Completed art project

Even though midterms are officially over that doesn't quite mean my work is over. Nonetheless when class was over Friday I felt as if a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. My last midterm to turn in was an art project I had been working on for over a week (the images below). Granted it didn't take me seven straight days to finish (probably 10hrs) but as I've mentioned before this piece was actually very annoying due to its size. Being that I live in a very small apartment this piece didn't fit on my desk, and in order to color everything I had to keep rotating it and re positioning it while not bending the paper too much.  Even though it was troublesome it eventually was completed after watching many episodes of Star Trek and was rather pleased with it. 

The meaning to this piece is simple but is something I try to live by in my personal life. The female represents yourself and everything behind represents all the trouble and experiences we go through in life. The clocks are an obvious representation of time and the monsters are a representation of our demons or the terrible people/experiences we encounter in our time. These monsters or "demons" try to drag us down and keep us from looking forward and having a positive outlook on life. Whether we encounter disappointment,  death, hate, sorrow, guilt or any other of these dreadful feelings we have to be strong and keep moving. The female glancing back tells us that we mustn't forget our past, we just can't let it drag us down. I didn't take a full picture but in front of her there is about 3inches of white space, that represents the future and our ability to control our future. The other human heads represent the people we meet in our lives whether they be a beneficial influence or not, they make us who we are today. In conclusion I wanted this piece to tell people that life is never easy but we can be strong and  make the best out of it.

Before I forget the materials used were: Prisma color, Poster color (gold parts), Comic book ink (black lines/areas)

I hope everyone was able to enjoy their weekend! Cheers!

If you're interested you can check out my DeviantArt and Facebook for more updates and artwork. 

The right mood for the right drawing

Whether you're doing commissions, working, homework or drawing for yourself you'll always find yourself one time or another having to draw something you're not in the mood to draw. For example you might have to draw a bad guy but at that moment your in a jolly mood and can't get into the groove of drawing something evil. You try but you fail to think up an evil pose or perhaps the clothing they are wearing and when you try they just don't look evil or ominous enough. When this happens to me I turn to music as the solution. If I really want to draw something well, I have to really feel what I want that character/monster to feel. I actually have playlists in itunes and pandora for the right moods. They are usually categorized like so: Emo, Happy, Sexy, Evil/angry/badass, sci fi and relaxing. This is going to be a bit embarrassing (for some parts) but I'm going to share examples of what I listen to. 

Starting off with "Emo" or emotional. Now emo isn't always something sad but can be something with just a lot feeling, perhaps a women looking out in the wind with a look of longing. Or maybe lovers reuniting after an epic battle, any of these can be put into the emo category. Lately I've been listening to a lot of Lindsey Stirling and Escala for this category. Their music is filled with lots of feels. But I find a lot of anime songs fit in this category also.

Next up is happy! Any art that is filled with joyous happy feeling. Anything from frolicking in the grass, happy couples, best friends together etc. all counts. Lately Ellie Goulding has been dominating this playlist. 

For sexy I usually go with upbeat party-ish music. I have a lot for this playlist it varies from Lady Gaga to Katy B. 

Evil/angry/badass I generally always go with jrock or rock but for badass I go with some hip hop.

This goes more along the lines of "badass" haha. 

Sci fi is probably not hard to guess what I'd choose but I go with techo. Daft punk, skrillex (if i'm in the mood), and trance. 

Last but not least, relaxing music. If I want to be very relaxed I'll listen to classical music but otherwise this playlist consists of fischerspooner, owl city, kate Nash etc.

Those are samples of what I listen to. I hope this helps someone who has artists block or someone who's in a pickle and just can't get into the right drawing mood! It's a good idea to create "mood" playlists or set up some stations on pandora. 

Have fun and keep drawing! Cheers! 

Prismacolor easy skin tone tutorial

Over the weekend I spent a large amount of time working on one of my art midterms. During the process I felt it would be a good opportunity to make a small tutorial out of it. In this tutorial I used Prismacolor pencils (set of 48), a mechanical pencil and a kneaded rubber eraser. I hope you find this tutorial helpful! Enjoy!

Step 1: First thing I did was draw a sketch. After drawing the sketch I used my kneaded rubber eraser and dabbed at the lines until they were substantially lighter. This can be done with a regular eraser.

Step 2: When coloring anything whether it be in black or white or color I like to start with a base color. Starting with a base color makes it easier to add colors and blend. The color I picked for my base was "Light Peach". I went with a very light color because I wanted her to have very fair skin. Again if you want a tan look all you would have to to do is use a darker color. It's also important to remember to shade lightly and not to add too much pressure on the pencil. 

Step 3: The next few steps I use slightly darker shades to enhance her face and shaded areas. As you can see in this step I used the color "Goldenrod"(yellowish brown) under the hair, under her neck, around her cheeks, the nose and eye area. Again I'm not putting a lot of pressure on the pencil just lightly shading. 

Step 4: Because I don't want her face to look too yellow I picked a pink color(Peach) and went over the shaded area like in step 3. 

Step 5: Using the same color as in step 3 (Goldenrod) I went over the shaded areas yet again but this time putting slightly more pressure on the areas I wanted to shade even darker. You can see these areas would be right under the hair, eyes and neck areas. 

Step 6: Here I did the same exact thing that I did in step five except with an even darker brown color (Burnt Ochre).

Step 7: Time to make things really pop! This is usually my favorite part of coloring, when you get to see your drawing come to life. For the even darker shading I used one of my all time favorite colored pencils, "Tuscan Red". For the eyes I picked two blues, one light colored and one dark colored (Light Cerulean Blue and Violet Blue). I started with the lighter color as a base then went over with the darker blue on the top of the eye leaving the bottom a lighter color. I didn't add pupils because I wanted her to have a dazed expression on her face, but if you wanted to add you would add now.

Step 8: Time to give this girl some lips! Again I start with a light pink base color (seeing a pattern here?).

Step 9: Darkening the sides of her lips I went over lightly with "Mulberry" and then went a bit harder at the very sides of her lips and center. 

Step 10: Using "Tuscan Red" I darken the very edges of the mouth and the very center. I used "Blush Pink" to highlight the top and bottom of her lip. The brown color "Burnt Ochre" was used to shade around her mouth.

Wasn't that easy? Once you get used to this process you can go on coloring just about anything. If you want to color a more sickly looking face all you would have to do is incorporate more blues instead of pinks and yellows. For a darker skin tone more browns instead of pinks. Whatever skin tone i'm painting I usually pick around two light, medium and dark colors. 

Here's the end result after adding eyelashes and hair color. One of my favorite things about Prismacolor is how the blending of many colors looks so eye catching. Her hair wasn't difficult to do at all. I started with a light blue base color then using long strokes went darker and darker leaving the highlighted areas alone.

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! Have fun drawing! 

Concept art and a big wip!

                                                                                                      Midterms are fast approaching so most of my work that I will be posting up will most likely be school work. The sketches below are an example of that. I'm enjoying a little bit of a break before midterms at the moment. During this time as much as I would love to draw from dawn till dusk I unfortunately have some school projects to finish. Granted most of my big projects are actually fairly enjoyable. My personal work will imaginably be done in between doing homework.  Moving  onward, the drawing above is a concept sketch. For those of you who aren't sure what exactly a concept sketch is, it's a visual representation of an idea or design. These sketches don't have to be a completed art piece but as the word says a "sketch". When I think up characters or creatures most of my females wear elaborate outfits; especially the queen characters. But thus far I haven't drawn out any of the outfits I create in my imagination till today. My first outfit concept sketch I wanted to be more on the simple but alluring side. There will be more to come! 
Below is a midterm project that's due in 2 weeks but since I like to get things done ahead of time I've been working on it while catching up on some TV shows. This piece is fairly annoying only because the paper physically does not fit on my desk. I really have no other option so I have work with what I have. The troubles of living in a tiny apartment! Just awhile ago I finished the sketch but I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to go about coloring it. As much as I would love to color this black and white with good ol' fashion sketching pencils, I know my teacher would be displeased. Anyhow this piece would pop more with color added to it. But whether I'll be painting on this or using colored pencils is yet to be decided. It's one of those moments in art when you draw something perfect, but because of that you're too scared to add color in fear of messing it up. I have faith though that the finished product will be eye catching.I'll keep you updated on the progress of this piece. Until then, cheers! 

Close up no.1

Close up no.2