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: Sitting on a ledge in color

Played with colors here. I like the skin. Fabric looks ok from a distance but I didn't get the smoothness like I wanted. Hair just fell flat. I don't have many purples. This was on thin paper so I couldn't rework the colors or overlay much at all without ruining the paper. Ah well. Still fun.

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: TBT - the Trio water, air, fire

Taking me back to college here. I remember working on this sketch for my illustration class. I was working on adding themes and little stories to my sketches. Obviously, these are some of the elements - water, air, and fire. But I think I also was meaning them to be representative of the Fates, too. Water is the old crone, steady and powerful. Air is the young maiden, whispy and wild. Fire is the matron, passionate and relentless. Or something like that. Sketched in 2007 but probably wasn't colored until 2009 when I started playing with prismacolor markets (before I discovered copics).

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Mohawk rainbow

That arm, those legs, that head! Proportions are for wimps, clearly. Throwback to 2008... that's almost 10 years ago, guys. A decade. Let us reflect on that.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: TBT - Vanity Fair boys

An oldy but a goody. I still love to watch the Vanity Fair movie with Reese Witherspoon, though I'm not a huge fan of her in a general sense, I felt like she was perfect for this character. Also loved the military boys - as seen above. Well, I gave them Utena colored hair but whatever. This was a fun small sketch done on card stock, meant for printing invitations and such, postcard size. 

I've been cleaning out my art/craft/sewing/book room and found the leftover blank cards. I might go back to doing small ones like this again to give away to people or to send with letters. I'd like to find little sleeves for them so they don't get damaged in transit but they're small enough to fit inside a sandwich baggy... so I guess that works lol. Let me know if you want one ;)

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

Sketch Diary: TBT - Japanese fashion girls

While I was in Japan I collected a few different kinds of fashion magazines. This drawing is based on some girls I saw in Ageha magazine. I loved how many of them had these gloriously over dressed nails. Jewels and gems and all kinds of little bits and bobbles glued to their nails. I don't think I could personally ever have my nails like that for more than a day at a time, I'm too often outside and in the dirt or working with paint and fabrics and glues. They'd get destroyed way too quickly on me. But the attention to detail and coordination of each outfit is really spectacular. I highly recommend exploring other countries' fashion and art magazines. Wonderful tools for inspiration.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: TBT - Orange hair is THE BEST

Ya know, as much as I get frustrated at certain things in this drawing  (that ear is wonky >.< and that neck belongs on a giraffe) I still can't help but enjoy it. There are a bunch of things about it that remind me of certain things I like to draw. Like genuinely enjoying drawing eyes, hair, and frilly clothes in particular way. The necklace seems really jarring, yeah? But at least I took my time with the purple top.

So I hope you've enjoyed this little throwback to 2011 (colored with Copics it in 2012).

with love - M