Monday, December 21, 2009

Not Quite A Tutorial: The Beach With Sugar

One of these days I want to try my hand at doing some type of drawing tutorial. I have a deep desire to pass on some of the knowledge I've picked up over the years, but sadly, I really am a horrible teacher. I hope to overcome that in 2010, so for the time being, this little series of sketches will have to do, as a precursor to the big ol' festival of drawing knowledge yet to come.
Last Friday, my girlfriend, Sugar, and I celebrated the 2 year anniversary of our first date (Woo-Hoo!) and I wanted to make her a card. After running through a number of design possibilities in my head, and then sketching a few rough and quick thumbnails, I decided on one that I had tried to do the year before that hadn't turned out too well. The concept was sound, because we both love the Oregon Coast and make it over there as often as possible, unfortunately the execution was the best. For example, you'll notice that the characters came out okay, most of the background is all blotchy to the point of a full blown buggers-muddle.




One thing I've noticed is that my style has evolved quite a bit over the last year, although it is not as obvious in this quick rough version, seen below.




In this next version, you can see some of the style change I mentioned, it has become looser and more fun, at least in my opinion. Not too long ago I rediscovered the joy of drawing with colored pencils, a light color to start off with, and then I go over the lines that I like with black. By way of disclaimer, this technique looks a lot better in person, so yes, all of these images have been digitally manipulated.



Being that I'm a bit of a knothead from time to time, I forgot to scan the finished version before I gave it to, Sugar, but the version below is pretty much the pose I finally went with. I'm really looking forward to the coming year and this new style I'm developing, very retro, with a fair amount of contemporary snarkiness, if you know what I mean.



So, there you have it, thanks for stopping by.
Cheers!

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