Inking In-Between Projects

Between larger projects I usually do repetitive studies like working through an anatomy book.  Recently I found that Scott Schuman has published a book of pictures from his blog The Sartorialist.  In an attempt to find some short-hand for different types of clothes as well as to increase my "fashion vocabulary" so to speak, I've started working through his book.  I first pencil in the character paying attention to the way the clothes pull and wrinkle and the way the person's hair is done.  After that I try to find only the most necessary lines to indicate the wrinkles and type of fabric and I put those down in ink.

These are the first few images I've done so far.

(Accidentally inked over her top teeth . . . and on an off-white paper I can't use white-out.)

I'm also trying to figure out how to describe faces with as few lines as possible and have the drawing not only portray the same expression but be recognizable as that person.  I was having trouble inking this guy's face and having it match the amount of detail and ink that I put in his coat.  Unfortunately, like most of these photos, the lighting is very soft and universal so there are very few deep shadows in the reference.

I'm not happy with any of those solutions, so right now I think I need to add either more detail to the coat or a stronger directional light to the whole image so that the top left version would fit.

Nora and Frogs Final!

The second-to-last stage where I added grass and the beginnings of some highlights with white acrylic.  (Again, the photo is making the colors a lot warmer than they are in real life.)

For the final image I adjusted the levels and contrast in photoshop so that what you're seeing here is just about exactly how the colors look in the real thing.  (Next time I do a progress report, I'll try to adjust the images as I go so that one can follow the color progression better.)

Final:

It looks nothing like an Edmund Dulac as I had originally intended it, but I ditched that idea after the first hour or so.  I'm finding that I like to paint things with a higher contrast than Dulac right now.  I'm really happy with the way it turned out and it was a lot of fun to paint.  It took six hours to paint plus two for the original sketch, tracing onto watercolor paper, and rubber cement set up.

Just for fun I took a picture of my (mobile) set-up:

Nora and Frogs Watercolor Part 3

Progress update:

Got color everywhere where they needs to be (unfortunately the camera didn't get the color right in this photo -- everything is a bit more purple):

Last touches before removing the glue including more details in the frogs and her face (she has an eye now!):

Glue gone and shadows in with a hint of an upper lip and some warm bounce light on the left frog's belly:

I just want to add a few more details and then it's done!

Nora and Frogs Watercolor Part 2

Progress update:

The first thing after the pencil underdrawing was to mask out around Nora and the frogs with rubber cement.  It acts like masking tape and I can just rub it off without hurting the paper or paint when I'm done!

First hour of work resulting in several layers of watercolor.  Already I can tell that this will not look anything like an Edmund Dulac painting.  But that doesn't really bother me.  I like letting the look of the painting evolve as I'm painting it.  (That's probably not an excuse for my lack of control and patience with watercolors.)

Second hour of work resulting in many more layers of paint.  I think her clothes and limbs are pretty much there along with the dark green frog on the right.  Her face needs some more work along with the tree frogs.  I figure I need about three or four more sessions (read lunch breaks) and this'll be done!