Curved figure practice

Some simply figure sketches I did to loosen up my hand before moving onto something more complex. Sometimes my hand gets really tight and my lines don't flow like I want them to but some quick swooshy figures and all is well.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Colored Harpy Priestess

I really enjoyed coloring this sketch. It had a lot of potential to go sideways on me. I think she turned out ok though.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Inked Snake Wedding

Took some time to ink this older sketch so I can keep up with practicing my coloring with my Copics. I'm excited to practice coloring the translucent fabric hanging off her headpiece. Should be a good challenge.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Daniel Craig from Spectre Ad Fanart

So along with drawing more of whatever pops into my head, I'm also pushing myself to do more live sketches (or at least from photos) of people, animals, places, etc. For this sketch, I picked out an Ad I saw for Spectre (I think it was in Vogue magazine). He's just chillin', adjusting his tie and suit jacket, but looking very serious and confident while doing so.

Being a pretty quick sketch (I did not grid the photo or anything like that, just eyeballed it), I'm please with how far I got before some of the proportion problems started to become too problematic to continue. The first thing Joel noticed was that forhead being too tall (or not tall enough? I forget not). Next sketch I do like this, I might do a basic grid just to make sure I have the right bits where they're supposed to be. I don't think I'll EVER have the patience to do those super lifelike pencil portraits but bless those people that do. Bless their little hearts.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Colored kinda 2 dudes posing

Like my mishmash title there? Well that's all this is. I don't recall having any real characters in mind here. Nor did I even bother to finish coloring this a the time, way back in August 2010. Just another sketch in a sea of sketches. This was rare, however, because they were distinguishable as dudes. Drawing ladies all the time made me pretty good at ladies but dude bodies were/are a challenge.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Inked harpy priestess

Inking it up over here. Inkin' inkin' inkin'. I actually just started coloring this since taking this photo so I'm really excited to share the WIP.

Feel free to color this if you like it! Send me a link so I can see! Please credit me (don't pretend it's your drawing, dude).

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Lounging elves

Roll back to 2010 again. These girls were from a serious of drawings where I was playing with this elf idea. They eventually had clothes that were attached to their bodies sort of - like a jewel was a part of their bodies and the cloth would attach to the jewel and drape accordingly. the green hair with yellow highlights was appealing at the time, too.

I love the figure on the right, not so much the one on the left. But I was having fun playing with poses and body angles.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Fin-tastic mermaid

Man I was so pleased with myself when I sketched this hah. I still like it! But of course, given time, now I'm seeing all the things that didn't quite work. It was a fun sketch though, from the ends of her hairs to the tip of her tail.

Heh I wish I had a torso that long.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Colored mermaid with fiasco necklace

I should probably come up with character names... or at least something better than 'mermaid with fiasco necklace' hah. Well here she is! All colored up but floating in oblivion. It was late when I finished this a few nights ago and didn't add a background at the time. After pondering a bit, I decided to leave the background alone for now.

I'm just glad she turned out as well as she did. Things were looking shakey with those scales. But I'm okay with how it turned out. A good lesson in taking a chance on something and making it work.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Playing with color in a portrait

My second quickie sketch with the new Wacom. Playing with some colors and shading but ultimately, I got frustrated because I don't understand how to adjust the brushes and levels how I want yet to get the effect that I want. Basically, I want to paint watercolor or copic markers digitally.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: WIP - Copic coloring of mermaid with fiasco necklace

Oh heeey. Like that skin tone you got going on.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - colored baby sphinxes

D'aw aren't they cute. This is an old doodle from 2010 on a postcard size cardstock. I used copics for this but I definitely didn't know what I was doing.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Inking of mermaid with fiasco necklace

Found my waterproof inking pens! Let's get to work! Feel free to color this in if you like it - just please credit me (don't claim it as your own drawing, dude) and send me a link! I wanna see!

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Copic coloring of Fairy Queen - finished!

And here's the finished piece! Lots of goofs but it actually wasn't as bad as I expected. I really thought it was going to be a shit show. Unfortunately, the scanner made some of the lines harsher than they really are, it definitely looks better in person. Still, fun. Need more ink refills though...

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Inked portrait during the Josei panel

So I was cleaning out some art supplies and rediscovered an old brush pen that I had never used and this was the result of playing with it for the first time. To see the original sketch, scroll down or go here. The sketchbook that this is in actually has decent paper so I might color this in at some point. My hand was super shakey though. Kind of wish I could do a redo on it but hey, gotta love the imperfections.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: WIP - Fairy Queen with copic markers

You might remember this drawing from while back. I'm not in love with the drawing itself but I needed something to sink my teeth into for dusting off my Copic markers. This seemed like a good bet. I of course rediscovered why I used to be so selective about my inking pens... because if they aren't waterproof, the copics make them bleed like crazy >.< not fun. So I had to be super tender while coloring this dude.

Nice thing was that the paper was slightly better than other cheap printer paper and had a slickness to it that did not so bad when blending the colors. Still not great though. Once the color is there, there's not much reworking that can be done. Just have to roll with it. In hindsight, I wish I had made the skin a darker tone as well as the hair so the highlight popped more. And why did I make the collar pink?! Guh. But still good practice.

Keep an eye out for the finished piece shortly.

with love - M