Week 4: A Little Bit of Patience

At some point today, probably while working on that metal cylinder, I was convinced that I would never finish this thing. But finished it is and relieved I am. One of my possible ideas for Week 5 was just a setting/background study but after this thing you can forget that. I'll do something more relaxing and save the environment study for later.

So even though it did take me a whole week to do, it's a relief to be finished before Wednesday because I have a day to relax and decide what to do next.

This actually turned out nicely and I'm considering selling art prints of it.

Oh, and as a bonus here's a screencap of just the background:

Week 4.4

I'm just kind of trudging through most things today, including drawing. I finally decided to take a break after I finished shading her clothing. I know her pants at least need more contrast and I'm sure her hair needs work but I'm too distracted by other things to worry about it. Hopefully I'll finish it up tomorrow.

Week 4 Got Lost on the Way

On Wednesday, the day originally intended for starting the drawing, I filled in the flat colors on Bit. Then I neglected it on Thursday and Friday and did a little bit of shading and highlighting today, but don't have a preview of that version saved.

The flat color version looks nice, however, so I might as well share it. It would be nice to have this all finished tomorrow and be able to start early again. I'm going on a trip in about two weeks so being ahead would be awesome.

Week 4.2 - Two For One

The inking was quite the labor-intensive step since I was being super-finicky with it all. It certainly paid off though, and to make sure everyone can see all my hard work clearly, I'll post the inked version before I pasted it onto the background that I drew last night.

The background's pretty simple right now and I'm okay with it. I'll poke around online later tonight and see if I can't find any good splatter brushes for SAI to dirty it up with. I also need to figure out a lighting source. Originally she was going to be at the front end of the alley way with a light affixed to the right building but now I gotta figure something else out.

I'm hungry.

Week 4 Catches the Worm

Since I had the motivation to do some concept sketches yesterday and the time to start the actual drawing today I figured "why not?" It's a two-day head start which I think this drawing will seriously need in order to be finished on time.

My sketches on paper are strong, but my backgrounds are better when I do them digitally. However, when I try to combine a traditional drawing with a digital background, it looks terrible. So, let's take a step out of the traditional media part and just do the base sketch on paper and then ink and do everything else with Paint Tool SAI.

I plan to start the background later tonight, but I won't ink Bit until I've had more time to look over the sketch and find any glaring anatomy errors.

Week 40 Finishes Late

This should have been done at least three days ago, but I was distracted with things and ended up pacing myself more than intended. All the same, it turned out nicely, though Bit's skin is a great deal darker than I planned. My lavender marker was dried up, and while I'm not used to her being colored quite like that, it does look interesting.

Week 40's Inking Job Actually Doesn't Suck

When it came time to ink this one I was determined not to ruin it like I've done so many times. So I focused, leaned a lot closer to my paper than I needed to, steadied my hands, and went for it. My focus and hard work paid off in that I don't totally hate it now that it's cleaned up and inked. The goal for today is to finish coloring and find some lazy excuse for  a background that doesn't look like a lazy excuse for a background.

Week 40 Is Smokin'

Well technically Bit is smoking. A week can't smoke unless someone lights a calendar on fire and then things just get messy.

Thus far I'm really pleased with how this is turning out. It's been a while since a drawing of her just "felt" right, and this one does. Maybe it has to do with finally having a job I love that also allows me the time and energy to be myself.

I will admit, however, that I am scared to death of inking and coloring this at the risk of destroying it.

Week 40 Rolls In

This is my third year doing my weekly art blog, but the first year that I've made it very far past the halfway point back in June. I may not be dead on with which week of the year it is, but if I'm not I can probably squeeze out two drawings a week once or twice if need be.

This week I'm attempting to draw Bit again, and so far she's being far more cooperative than last time. She's sporting some suspenders and a tie this time around (And yes, a shirt), because I wanted to draw woman looking confident, and Bit is probably the most confident character I have, male or female.

Week 38 Is... Something

I had great plans for this week's drawing, but I'm currently balancing two jobs (and will soon be leaving one), so understandably it's taken a while for me to have the time and motivation to start the actual drawing.

My original idea was to do something fun and action-based, but after a few pages of warm-up sketches I tried to start four different times and all of them were terrible. So no action pose. Just something... pin-up-y. Almost. This will be a drawing of Bit and she's not one for showing much skin.

Her arm's already suffering the "I have no idea what's going on" syndrome, so that's the first thing I'm going to change when I next pick it up. Also the image is really dark on Blogger and I don't know why.

Week 21 Is Expressive

Despite how much running around I did today, I was able to sit down for a while and finish up. "Sad" isn't an expression Bit has very often. Her usual default "not happy" mood is angry. Maybe that's why drawing her with that expression felt so unnatural. This is also the most I've drawn her without a cigarette.

Week 21 is Gasping For Air

I apologize for the lack of updates over the last few days. Things were busy and exhausting, as they will be this coming weekend as well. Sigh.

Oh well. This is a blog about art, not  usually about my crazy life. That being the case, I made myself take a seat at the table today and draw more Bit faces. I decided to take it down to five different expressions rather than six in the interest of space and of finishing it by tomorrow night.

Week 21 Gets Angry

"Angry" is a common facial expression for Bit. She has quite the temper. You'll notice that when I finish one drawing I stop after doing the base structure of the next. The reason is that if I do too many facial expressions in one setting, they inevitably become sloppier as I lose interest.

I'm shooting for 6 different expressions here.

Week 21 is Back in the Ring to Take Another Swing

Maybe I should make a point of quoting some famous/classic rock song at least once a week. Maybe.

Anyway, finally settling in some and back in the drawing saddle! This week will be a character expression sheet of Bit, since I've already a done a full-body rotation. The neutral, forward-facing drawing will be colored but the rest will be simple line art.

One of these days I should learn how dreadlocks really work and figure out exactly how many she has.

Week 12 Is Too Tired for More

So there you have it. One very angry female alien mechanic who is ready to impale someone with that odd-looking wrench. Maybe some rich idiot is mistreating the car she just spent several hours repairing. I think I let myself be too carried away by her arm muscles and shoulders but there's another lesson learned. Also that dreadlocks are terrible to ink digitally. I'm willing to bet that took the longest.

I went ahead and finished today because tomorrow starts fun weekend times and there's no way I'm going to want to work on this.

Week 12 Gets Some Color in its Cheeks

Her forehead is still huge but her face makes more sense now. While working on it I also realized that her hands were kind of odd so I fixed those as well. Her hand with the wrench is at an odd position, however, but I'll fix that later. Apparently the background can't stay gray because there's so many cool colors already, but I'm short on alternative ideas. Sure not doing her workshop. Too much work.

Week 12 Is One of Those Delay Fish

No, of course I don't want Pixar movies on a regular basis. Whatever gave you that idea?

Inking this was far more labor-intensive than expected, mostly because of her dreadlocks. Her face looks completely off and wrong but I'll fix it tomorrow. I think her facial features are too low, too small, and somehow not "her" enough.

Week 12 Lags

I had grand plans for Week 12 but they weren't cooperating. It's just as well I suppose. It's not Spring Break anymore so I no longer have an abundance of free time. So instead of an amusing idea given to me by friends on Twitter, it's going to be a simple picture of Bit... again. I don't feel like the character turn chart showed her shape that much, so that's what this is for. Simple but do-able at least with the papers I need to write.

And for the record these papers aren't due for a good month at least so I'm not procrastinating.

Week 9 Is Looking Fine and Finished

Here she is in all of her semi-armless glory! It's common on character turn sheets for the side-views to be shown without the arm so that other details can be seen. I know, it looks really weird.

Also, I'm pleased with the progress on my Crime and Punishment painting. The lighting is cooperating beautiful and his skin looks consistent and smooth. There's still a lot to be done on the table items and his shirt but that shouldn't take too long. My class has an in-progress critique on Wednesday.

Week 9 Leaps Ahead

I apologize for not updating more recently since I started this. I haven't touched it much and have no intention of coloring it, so it's nearly done already. Mostly I'm just correcting my several inking mistakes. Originally I thought of adding larger images of her face, but decided those would be better saved for their own drawing.

Doing a turn-around of a character and keeping everything the same size and in the same place isn't easy.