S Curves, Witches, and Varsity Jacket
Final painting |
It started with S curves. I have been studying images that caught my attention while browsing Reddit and Twitter, figuring out what attracted my attention. One element was S curves that span the width or height of an image. So I drew such an image.
As usual, I started with thumbnails.
Thumbnails |
From the top, the S curve starts with the hair, continues through the face and neck, and ends midway through the torso. I extend it to the leg to our right so that curve spans the whole figure. These sketches show the proportions I am most accustomed to (i.e. action manga proportions) as well as the kind of poses I naturally think of (i.e. action manga poses). Hence the clenched fists and "don't mess with me" expression.
I stubbornly added a magic wand because I wanted to stick with witches as a theme. The second sketch (on the right) gave me the idea of varsity jacket.
For background, I went for more curves, making it the theme. However, what concrete shapes would these curves take? I took inspiration from Ayane's drawings (see her works on Twitter). The long, curvy, blobby shapes suggest water; so I drew shapes with water in mind.
At this point I must confess that I forgot to scan the pencil. I did take picture of this work in progress image, in which the background elements were still in pencil.
Inking in progress |
Compared to the thumbnails, I softened the girl's expression. She had multiple earrings because she was rebellious punk; while the bracelet was a talisman, probably magical.
I do not have much to say about inking process, so here is the inked piece.
The inked drawing |
Next step was painting. I started with painting color thumbnails.
Color thumbnails |
Unlike with previous paintings, this time I liked both color schemes. I could only paint one, though. So I went with the one on the right. I do not recall a specific reason; maybe because it felt more like summer than the left one?
I tried to by conscious about warm and cool colors this time around. Usually varsity jackets have white sleeves, which may grab too much attention. I did not want this, so I gave the sleeves dark shades of orange. To differentiate the jacket from the hair, I made it red.
Adjusting jacket |
I experimented with what Marco Bucci called "color vibration". (You can watch his video on YouTube: How to Make Colors Vibrate.) I applied it to the background water. I liked it; my mistake was adding it too soon for this painting. I ended up painting over it later on.
Next, I inverted some part of the inked lines and made them glow lines. I found it great in adding interest to the image. (I feel I should be careful not to rely on this trick to much.)
Glow lines and vignette |
I painted cyan rim light to the hair to get cool-warm contrast even though physically it does not really make sense.
At this point, I arrived at the never-ending state in which I kept seeing things to improve or fix. Still, here are the major aspects I worked on to get to the final painting:
- Painted details on lower part of background water.
- Painted over the middle and upper part of background water. Bye bye color vibration.
- Painted blush on the face.
- Painted glow particles.
Final painting |
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