(no subject)

[rowyn]

I refined the picture that I linked to several days ago--mostly trying to smooth out his features, and adding a little detail on his clothng, and a background.




The background was interesting to do. Okay, so it's just three bamboo stalks and some leaves. It took me longer to decide what to use for a background than it did to actually draw the one I decided on.

I tried to model the look of the bamboo after Chinese-style ink paintings of the same. Back in college, I took a class in Chinese calligraphy, which included a few lessons on the brush strokes used for making bamboo stalks and leaves. The technique is simple--not easy, but simple.

In fact, it's a style of art almost opposite to my own. I usually take a drawing and keep working at it over and over again until I give up on it and declare it done. The bamboo paintings are a collection of fairly swiftly-made brush strokes, and if you botch any of them, then you either start working on a new picture or cope with the fact that this one isn't going to come out right.

The look doesn't really lend itself to pencils. I tried darkening the bamboo stalks, the way they would be with ink, but I didn't like the result, so I stuck with the outlines instead.

That's all I have to say about that.

Comments

[level-head.livejournal.com]

He needs his other ear-tip, I'd say -- unless it was all the rage to have one cropped. Or maybe that swordfight in the bar...

Good expression!

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[rowyn]

Thank you. :)

I tried drawing the other ear tip, back when I was working on this picture, but the way I see it, that ear tip should be hidden by the curve of his skull and hair. At the highest point, his head rises slightly higher than the tip of the ear -- and it's at about that area that the other ear tip would be. Trying to put it in where it would be visible to the viewer didn't work.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

Well -- extending a horzontal line from the tip to the centerline of the head, then going that much further, seems to put the tip approximately aligned with the leftmost edge of that curve of hair on our left side, and just "behind" it from our viewpoint. And just slightly higher than the one on the right, as the head is tilted fractionally.

But I am hardly in a position to be suggesting tips to you. ];-)

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[rowyn]

Yah, that's where I tried placing it, but it didn't look right to me. Leaving it off seemed to work better -- to me, anyway. ;)

[level-head.livejournal.com]

He is not human, after all: "Two-ear is human."

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