Okay the flag looked a little clunky. So I got rid of it, which meant I had to do something with her other arm. Plus I had to consider her light sources, so in the end I came up with this. Now to add a color layer and check it all out…
…success!
After a LOOONG work day, I came home and finished up some of the coloring for the bodywork. For me this is easier than everything that came before. The hardest part is knowing when to stop adding detail. Sometimes I go too far and can’t recover, but an artist named Warren Louw explained it to me.
Ha! Warren. If you had told me in the 80’s that one of my friends and mentors would be a white South Afrikaan, I would have laughed at you. I’m glad my world has grown. I was never prejudiced, but apartheid didn’t seem like a friendly environment to me. In many ways though, its a version of my beloved South.
Line work SUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKKSSSSSS! Still, the results are worth it. I’m kinda tired right now, but I decided to post this so you can see I’m not slacking off.
Once it’s done, simply make a selection of the line work and on a separate layer add your chosen color. You’ll probably have to invert it, so just use Ctrl+shift+I (invert).
Well that’s it.I’m off to bed. I earned it
Annnd we’re off! Really looking forward to this all week as I began work on a new piece. I decided to give it a little of the speed racer feel and driving skills not withstanding, make the talent into a born driver. So I worked on a pose to give her that dynamic quality of being girly, yet ready for action.
It still has to look like our lovely model, even in this new position so I create a matrix of her face and body to get the proportions correct. This will help later in case I want to make slight adjustments to her expression. Some of you already know the drill; head is 5 eyes wide, eyes are in center of total headspace, edges of mouth intersect center of eyes and ears are eyebrows to nose. That’s the mathematical representation of human symmetry and beauty!
No driver is ever the same without their awesome ride! Unfortunately, I forgot to save this image until I had already started line work! I HATE doing that part; I have nerve damage to my hands and it involves a lot of smooth flowing lines. Still, it has to be done and all the erasing is worth it in the end. As you can see, I’m grouping each aspect of the image individually. That way any changes I need to make to individual sections can be accomplished without changing the whole. Smart, huh?
This is the overall effect. Some aspects will change as I tweak the image, but for the most part, I’ve got a good base. Some design elements will clearly need to be addressed; I reversed the image and it felt a little clunky with the flag. However, I’m happy with the design and when complete, some cute little muse is going to have an awesome poster or t-shirt! For now though, there’s a lot of line work to do, so enjoy your weekend!
My supervisor seems to have a small issue with my screendisplay. He thought it was from Pandora, the movie. After I stopped laughing, I explained that it was actually a friend whose image I altered in Corell Draw some years ago. When asked why, I told him that she reminded me of the Lady Dorma, a character in the old Submariner comics.
Sometimes it’s easy to see where the journey with a character will take you. You’re just looking for a person to fit the theme. Other times, I’ll see someone and start fantasizing a complete backstory…
I guess what I’m trying to say is that this is going to be a shut-in type of weekend.
Meet the model for my next image! She was very helpful and friendly, plus the hair is muy awesome!
I guess you can say I’ve been busy, between personal and natural disasters. I suck at wiring, so it’s going to be done elsewhere…still, not bad.
Howly Time! 