Lavender’s 100 Day Dance Figure/Costume Drawing Project

Okay, day 1…

Ahh some pages from today…

I like to sometimes add random designs to the pages in a sketchbook by just putting alcohol ink on one page and letting it bleed through and blend around, etc… in this one watercolor course I took (on a different site, a lot more casual than this), one of the exercises was to put random watercolor blobs onto a page, and then just draw something from the shapes you find in them, so I kind of started from that. Today, I was watching the lesson about the “Florentine Method” on here, and it said to use toned paper, so I thought I’d… use W5 and E04 ink to try to tone the paper, and… yeah, that didn’t exactly work, it didn’t make an even tone, but I still sort of like it. So I did a bit of that kind of thing, with the toned base and white highlights…

This other course I took on a different other site was pretty much what that “Florentine method” was talking about, a) black and white on toned paper, and b) focusing on making 3D forms, and defining them with cross strokes, etc., and hearing about that again made me think of another exercise that that course had us do, which is those lines and circles… that course said to use marker pens for everything, they said Faber Castell Pitt, but I used Copic Multiliner SP because you can replace the nibs and ink without buying a whole new pen, so I like those, especially for just practice.

I did some of the head construction lessons today. The first few pages are the first Daily Drawing series video, some of the rest are from the head construction course. Then I just did more drawing from the bluray I’ve been watching, which… I tried to draw their faces and I don’t think I did well. The oe in the top corner just looked so bad, under that I tried to draw the pose/expression like I usually would, stylized, just to sort of figure out what I wasn’t getting with trying to follow the methods, why it didn’t look like the screenshot, but I don’t think I found anything…

Random extra but I just have this 3x3cm-ish marker paper pad thing, and I just… thought I’d use it, since I’m sitting here drawing anyway (… at 2am but). It’s a character from a video game… I always want to draw fanart because I know it’s a way to connect with people online, but I just… never do, I guess I get nervous. So I just decided to do a quick one before I chicken out…

ahhh sorry for talking so much.

Ahhh I tried to post days 3-6 in one post and it didn’t go through… I was waiting to post the rest since then but I guess it isn’t ever going to work… if the number of pictures was the issue, then posting 3-11 in one post would be even worse. I’ve looked in other people’s threads and I don’t see a lot of crit or anything, just “good work, keep it up” impersonal sort of things, so I don’t know if I want to keep posting…

I did these on day… 8, I think? Drew from reference photos and then added costume. I made them into characters from the novels/comics I’m working on…

Well, I did it for about 60 days, then I started a new job, lasted for ~2 1/2 months, which was better than my previous ones, aaand now I’m back to looking for something better than English teaching… and might as well work on this.

Now I’m in a Stillman and Birn Epsilon book. I missed a couple of days already but I did something for today. Still adding details, will post when done.

I’m going from the new (???) daily drawing videos, sort of putting a few poses together and making something of a composition, and trying to add some costumes… the one in the middle with the costume there might be my character Ruzha, might not, I’m not really that focused…

Meant to add these to the previous post as well…

Also… since I’m currently studying 3-4 things, I’m just doing a sort of “bare minimum” for this, but I plan to go back and add accessories and hairstyles and more expression to these, and make them more finished…

aaaa thank you ^_^ yeah, right now I’m just working on building habits, but I plan to go back to the Rey’s Anatomy course. I got a little better with it when I was doing that, but… life…

ehhh anyway

A few days… uploading pictures is such a struggle though, my computer is so slow and sometimes it tells me the files are too large, sometimes it tells me I don’t have permission to write to the file (???), I always have to wait overnight for the pictures to sync from my phone to my computer, and like… ehhh

but~

I found a really great figure drawing group offline, where the models are male ballet dancers~~ which is… exactly what I’ve been needing all my life.

So here’s some things from that.

I was using a 2mm lead holder, 2B but I think I want to get some 4B lead for that… I had been using a 4B pencil but then I noticed the lead holder in my bag and it actually was a lot better. So that was nice.

I also found a type of color pencil that has a triangular wood case, and in one corner, the lead goes from the center all the way to the outside, so you can use both the point, and the side to shade, more easily, but… a) the colors aren’t nice, I got a bright red one but the other colors… they didn’t have a nice sepia or anything. and b) you can just do that with a regular lead/lead holder…

I might get that thing that’s like… thicker than a lead holder, with pastels for lead, I think? hmmm, I dunno… I do this more, comic-like style so maybe using pencils is just something I should stick with…