Sketch Alert: Still in concept.

Hey again!

Before you get your tea (or something else) ready...this post is not why I didn't choose Arts. I'm still writing that post and I have to tweak it here and there. I promise the next post will be about that ^_^.

I got some Jean Grey/Phoenix sketches for you! This drawing style is slightly different and I'm still sketching and learning, but I though it would be fun to show you two examples. I came across a really cool illustration from Mike Maihack (Do check out his site if you have the time). He is a really cool illustrator! His Jean Grey phoenix illustration caught my eye (scroll a bit down and you will see the image). I thought it would be fun to recreate it, eventually in my own way. Personally, I find the Phoenix really interesting. A mystic fire bird, that never dies and which rises again from its own ashes. Whenever you see the Phoenix as illustrations, it has this air of freedom, fierceness and strength. But on to the sketches! First I used Mike's image as reference and I created this:


And what I like about studying new illustrations and techniques, is that after you used images as a reference, the lining you placed on paper to recreate the image is mixed with what you already know. And therefore you refine your own techniques. Ha! ^_^. But okay, I created my own Jean Grey Phoenix sketch. One of the sketches looks like this:


I drew this at the corner of a paper and I didn't realize that I liked the way this turned out ...after I stopped drawing. So I didn't have enough space to draw the entire Phoenix. Still in concept, but in the end I will create a larger watercolored version of this. But this is what I love the most; the rough sketching, to create something new. Oh! I also have some chibi versions in mind. Of course I will show you these as well.

Hope you liked this sneak peek of this different way of drawing. Lately, I sketch all my ideas in chibi style, because of the time issues I have hehe. I will definitely post more of this in the future (I have a bunch waiting already), but I have to get more familiar with it (practice, practice, practice). Stay tuned for the final version (which will come eventually...).

Ciao!

PC fights, flying papers & lost pencils

So yeah, the last few weeks...

Where did I put it?!

Yes this sentence seemed to be the slogan of the last few weeks. I had major problems with my laptop and besides that....I also had some trouble with my drawing material...more specific, my pencils. I seemed to misplace each and everyone of them! I think I ran around the house dozens of times, because once again, I misplaced stuff. You might start to wonder, why I didn't grab another one...well the thing is that I have a few favorite pencils and I have a pencil case where I keep them, so if I lose the pencil case...I lose them all =_=''...

There are a few pencils that simply work great every time you use them or at least in my mind my drawings come out more fluently (oh the limits I place upon myself....). I have several made of Chinese newspaper, no specific brand and these work simply perfect. I think everyone has their own favorite brand/type off pencils. But I misplaced mine...aah the horror! I turned everything upside down. I ran up and down the stairs, I even searched in the garden, even though I knew for sure that I didn't went there, but I just had too look and to stripe 'the garden' from my mental 'where to look' list. It was a typical ‘tear the place apart’ scene, flying papers, feathers, pillows, you know the works. And then finally, I find it in a place that simply placed question marks above my head. I mean, how can it end up between the couch? I mean I work in my room at my desk or at the diner table...not the couch! Honestly, how does it come that when you lose something you find it in the strangest of places?! You have no memory of it whatsoever…it really feels like I have a blank spot in my mind…if this is the case then my mind is full of gapes…because I tend to misplace quite a lot these days ^_^’.

But back to my favorite brand. That is Sakura. I have the Pigma Sensei set for drawing Manga.

you see...my enemy...my laptop...

I love these!!! They are really great! Slide easily over the paper and doesn’t stop when you use it over pencil lines and more importantly it doesn’t fade when you erase the pencil lines (do you guys hear a commercial tune?). I also have two Pigma Micron fine liners, size 02 & 08. Also very good and great for details. These are the pens/fine liners I use at the moment. What are the brands you guys use?

But about drawing I have made several sketches again as you can see. I’m really in a sketching phase right now, because I need to divide my time between lots of things now, so I don’t have a lot of time to work it all out. But I do need to get all these images out of my head haha and I will work them out eventually though, don’t worry! So my drawings will consist mostly of pencils or fine liners, perhaps a touch of color here and there as reference.
You know what's fun to draw? Chibi Geisha's. Have a look at a few sketches below, they are so cute ^_^!

I'm thinking of giving her an umbrella...

I love cherry blossoms. The soft pink/white colors of the petals are beautiful!

I like the first one ^_^

I think, I will turn these geisha's into cards. They would look great for invitations if you have a themed (birthday) party!

Well that's it for now. Stay tuned for more updates!

Talk to you guys later!

One Wedding card...coming up!

Hey guys!

Aarghh...I thought that I already posted this blog...turns out that something went horrible, horrible wrong...I forgot to plug in my adapter for my laptop hehe....sooo suddenly all I saw was darkness and I could almost hear a sad tune on the background....byebyee nicely made blog...

@ Hevn: very sorry! The idea was to upload this new blog when I replied all comments, soo then you would have seen the final result. Haha I bet my comment didn't make much sense did it? *Hmm where's TJ's blog then? I was supposed to see the final result -_-'...* To all other readers, who don't know her blog...please check it out! She writes really cool!

How are you all doing? Sorry it has been a while since my last post…had big fights with my PC and my thesis took up a lot of time. And usually at the end of the day I was too exhausted to do anything else. Very annoying and the thing is that these fights or sudden workloads usually happen when I want to do a lot of other things...fun things....Don’t you guys hate it when that happens? Anyway, everything seems to be fine now (little bro fixed it ^_^) and I placed on my wishing list to buy a new PC/laptop. Yeah…that can take a while though...

So what’s new? Well, besides troubles with my PC (I’m giving it a stern look right now, can’t do anything more though…what if it gets offended and stops working again!?) I finished my card!! Woohoo! It’s finished and given away!! Yes the wedding was last Friday and I made a small picture show for you guys so you can see how it eventually turned out. But first a bit about the wedding day itself. It really was a beautiful, they both looked very handsome in their suits and I have to say...it was like a normal wedding, only instead of a bride and a groom, you had two grooms hehe. And it was a day filled with happiness and love from everyone who came. I was really happy for them! And funny thing! I already saw the suit of one groom, because I met them a week before the wedding and they just bought his suit. It was dark grey, so I decided to give him in the illustration a dark grey suit, it only make sense right?! Well, I didn't know the color of the other suit and I couldn't come up with a reason why I it would be nessecary for me to know the color of his suit...I would only make him suspicios. So to avoid all of that, I gave him a dark blue suit. And you know what! He wore a dark blue suit and his hair in the same way I drew him!! I felt so in touch with my psychic abilities haha ;) *floats on a cloud*

But lets have a look at the pictures! First I made the card with a wedding cake, two glasses champagne and a champagne bottle. But still I didn’t get the right vibe from the drawing. Wanna see?

Well, yeah, not sure if you can see what I mean, but something wasn't right. I made several sketches and in the end I decided to leave the cake out of the drawing. I think it was just a bit too much. So I was left with the couple, champagne glasses and a champagne bottle and finally I was happy with the final sketch, so I drew the lines with a waterproof marker and gave the first watercolor wash.
Then I gave the drawing a second wash. Just to intensify the colors a bit. You know I always have the idea that a drawing looks childish or...I don't know...not quite right when I color them. Perhaps it's because I like rough sketching more than colored pieces, at least not colored by myself...there are many other illustartors/artists who are magicians with coloring. But okay, I was quite happy with the watercolor, I just wanted to give a touch of color. When it all dried up, I gave it a touch of gold here and there and then I assembeld the card. See the final result *drums*....

Tadaaaa! Well? What do you think? I have these really cool gellyroll pens 'Gold Shadow' from Sakura. I used this to give it a subtle touch. The inside of the card I wrote an inscription for them and not a whole story with how happy I was for them...I wrote that in a seperate letter hehe. But the inside looked like this:

The two rings you see as a watermark is from the back. There I drew two intertwining rings and colored it in with a gellyroll pen. These pens ink very fluent and the end result was pretty cool! Around the rings I wrote their names and the date of their wedding. The back looked like this:
















Soo do you like it so far? here you can see the card in its full glory.....


After this I wrote a separate letter, inserted some goodies for them and placed it all in a fancy envelope and tied a ribbon around it...and yeah I forgot to make a picture of the final FINAL result....please forgive me ^_^"....

I hope you like it. I will tell you about my other projects in my next blog, which will be posted tomorrow, I hope...

Write you later!

Part 1: A little bit about me: Drawing

Let me tell you a little bit about…drawing! I love to draw!

I will only tell a few things, because I can go on and on and on… Not too long ago, I just drew what I wanted, made cards for friends for birthdays and so on. Lots of people love handmade cards and my friends were really happy when they got one, but I have to say that when I see the cards back (I make a picture of each one, just to remember what I drew, don’t want send out double cards hehe), I got annoyed by the technical mistakes. (Really, I was like looking around to see if my friends weren't in the room, so that I can snatch the card and throw it out of the window....okay, I've never done that before, but I would do it, if I could, but I can't -_-'. But I guess, it's like that for most people who draw and see old drawings and are like "Did I really drew that and gave it away :|" The horror....

So the last months, I’m reading up drawing books and learning about techniques and so on. I try to make a few sketches each day, just to stay in the drawing mood and practice is the best way to learn drawing. The first time I seriously drew something, was Bambi ^_^, I was like 7 or 8 years old. I remember sitting in front of the TV and stopping the videotape and a pretty image ofcourse, I had a lot of paper and a pencil and I started to draw (and got annoyed every time the image unfroze). I eventually become pretty good and I could draw Bambi from the mind and it became my first real drawing. My friends always asked “Hey Tahira, can you draw Bambi for me?”. So during lunch break I was usually drawing. The strangest thing is, even though I’ve drawn Bambi so many times, I can’t find a single drawing from that time! It would be cool to see how I drew Bambi and if it really looked like the Disney Bambi (because everyone said so...).
Ah well, the years that followed I developed an interest in anime/manga drawing. I have an uncle who draws soo cool and effortlessly! I will post a few drawings of him soon!

But okay, the last few years I’ve started to drawn more and more and I love to create small stories with cute images and make cards for friends and family. My main goal is to get very good at this, so that I can draw up many images effortlessly and that when I have ideas that I can put them ‘normal’ on a piece of paper and not with vague lines haha. And also that I can edit the drawings on the PC and that I can use them for future cards. But what I really love to do most, is making pencil sketches, rough sketches. But okay, enough talking, let’s go to the pictures! I think, you guys do want to see what I’m talking about instead of reading words all the time...I think...I hope…. Well, hope you like it! If you do (or don’t also possible ofcourse), please leave a comment with feedback/tips.





















Perhaps you guys recognize the images...perhaps not...even so...I love Kei Acedera! She is part of the Imaginism Studios (The link you can find somewhere on the left) and she is so good! I often use her drawings as a reference. Her drawings are very cute and with so much detail! Another person I also like is Bobby Chiu, also from Imaginism. they are one of my favorite illustrators/designers. A few of my own card designs are here below. I usually use watercolors, to add a touch colors, but it's a another goal of mine to get better haha.

This is a card for a good friend of mine, I transformed my friends and myself in chibis ^_^.

This was for another friend. A birthday card. Okay I will leave it at this, I have a lot of pictures of drawings, but I think that my blog will get toooo long. Ow yeah I also have a DeviantArt, with a few old sketches (link is on the left somewhere too), so if you are interested you can have a look at them. I'm in the process of updating everything, so I will add new stuff very soon!

Hope you enjoyed reading this! Till next time!

Cyaa Xoxo