Sketch Diary: Orange hair portrait in color

Ugh I gotta figure out how to properly scan/ get marker drawings digital without mucking up my hard work with all the blending! And the colors get all weird. Anyway, she was fun to color! Had to split it into 2 sessions though cuz it took so long - one for skin and one for the rest of her. I immediately regretted using such a dark red at the top of her hair at the time but now I've made my peace with it. She can stay.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Relaxed mohawk portrait - in color

This was my first adventure back into Copic markers in a good long while so there was alot of just playing around going on. Mainly, I just wanted to focus on skin blending and shading. I just wish I had put more color variations into the highlights and shadows of the hair. Had to do the skin in one session and the hair in another cuz it was taking so long. I forgot how long it can take to lay down color and blend everything over and over again. I definitely overworked some areas of the page. Just don't look too closely lol. Also, why can't I get my scanner to not be weird about scanning marker?? You can see in the second photo how much smoother and richer the colors are but the scanner... I guess I need to mess with the settings more. Or else marker pieces will just have to be photographed only, no scanning.

Watch me draw this here:

6x speed

1x speed

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Colored ink of Raleigh

--Click here to check out what I've been up to on youtube--

I wanted to play with using my brush pens to ink something instead of straight black. Joel liked the original sketch of this drawing. I think I agree? Not sure. I like color. I definitely smeared his poor eye though, you can catch that goof on video below.

4x speed

1x speed

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Mirror Mirror on the wall color version

Mirror mirror on the wall... who's got the cutest butt of them all! Oh do I love that fire-y hair. This was a fun sketch to warm up my marker skills on. I'm excited to work on more marker stuff now. This was on printer paper... not good paper for markers hah but I made it work. But don't worry, I did pick up a real sketch pad that's supposed to be good for markers so I'll break that in soon.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Watching you indifferently color version

This drawing became an experiment in multi-media. I started with a sketch on some old card stock paper. Then I inked it. Then I colored the figure in with Copic markers. But then I did something a bit different from my usual.

I colored the background in watercolor... madness! Not really but it definitely saved me a ton of time. I just wanted a simple orange background and didn't want to waste a ton of Copic marker ink on it. I got really worried though, while I was doing it, because the water made the page super ripple-y. So I sandwiched it in a heavy book for a couple days and thankfully it smoothed out rather nicely.

The stars are bit childish maybe... but I like them. I wish I'd done more haha.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Armored blonde elf

An throwback oldy! Hailing all the way from 2008. Probably colored in 2009. Still struggling with drawing hands...2018 haha.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Girl sitting and new Wacom

NEW WACOM AAAAAAAH! After so many years with my trusty Intuous 2 Wacom, I was gifted a glorious Wacom Pro for my 11 year anniversary with Joel. He knows the way to my heart... hah! Well this was the first sketch on the new Wacom. The sensitive takes some getting used to, I keep turning it up and down and messing with the hardness and opacity levels etc. But I'll figure it out. I was surprised I didn't goof up the proportions more in this, honestly. I was having the darnedest time zooming in and out all the time. But I found myself sticking around 100% zoom for the most part.

Joel was cute though - he says 'Nice!... No color?' and this was after me having like 2 hours with the new Wacom and I was like 'DUDE do you know how long it can take to color stuff!? It took me over an hour just to do the rough sketch lol'. I think he was misled cuz he's seen me do copic or watercolor drawings that take like 30 minutes to an hour (simple portraits) and assumed it was the same. Maybe for the pros who know all the tricks and have their hot keys and such setup in just the right way. But me? I gotta relearn how to use layers even hah. But I'm excited to do so.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Queen of Scots color

I hope you like red. Here's the color version of my 'Reign' inspired sketch of the Queen of Scots.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Serpentine lounging

These cuties were fun to color. What in the world was I thinking with the background color? Madness.

with love - M