Portraits of a drunken, cross-dressing elf (art thread)

[Kairanha]

Thanks. Day 2. Now I've just got the hair and some shirt left to do, but I hate doing hair so I'm going to procrastinate for a while. >>;

I lived in Oregon for nearly 18 years, but never made it that far north. Went through Seattle for some flights though.

 

[ThisEmptySoul]

If the hair that's been shaded on the left is any indication of how the rest of it will be done, I think it's going to come out fine.

Are you just using one type of pencil or do you have different types to use?  

[Kairanha]

For now I'm using two pencils, a 4H and building up shadows with a B. Once I'm done I'm going to add more contrast where it's needed with a darker grade pencil, something like a 4B or above. I have a set of 8 pencils, but I rarely make use of them all.  

[ThisEmptySoul]

Same.... actually, I don't think I've ever made any use of mine. They're just collecting dust sweatdrop But they're great for this type of work which is why I was wondering.  

[Kairanha]

It's easier for me to only use a few of the set. I've got a general feel for how much pressure I need to use to get a certain shade and it's easier to blend shades/gradient effect when I'm not switching pencils for each shade (going on the 10 scale. 0 being white and 10 black). The 4H covers 1-3, the B covers 3-6 so it's why I only really need a few pencils. With varying pressure they cover almost every shade I need. I keep it simple and understand what my tools can do. 3nodding  

[ThisEmptySoul]

Makes sense. I imagine switching pencils often would get tedious and probably not produce the desired result as effectively as just changing pressure.

I did a lot of switching of tools last time I inked with pens sweatdrop Probably switched sizes more often than necessary because I haven't previously worked with having 5 different sized pens. Most drawings can probably be done with just two sizes, and the majority of it being just one size. sweatdrop  

[Lil Brat]

*Blinks* Switched tools? Sounds interesting... ninja twisted  

[Kairanha]

This is how it turned out. sweatdrop

 

[ThisEmptySoul]

Oh no! It turned out sideways!  

[Kairanha]

I don't know why it's been doing that. On my computer and facebook it's aligned normally, but it's only when I upload to photobucket that it wants to turn it sideways, but it seems to correct itself after a while. neutral  

[ThisEmptySoul]

Well, it came out pretty well in any case. It's easy to tell who it is {always a good sign when doing realism}, though I'd probably try smoothing out the streakyness of the darker shading by taking a tissue and smudging it around a bit. Of course, I'm also an abuser of smudging ninja  

[Kairanha]

This may be bad of me as an artist, but aside from the face I really don't care enough to put in any more effort into the rest xp so the rest can be sketchy as long as the face looks nice... that sounded much better in my head before I wrote it down... maybe I should put in more effort after all. I used to be better about things like this... or was it just when I was drawing women that I was more concerned with the whole picture?  

[ThisEmptySoul]

Women have boobies and it's always nice for the boobies to look good emotion_awesome

For me, after working on a picture for a certain amount of time, I end up losing ambition and kind of even rush because I just want it to be done already. In which case, it's best that I start on the parts of the image that require the most attention first, namely the face and skin in most images. Should probably start doing the hair closer to the beginning too, now that I think of it sweatdrop  

[Kairanha]

((and now it's fixed :/))

Looks like I more or less got my next target chosen. Since I don't much feel like drawing clothes this time around maybe Xan would make a good subject though it's probably going to be something I can't post on Gaia. *grins*  

[ThisEmptySoul]

Artistic nudity isn't against the TOS ninja