Blog: The little touches

Hiya, everyone! Hope you're having a good week.

For the first time in forever, I've had the time to really just draw what I want. Sure, I still have Yearbook work on my plate, but with the way I've sorted my workflow, I can quickly roll them all out once all the sketches are done--and the sketching usually doesn't take all that long.

So here's this Caeda drawing that I've shown before. It's obviously a rather different flavor than what I usually do, but I love giving myself weird challenges like this. Obviously I'm getting near the finish line, but I didn't quite get to hit it today. After all, it's important to pace yourself, and so I've been limiting myself to 3-4 hours of drawing a day.

On the other hand, that makes for a good opportunity to show off all the little finishing touches! The majority of the shading is here, and I'm fairly satisfied with how it's turning out. I'm not super consistent on how much I keep hard shadows and how much I use the blend tool to make them all soft and fancy--it's always a little different for each drawing. 

What's still missing are the little things; Caeda's and the pegasus' eyes still need to be shaded, which is always one of my favourite parts of a drawing. For some reason, eyes are just a wonderful, deep canvas. I often end up with four or more layers when it comes to them, just to make them look alive.

Caeda also still needs highlights added to her hair as well as a little bit of a blush to make her cheeks stand out more. They really are small additions, but they do so much to add depth. I should post a before-after comparison of some of my drawings sometime.

In other news, I've finally reached the point where I can do warmups! I used to balk at the idea of spending time drawing something that wasn't my current project because it would just take away from what I should've actually been doing, but it looks like I've become good enough to counteract that. Doing a little sketch for fun really helps me to stretch my hand muscles and my brain before diving into something as taxing as inking and shading a big massive drawing with, say, a winged horse...

It's really encouraging to reach milestones like that--for you fellow artists in the audience, it's always important to remember that everyone you look up to is just another human being who had to start somewhere, and if their work looks incredible and out of reach, it's just because they've been at it for a long time and you haven't quite figured out how they do it yet. You'll get there, just as I'm getting there! Now if I can just figure out people who brand clearly finished drawings as "sketches..."

That's all for my update, but don't forget about the other stuff going on! There's still a poll running until the end of Friday, and it's an exciting race! Will it be Mio or Rhea who gets to be tied up in a swimsuit, or can Stella make a comeback? Or maybe fans of Claudia, Tifa or Hanekawa will suddenly come out of the woodwork?

Of course, I'm also doing another livestream on Picarto on Saturday evening--I'll post about it when it happens, so you can't forget! See you there! ^.^