Pen Practice

In order to Practice drawing directly onto my laptop screen and also drawing people digitally (something I've struggled with) I decided to create a concept piece based on a dream I had the previous night, where an old women on the bus was carrying the head of her husband in a jar. I managed to get the figure to a standard i'm happy with (i intend to make adjustments before calling it finished)

The outcome currently isn't as horrific as the image I dreamt, but hopefully when the piece is finished and comes together the environment will add a darker tone to the piece.

I started with a pen and pencil sketch, to guide my line work as I'm still getting the hand of my laptop. I went over this in photoshop using my pen. and then bucket filled the each individual pieces of clothing with colour and split them into separate layers for management.

For shading I tried many techniques, the first was using gradients, I kept this for a while but thought it looked too plain and added the bare minimum of texture to the piece. so i tried blending the gradients with soft brushes and erasers, this was an improvement but still had the same lack of texture. I ended up experimenting with brushes and was very happy with the results, it felt dirtier and rougher. I used a fur brush, textured brush and a flat brush.

This whole process ended up taking about 6 hours, which is not a speed I'm happy with considering the whole piece isn't even finished yet. Once i get used to all the shortcuts for photoshop and make use of layer locking to prevent mistake such as colouring out of lines, as well as the confidence of now having a piece of work that I'm happy with, produced using the new techniques, my speed of work should improve drastically.

A few critiques:

Hands - I've never struggled with drawing hands but doing it digitally proved to be a barrier that was taking up too much time for me, and since i'm on a schedule and this was only a practice piece that isn't for public viewing or use, I ended up settling on hands that definitely need redoing. Line work - This is one of the biggest threats for me, i am going to have to keep practising until i get used to the new pen. The lines in this piece leave a lot to be desired, they are very chunky, wobbly and to give them sharpness I had to use an eraser to reshape them, which takes up lots of time. whereas before using my old budget track pad they came out looking better naturally, which I assume is due to the sensitivity or perhaps the Tilt-support. or maybe even the brushes I was using.

Positives:

Colours - I'm very happy with the colours used, I don't think they look out of place and they all work together well.

Experimentation - I experimented a lot with this piece,\ with things such as glass, metal, water, texture, shading and so on... and while it took up time I think it taught me some important techniques, I also think that the experimentation doesn't show, which to me is a good thing.

Outcome - In general I'm happy with the current quality of the piece as a starting point. I now know I'm able to produce content in this working environment, and this should help me improve and learn more.