I followed up on some of my next steps from last week. I went over that Echo sketch in colored pencil and twice in digital. The colored pencil sketch wasn’t what I wanted for a few reasons. The lines weren’t as crisp because it’s a softer pencil that makes wider lines, and I had to resharpen it so many times because anything less than fully sharp is not useable. It might work for full color things (which I hadn’t tried here because I hadn’t decided on the color palette yet), but I think I’m not going to do colored pencil as like a standard line art finish.
The digital went better. The first time I went though with a sketching line, and that looks as fine as anything else I’ve done. Because I’m more familiar with it already (having used to do that a lot over inked pages), I mostly noticed the hand strain. So I did it again with a continuous line, and that went well. I was worried about the smoothness of the screen leading to more hand wobbles, but I made out with relatively few by focusing on the elbow. I also took advantage of the undo button, which helped a lot; a similar pen drawing would have been faster, but I would have to digitally correct it when I over drew and redid part of it, which I do a few times per piece. The color fills with the digital lines were better, which is nice. I ultimately decided I prefer the second version, because the work is less taxing on me and I’ve come to like seeing the character of the lines that way. I can further work on different pieces, like varying the line width on different parts.
While I was doing the digital lines, I played around with different brush options, hoping to find something that could maybe challenge me and work better for the continuous line sketch than the basic round brush. I did not find the brush I wanted in that regard, but I did have a lot of fun looking at all the different options I wasn’t paying attention to before. I’m looking forward to trying out different looks for different visual effects and things I can do with them. This martial arts story I’m thinking about at the moment is going to call for some distinct flare, so it’s good to expand my options.
That was the weekend. Through the rest of the week, I’ve been doing character design work. I liked the outfit and expression I picked for Echo, but they did not look right, beyond being bald. I went back to the drawing board, and I still haven’t landed where I want. It’ll be a minute before I figure out the actual look. Echo is in a position in the story where if I find an intractable element in their design, I may have to rethink the entire lore and makeup of the setting, so we’ll see.
With that aside, I went to work on another character, Aster, and that’s gone better. I have a face I’m happy to move forward with, and a basic image for her wardrobe. I got started on a few drafts of a drawing of her punching, and it’s taken more effort than I anticipated. I changed it to a different angle I haven’t done before because I thought it would look more dynamic, and I think I’ve gotten to a better position on the red lines. Today, I’ll work on the pencils and see if I did it right. Aster has a really fun power for me. I had thought of it as a power for a nonbinary merfolk martial artist that was really specific to that lore. I was thinking one day, “Man, I’d really love to use that power.” Then I remembered, “Hey, I have a trans mermaid martial artist with no power.” So now Aster has a power. Depicting the very simple base element of it is also going to be a challenge, because I don’t think I’ve ever drawn it before. Drawing her with shapes only has also made me think about how much work I need to do with breaking down the human form, in particular, into shapes, and starting with basic shapes. I think I’ll end up with something fine by the end of this, but the sketch process itself felt sloppy and unguided.
Also, because I was thinking about Aster this week, I have to pose a question. I’m sure there’s a debate, if not consensus, on this issue I’m not aware of because I’m not a part of either the fantasy or mermaid communities: Trans mermaid or mertransmaid? Do we go with ease and simplicity, or do we focus on the part of the compound word that is in transition?
Weekly Art Blog 8/24-8/31/2024
Life in the Gutters 