Aly carnapped

Took a few weeks off from drawing before putting this one together. I've become good friends with Alysha since running into her on Deviantart. She'd kindly asked me for another drawing and as is my nature I told her I'd get around to it. Of course other things kept getting in the way or I just wasn't in the mood. Bless her heart for her patience.

Orginally she was supposed to be tied in the trunk of the car but I found that didn't work. Alysha has absolutely gorgeous feet (which I do not do justice here) and I wanted to show them. I would not have been able to do that at this angle if I had her in the trunk so instead I put her in the backseat.

One thing I did differently is that I drew the picture at full size. Usually I do the rough sketch at oh... 1000x1000 and then crop and such accordingly. After that I increase the size usually by about 250-300% for coloring and such. One of the problems with this is that the lines end up being rather thick and I dont like how that looks in a colored pic. The lineart is far less dominating here and im pleased with the result.

The big problem I ran into is what to have her wearing. As i've mentioned before I rarely plan these drawings. Usually I just have a rough idea in my head and sketch until I find something I want to work with. About the only thing I knew is that her legs and feet had to be showing. I debated between just putting her in a top, or a more secretarial look. It was Aly herself who suggested the little black dress and i love her for it.

The coloring went by much faster than I expected. I spent more time playing with the hues and such than I did actually laying the colors down. I really wanted to get a more uniform look to the color so I didn't push the contrast as much as I have in the past (see the last picture for an example of that).

Im not QUITE pleased with how the pantyhose turned out but I cant decide if that is because of the color or the lineart.

I got carried away, and then she got carried away.

Just finished this. It was done partly as another request for my new pal Aly, and as an updated profile photo. Five years ago (yeesh) I had done a quick B&W painting of a figure carrying way a woman. For the most part it ended up becoming my profile picture for yahoo.

I had kept meaning to do an updated version but kept putting it off until last week.

I wish I was actually as buff as the guy in this pic, but alas im not. Of course I wish i had a damsel over my shoulder but again... alas...

Forgot how long it took to do this, not very, at least not for me. I really need to practice drawing footwear. It's just that by the time the girls get around to 'modeling' for me they've worked their way out of their shoes!

This was done entirely in photoshop. I really should dust off painter and play around with that again...

Aly takes a turn... for the worse

This is Alysha. Poor girl was wandering in place that one such as her should not be. Went and got herself caught she did!
I usually end up doing something different everytime I do a picture. I wish I could say it was because im just some sort of avant garde genius, but really it's because I lack consitency =) The lineart took forever because I just erased from the sketch. Usually i go and retrace it for clean lines but i really liked how it looked. You can still see that it has sort of a messy ink sketch look to it and I decided to keep that.
The hard part was deciding how to color it. I went and layed down some flats and then just hit a wall. So i just started messing around till i got to this. It's not perfect by a long shot but i do like the overall look of it. I'll just call it an atmospheric piece =D
Took i dunno... 50 billion hours...

Twice (thrice) the fun

This is of my friend Jamie. Been a long time since I last drew her. I'd been meaning to but never got around to it till this weekend when I drew these. It was supposed to be part of a mini comic, there are two more unfinished drawings of her being chloro'd and then tied, but I didnt really like how they look and i completely lack composition skills. Dont let me decorate your house.
Sketched in photoshop, then I used painter to retrace the lineart, then back to photoshop to color. Dunno why I didnt color it with Painter, i love that program. I'm more comfortable with photoshop these days though and it's been so long since I used painter that I'd hate to have to relearn it, but thats on my list of things to do.
These were really fun to color, especially the unbound picture. There are some errors but nothing that drives me crazy. The only thing i might gripe about is that I made her too tall. She's a little thing but since i didn't bother to use a scale I jut have to hope thats implied. I never did get in the habbit of using the head's technique to draw (you know, like your standard superhero male is like 7-8 heads tall etc.)
Anyway enjoy :)

Sometimes all is right in the world.

What a difference a few days makes. This is obviously a follow up to my last drawing. Gemma liked that one so much she begged me to do another with the roles switched. I hadn't intended to do it so soon. Really I was just sketching around in photoshop and just kept working on one in particular and then huzzah, finishsed pic. Well it wasn't quite that simple but you get the idea.

Obviously things look a little different from last time around. The biggest difference is that I kept the lineart. Lately i'll just sketch out something and paint over it since the lines are usually too messy. This time I spent awhile cleaning them up so that I could use them. It was something I didn't orginally plan on doing but I went with it.

*EDIT* Can't beleive I forgot another rather important bit of info. Unlike last time i actually used a photo reference right from the get go

The coloring is different too. Not much of a change in how i went about doing it, i really just tried to go faster and not be as conservative with the colors. I have a bad habbit of working with rather saturated colors and then going back to mess with the contrast and such once the pic is complete. I didn't really have to do that this time around and im happy for that.

A small part of me wants to go and paint this without the lineart to see if it will look as nice... Hmmm...

The expressions are switched from the previous picture. I did intend that for the sketch but not in the final peice I had in mind.

I like that it turned out that way though. What little back story there is (as in what i make up while coloring) had Gemma escaping from the duct tape and turning on her roommate. There wasnt enough tape left for a gag so an old rag was used. The kicker is that Gemma took the own stuffing from her mouth and shooved it right into her roomie's mouth. You cant see it because the knotted rag blocks it ^_^

Here is another picture of Gemma and her roommate. She suggested some tickling which im a fan of so I didn't say no.

I wish I could say this was a fun one to do but it wasn't in the least. It took me the better part of a day just to get a sketch that I liked (partly because im just a slow drawer. I should work on that) and then the actualy painting was a pain.
This is the first color work i've done in awhile and I had forgotten quite a bit about how to do it. I think there is a certain blandness to the picture. Just haven't learned how to apply the techniques concerning details that I see other artists doing. Part of that may be the need for a larger tablet but damn those things are pricey.

I did apply some textures just to see how it would go and im satisfied with the results though i'll certainly need some practice. But at least this one is done.

Starting a new blog today that im hoping will give me a chance to go a bit more in depth on some of the art I do. I have a tendency to talk a lot but I'm a bit ashamed to say that I still have no idea how to create a website so I can't go that route.

This is my most recent drawing here. I did it for my friend Gemma and it is of her (the blonde) and her roommate. For the most part she left me free to draw whatever I wished but there were certain things she had hoped I would focus on, one of those being barefeet. She's one of those girls who likes to do a lot of fighting and she likes to get sweaty.
I forgot if there was a story behind this. Usually i just start doodling and see where things go (Which is really not a good way to do things no matter what it is you're doing, be it drawing or music or writing. You'll find much, much more success the more you plan ahead).

I do know that the background was a last minute thing. I rarely draw backgrounds and taken them into account in the initial sketching even less. With this drawing I just felt that a white or bland background wasn't enough. So i really just took a large brush (that would be a photoshop brush :) ) and started going to town with the intent of covering as much of the background as I could.

All-in-all I was very happy with how this turned out and I suppose if I wanted to I could go back and fix those glaring changes that still haunt me.