Coffee Table

Just casual on the Coffee Table...

This project was done with Col-erase on Bristol board.

As before I started with the easy grid method.

I chose to start with the figure with this one, though later I thought it may have been better to start with the background. Again working left to right to avoid leaning on the picture.

Working up the body I decided to mark the ropes with a strong tone round the edges to make them clear.

I then did each leg a a single large area as there was little tone variation.

The rope on the legs as defined the same as the rope on the upper body.

Working along the shaded area under the figure I added the rest of the hair, the arms and the tone on the lower ropes.

With the col-erase pencil adding the dark tone for the shoes took a lot of work, and the highlights were needed for the contrast.

Like the shoes, the pole took quite a bit of shading, but with less contrast as the end was a soft rubber with less highlights.

Adding the coffee table took some time and I needed to change the areas I was working on to give some variation of tone.

Finally the leather sofa was added with a soft background tone and more darker tones were added to the figure.

OK, after scanning, balancing and uploading the image I decided that the wide view grain on the table didn't look right. The angle doesn't look so extreme on paper but I decided I needed to change it still.

To rise again

I wanted to draw another image of Veronika which led to this images. I also needed a background for her to be tied to, as part of the fixings were missing in the reference image, so I chose something related to the coming holidays.

This was done with Prisma color col-erase black and Bristol Board.

As usual I started with the easy grid method and some line work you probably can't see :)

I started this picture just before going away for the weekend. As I didn't want to break my flow for the main image I started with the background. Also working top to bottom, left to right the top of the cross made a good place to start. I really enjoyed doing the wood texture with this pencil as I could work it up slowly.

Once I completed the top of the cross it made sense to do the other two arms and the small vertical that could be seen to provide something to render into.

Moving on to the hair was difficult as the reference was a composite image and the tone of the hair was close to that of the wood. I needed to add some shade to the wood to differentiate the hair a bit.

My difficulties started here with the face. I added the features early as I normally do this to avoid loosing the details as the skin is rendered. However with this image the face was in largely in shadow so the facial features seemed too strong at this stage.

After adding more tone to the face I lightened it all again and decided to added the shadow on the arm and come back to the tones of the face later.

Moving on the breasts and the ropes provided more opportunity to work on the shadow tones and try to work out how the shadows on the face would work.

I worked on the sections of skin between the rope in the same way you color abstract scribbles at school. The upper led and waist area again provided an opportunity to work with darker shadow tones.

I then went on to add the shadow tones round the legs and started to darken the facial tones again.

Finally I decided that the shadows on the face were really quite dark in the reference and were about equal to those on the arm. So I went of there whole image a few times and darkened shadows and boundaries. 

I was torn in this image between keeping the dark shadow tones from the reference and making the facial features more prominent. At the end I am not sure quite how I feel about this one, and I make come back to work on it again in the future.

So I now have had another go and re-established the shape of the eyes.

Bank Holiday Weekenders

This personal commission was a real challenge, with the reference taken from a low quality phone camera.

The reference image was taken from a combination of shots, but each had a different light source which made this project extra difficult.

As usual this image started as a line drawing using the easy grid method.

I started with the hair as usual in order to void leaning my hand on the drawing. KT's hair was dark in this reference and was darker than the body reference and so I started of with a lighter tone to make it darker later on.

As usual I then completed KT's hair to frame the outline of her face.

To avoid loosing the outline of the facial features I added tone to KT's features before the main tones of her face.

Adding the skin tones really helped to add some depth to KT's face here as the dark features were looking a bit flat.

Moving onto the body I needed to try and blend the skin tones of the two reference images together. Also I needed to add extra shade tones where KT's hair and upper body would interact.

I then moved onto the lower tummy area as this was in shade and provided some much needed turning plains.

The rendering of the upper arm was very light and due to the light which made adding depth here quite difficult. I added some darker tones to this area later once tone was added to Bill's arm.

Will's arm added another opportunity for some more turning plains. The darker tone also helped to add some shape to KT's body. Bill's body was difficult to balance as the reference image had a dark skin tone.

Adding Bill's skin tones was rewarding as it helped to define the outline of KT's body and added some more depth to his body. Again balancing the dark skin tone to look caucasian was difficult.

Bill's face was probably the most difficult single part of this project as the light in the reference image was opposite to the rest of the references. This also make it difficult to define his lower jaw against the shaded skin tones.

Bill's hair helped to frame his face and add contrast to the reverse lighter tones. It was quite hard to show his thinner hair in profile too here.

To help consolidate the references I then added darker tones to balance the image before sending it to the happy couple.