Analog in a Digital World

Its no secret that all of my pictures and artwork are done strictly by hand. I thought that was cool, and it had this 'old school' traditional feel to it. Then I've been to several other artists' blogs and seen their drawings on different internet forums and sites, and just about everyone was using Photoshop, Adobe this, Illustrator that...and all of these computer programs that really enhance their artwork. And by comparison, mine all looked so unfinished, amateurish, and just mediocre. But, unfortunately since I'm just 'starting out' in this art thing, I don't have damn near +$700 to drop on an editing program. Then I did some research and came across an open source program called Gimp....

Its cool, not very user friendly at first (cause it doesn't tell you ANYTHING) but after doing some research, and playing with it until almost complete meltdown and angry confusion and irritation (thanks babe for putting up with me) I made some sense out of it. I colored my blog avatar, which was black and white at first. Yeah....that's cool....still looks plain...and then I decided to move on up...

This here is a sketch I did with a Bic ball point pen (my new favorite sketching tool...get on it!!). I was content at just leaving it at a sketch and moving on. I thought it looked fine the way it was, but it could look better. So, let me take you through the art process...

Looks cool right? Yeah, I think I got a handle on crosshatching too...since I started doing it, like what....3 sketches ago? This was one of the pieces that I was gonna put in my sketch book. I thought about doing nudes, but I think I'm gonna stay away from that for now...maybe in the (crossing fingers if successful) next sketch book.
Here, I started coloring it...very sloppily too might I add. Color combo looks cool...diggin the blue swim suit...
And here I cleaned it up a little bit. Liking the color combination, and added the background. Looking good...but it looks really really flat and dull...like clip art...
I went a little crazy with the bathing suit, but I like how it turned out. I just gave it a light blue light reflection and a purple undertone so the bathing suit doesn't look as flat and gives it some character. It looks...pearlescent. Thats the word I was looking for. The skin is still looking flat though...
Here, I added some skin shadows and lights. The contrast between them is very stark though.
Here, I shaded the highlights of the skin to make them look more smooth, and added purple-ish tones to her hair to make it stand out more and fit the color pattern. The background looks flat, but its cool. This isn't the final version though...the final went to my Girl who was very patient with me, and so I gave her the very best version which isn't posted here. Why isn't it posted? Cause it would loose its 'specialness' if everyone saw it, thats why. But you get this version though...

In this one, I overlayed the original sketch over it to darken the lines again so it would stand out. I think the final makes the sketch version look so pale and boring in comparison.

Now that I'm sorta familiar with the coloring process now (this was officially my second coloring, the avatar was the first...), I think I might color alot more of my artwork.


This taught me two valuable lessons...
1.) Drawing with a mouse is fucking hard, and I don't like it AT ALL
2.) I need a Wacom tablet ASAP

...guess I'm not looking too amateurish now though, huh....



-Charles