rainy days=all day sketch session!

It was raining cats and dogs yesterday. So much so that my job called me to stay home because i'd just be standing at my kiosk getting soaked. So I took the day to draw. I should've done something animation wise, but I wanted some immediate satisfaction, so I decided to start on some pre-planning for a portrait.

It always helps to have a great model and references, and she has all that and a bag of chips, lol! This is Ana Aesthetic; journalist, seamstress, model, actress, cosplayer, con-goer, and a great friend. She's got lots of great poses and costumes I love to look at and reference. But this pic I've been wanting to draw for such a long time because of how nicely those sepia tones might translate in walnut ink. I wanted to dive right in, but I don't want to waste the ink or the expensive paper, so I grabbed my sketchbook and went to work.














Plotting down shapes and getting the gist of the pose down on paper. I love the journey of a finished product, but i don't want to have my finished product to have any evidence of the prep-work. So I can make all my scribbles and mistakes here.

















Got the majority of the pose down, but I didn't like where the hand was close to her face; it looked too far away and the perspective seemed a bit off, so I moved that down and closer to her body. haven't drawn in the gun yet because I'm still trying to get an understanding of the body through that weapon, but there is some line work roughly indicating where it should go. I seem to be having some serious issues with her chest and that left shoulder (her left at least, lol) still seems a bit too wide for my liking.












Continued to futz with the shoulder and chest, kept moving the line work of her jacket to make it fall nicely. I think that was one of the contributing factors of the chest looking so weird. I was also adding in the piping and patternwork of her lacy top too early, so I got rid of it and just focused on the contours of her chest and waist.

Feeling a bit more confident of where things are being placed, I started to cement them by shading things in. I also started adding some more details to the face, light shading, but still not 100% convinced on the angle of the lips and chin. I started to add the gun on the paper but as I made corrections I was erasing too much of what I actually needed. (because apparently, perpective and I are not on talking terms, LOL) I never realized how awesome tracing paper was until my Tools of the Trade class. I use that stuff alot now.




Made some more revisions to her mouth and chin and shoulder, continued to shift her left arm closer to her body and am now working back on the chest, making sure there's some volume there because it still looked awkward to me. Also adding more shading to the areas that i think are ok, and still playing with the placement of that middle finger that's going to be underneath her gun (yeah, I know you still won't see it, but it makes me feel better that I know where it is, lol!













And here it is, on it's last sketching stretch. I've made some more alterations on the waist and its placement, I've been adding more contour shading than linework to the chest so that it looks rounded, added some of little surprises i found while scrutinizing that picture (like the hat above the giant feather and the checkerboard pattern on the cuffs of her sleeves) things I've yet to add are the cameo silhouette on the brooch next to the feather, the detailing of clip at the collar and the patternwork on her corset (although I'm completely at a loss as to how I'm going to do that...it confused the hell out of me) I've also done some more altering on her lip and chin...it kept bothering me, lol! The ear seems to have shrunk and her neck has gotten a bit stiff, but those seem like pretty easy fixes.






Now all I have left to do is to trace this baby on some nice arches paper, plot the shadows and get to painting!!! I can't wait to see what this'll look like finished!