Finally finished a drawing

I have so many work in progress drawings, need to finish them off. I have finally completed the only horse drawing I was working on. Muscle tone and the eye isn’t quite right, the shading probably needs to blend a little more too but I’m still happy with it. Feel free to comment.

Chibi!

I’ve recently become fascinated with the simplicity of Chibi characters (AKA super-deformed). The characters take the form of small people or are child like in appearance and are often portrayed as cute and humorous and reveal enormous emotion. The height of a Chibi is typically a 1:3 or 1:2 head to body ratio where as manga characters can be 1:8 head to body ratio.

Other important characteristics are the eyes which should be large and most Chibi’s don’t have noses. It’s important to keep it simple and use as few lines as possible to portray the character, Chibi’s are not meant to be as detailed as Manga.

Manga Studio = Awesome

I’ve been trying out Manga Studio 3.0 and I must say, it is an awesome program to use. You can’t compare it with Photoshop as the two have their own purposes however one reason I moved away from Photoshop is it’s inability to render straight lines. Manga Studio applies a level of correction to line drawing to remove shaking/jerks.

Attached is my very first (incomplete) attempt at using Manga Studio and second attempt to draw manga using digital methods.

Manga Studio

Work in Progress – Matsumoto from Bleach

Started work on a new drawing. Some lines aren’t correct so I’m going to re-do it at some point. Used my new Prismacolor pencil for this one, highlights really well.

New art supplies – Prismacolor

Saw some really nice drawings being done with a black (PC935) Prismacolor pencil. It highlighted the drawing really well so went down to Deans Art in the city and grabbed one.

Prismacolor’s don’t come pre-sharpened and to my surprise with my trusty Derwent sharpener, the lead kept breaking, not once, not twice but three times before I gave up. Thinking it was a bit strange I fired up Google to find many sites on this issue, a notable one here.

So, it appears that while this brand of coloured pencil is popular, it has a terrible problem with the lead breaking. My workaround, as I am not buying a new sharpener, is to use sandpaper to shave the wood down to the lead and then lightly swivel the lead over the sharpener blade to form a point.

I also picked up another Artline pigment pen with a 0.8mm nib.

Latest sketch – Rukia from Bleach

Quick sketch, probably took about 30 minutes. I’m finding that Rukia is one of the easier characters to draw. Simplistic and easy lines.

My new Copic markers!

Copic Ciao markers dispatched!

Hooray, they have been dispatched today! Can’t wait.

Ordered my new Copic markers!!

I made a decision to just buy the Ciao markers, they’re less expensive than Sketch and Original with a few less benefits e.g. cannot replace nibs or use with the airbrush, neither of which concern me. 

The colours I brought are below. I had to get a couple of Sketch ones to complete the colour set I wanted.

BV04
BV02
Sketch BG45
B05
B24
BG10
E00
Sketch C-4
C-7
BG49
BG15
B02
Colourless 
E02
E51
E53
G05
G07
G14
R05
R27
R29
RV02
RV06
V04
V06
Y06
Y08
Y15
YG06
YR07
B12
R02

First colour pic with Copic

Here’s my first attempt…not a good one but hey, we have to start somewhere.