Love of everything infinite and loud.

The Scarlet Wizard

2006-08-14T07:43:00Z

Title: The Scarlet Wizard
Character: Harry
Rating: G
Medium: photoshop, tablet
Notes: I'm rather proud of this picture, if only because it took much less time to draw than usual, it's my first real colored drawing, and has an actual background! (Though I punk'd out on the scenery...ocean view, pfft!! XP)

And a close-up...

You can see the beginnings of this drawing here. Quote from Pigment through the Ages, a fascinating site about the history of colors. I'm such a geek for any kind of history :B!

And lest I forget, here's a pimp of my first challenge! I'm on Team Romance, but it took me forever and a day to decide, hee.

Announcing:
The 2006 SNARRY ART OLYMPICS!!

GAMES BEGIN SEPTEMBER 16-18, 2006!

Come and support your favourite artists, and their teams!

The Scarlet Wizard mini-tutorial

2006-08-11T10:50:34Z

I'm working on a drawing of Harry called The Scarlet Wizard, and have decided to screencap the first few steps. This isn't really a tutorial, since I'm not technically teaching anything...but if anyone gets anything out of it, so much the better! I hope to have the drawing finished by Sunday, but who knows, haha.

Dial-up users, beware!

I start with a neutral background--black and white backgrounds have a tendency to fool the eye when colors are layed down on them. I like using a beige-brown to start off, and then quickly sketch with a darker brown.
(Please ignore anything written/drawn in white. I was on crack XD In fact, I erased most of what I wrote because a lot of it wasn't appropriate ;D)

Then I, um, sketch a body completely out of proportion. This is what I draw like without references! DX Again, I do this very quickly, just to get a more concrete feel for the shape of the body.

*cough* I don't know why I chose neon pink, but I did. Each new sketch is done on a new layer, and I usually have around 6 layers of sketches, for reasons I cannot fathom! Here, I sketch out the robe without thinking too much about where it ought to drape or gather. I don't need to worry about it being accurate until after I get the body more proportioned and figure out exactly how I want the body posed.

I quickly put in a background.

I block in some colors because:
1. the neutral brown was getting on my nerves XP
2. to test out possible colors for the environment (bright red/brown/purple, yeah, ew~ what was I thinking?)
3. because it's fun :D

Here comes the real fun! This is where the drawing really starts taking shape. I browse reference books, flip through art books, take pictures of myself in various poses, and finally decide what I want the character to look like. I reduce the opacity of the brush (sometimes as low as 5%, sometimes as high as 65%) and start shading! I use darker and lighter shades of red, but add in a little orange and purple. I work the shading and drapery over and over again. I try to avoid the smudge tool since I don't like the way it looks, but it's a quick way to blend shades.

I start to draw cleaner black lines on a new layer, slowly erasing the sketchy ones. (But because I have a shakey hand, these lines come out...a little wobbly, hee.) And finally a face! I usually sketch a head/face in at the beginning, then keep redrawing them.

I start to smooth out the shades and highlights, clean up the black lines some more. And, um, go a little too far with the piercings XB I'm reworking the drapery again, since there was too much dark in there before. I often have to go backwards (i.e. lighter) since I'm rather heavy-handed with shadows. I'll put more shadows in later, and try to make them more subtle.

I cut out the too colorful background to see what the robe's colors look like against the neutral brown. I see that I accidentally lost the orange and purple in the robes and will add those in later. Also, the shading doesn't match the lines of the drapery, hahaha. Whoopsie~

But I repeat these steps over and over again in the drawing. As you can tell by my billion sketches (there were four more I didn't bother to screencap), I'm not very good at lineart, so I sorta work backwards by defining shape before drawing lines...That sounds weird...

Anyway, some common tips:

Flip the drawing to check proportions! I don't do this as often as I should, but it really helps.

Grayscale (Image-->Mode-->Grayscale) your drawing to easily see if you're using a variety/equal number of lights, darks, and grays. It creates a more balanced composition if you've got a little of everything, but this is definitely not always true.

Take pictures of yourself to use as reference photos. Sometimes I take pictures of myself in a difficult pose, and sometimes it's to see how certain clothes drape on the body. I also take a lot of pictures of my hands.

Think your drawing looks too flat/dull? Add more highlights/shadows, or add more color to the highlights/shadows. You'd be surprised at what a little purple in the shadows could do.

Harry in Moonlight

2006-08-01T04:36:06Z

Title: Harry in Moonlight
Character: Harry
Rating: G
Medium: photoshop, tablet, a reference pic too!
Notes: Happy birthday, Harry! Good thing I started this weeks ago, or my laziness would never have finished it in time :D.

I like the face, but the black background is (obviously) a bit of a cop-out XP. As is the lack of neck and lack of hair, though I swear I initially drew a neck and everything...The quote's from Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise. The whole paragraph, which is one of my favorite parts of the book, is:

Don't let yourself feel worthless; often through life you will really be at your worst when you seem to think best of yourself; and don't worry about losing your "personality," as you persist in calling it; at fifteen you had the radiance of early morning, at twenty you will begin to have the melancholy brilliance of the moon, and when you are my age you will give out, as I do, the genial golden warmth of 4 P.M.

Oh, and I always, always, always forget his glasses! I uploaded this and everything before I even noticed, haha. And just as a note--I adore, adore texture, which is ironic because my artwork usually (almost always, grr) turns out smooth, like this picture.

Here is Harry before I smudged everything:

I like that better, but I'm always smoothing things out anyway XB.

TimeTravel!Harry/Younger!Albus

2006-07-17T02:43:41Z

My secret lovepairing is TimeTravel!Harry/Younger!Albus. I can't art up anything of worth lately, but at least I can sketch these two crazy cats together.

There are people with a jewelry fetish, others adore socks (I went through that briefly), some long for designer jeans, and my mother collects pens and bags. I. Adore. Jackets. Ohmygod. Harry's wearing a jacket I wish I was capricious or wealthy enough to bid for on eBay, but I shall keep my memory of its loveliness alive through this sketch!

Oh man, write me this pairing and I will draw you art !!! (Nevermind that I'm kinda rather sorta mentally blocked at the moment, err.)

(Buy me this jacket and I'll let you borrow it on even numbered months :D)