Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Mr. Grint

RUPERT FREAKING GRINT

This took a long time. I've left out his scruff because facial hair is a pain, and I'm convinced that he would have turned out looking creepy in the portrait if I had included it.

This was mostly fun, until I just wanted it finished. Good first (finished) try at digital painting though in my opinion. first attempts at colors, clothing, and more importantly HAIR. which took a long time. and of which I'm proud of even though it doesn't look particularly ginger. I also like how his shirt turned out...

The photo which I used as a reference for this is floating somewhere around the internet. Don't have a link, sorry.

I haven't seen HP7 part one yet. gah.

HAPPY NEW YEAAAR EVERYONE!

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Hair

Hair is a funny thing.

What you see isn't really what you get when it comes to photographs. Or at least in this case it isn't. I use the eyedropper tool to get the hues I use on my drawing, and I've realized that you never get the colors that you think you'll get.

This guy is ginger. for sure. 100%
The only colors I pick up with my eyedropper are shades of blonde and brown. So I've been compensating for it by overlaying thin layers of orange hues in some areas.

This is the first time I've actually tried painting hair in Corel Painter. It's not as bad as I had expected it to be, but I'm still far from done. He's not looking too shabby though, so I haven't gotten frustrated yet haha. This has actually been a fantastic way for me to figure out my preferred approach to painting hair.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

2010 summary

2010 summary.

months are repeated because I'm lame and don't draw enough to legitly fill up a true year-long summary.

December is my current WIP.
hopefully you can tell who it is by now?

Thursday, December 9, 2010

? update

I hate pupils irises. They are little demon circles of hell.
In other aspects, however, mystery man is coming along quite nicely I think. Maybe I'll release a second screenshot/clue this weekend

Friday, December 3, 2010

? wip 1

I am not ashamed that I spend my Friday night playing my Chopin, painting celebrities, catching up on my favorite shows, and listening to indie music.
and I never will be.

but Misfits, omg. I love this show. plus they used "Spanish Sahara" by Foals in the background of one of the scenes! if only my internet wasn't so laggy when it comes to videos...

Any guesses who the new portrait is of? I don't think I'm going to skimp out and not finish this one. The tones aren't as washed-out as those in the Casey reference I used, so this guy won't turn out looking as pasty, which is good.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Ellen

Ellen!

Portrait of a friend for her 16th birthday. First thing I've freehanded in over a year. It doesn't look exactly like her, but she likes it. So I'm pretty pleased with the overall result.

off to study for my calc test! ahh wish me luck!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

casey wips




I think I've given up on this.
He looks downright ridiculous now that I've tried to add hair and clothing. Plus his scruff is never going to look good. It was a bold attempt though, no?
Maybe I'll try him again when I actually have loads of time to spare...

Although technically, I kind of do right now.
It's Thanksgiving Break, thankfully! (no pun intended)
School was starting to really get to me... homework=mehhhh
I've still got loads of homework over the break but I can deal with that. It's nice to have time off.

I'll probably have a graphite portrait up within a week.

Thanks for following!

Saturday, October 23, 2010

casey wip

Casey Affleck.

First attempt at digital portraiture. I'd say he's coming along pretty decently, so far. Far from perfect, but then again, I'm far from done. Painting with a tablet is definitely a completely different beast than painting with a paintbrush.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

bahh

won't be drawing/posting for a while. my schedule and my workload are both horrible.
haven't drawn anything decent (or at all, for that matter) for months now, which is sad, but academics come first so art's going on the back burner for now.
I wish I had more leisure time for drawing, reading, and practicing piano, but that is sooo not going to happen anytime soon...
anyway, thanks for following! I'll be back as soon as I can be.
-Shana

Friday, September 3, 2010

brushes

Playing with brushes to try to figure out Corel Painter...
The line art was traced from a photo reference of Kaya Scodelario because I was lazy and needed something to test brushes on.

I haven't gotten the hang of blending skin in a way that I'm happy with, but I have completely fallen in love with the colors available.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Smeared black ink












I've decided that I am going to MASTER drawing digitally! hahaha hopefully this temporary determination will get me somewhere.

School is starting in like TWO FREAKING WEEKS. which is not cool. because I still have to outline like 30 pages and make 30 flashcards and write a report.

ALSO, first person to guess who the person I drew above is (which I'm pretty sure will be hard to do...) will win a free drawingg! You pick a celebrity or send me a photo of someone, and I will draw them for you. Realistically. with my lovely, lovely graphite pencils. I would also like to thank you all for following, even though there aren't that many of you haha. It still means a lot. I promise to have some actual drawings that I take seriously up soon!

Oh and I switched emails for my blogger so that's why on my account it says I don't follow anyone. I am still following people, just not on blogger. I follow all the blog feeds, twitters, etc that I'm interested in on my google reader.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

blah

So I kind of feel like gridding is impairing my ability to draw from life, something that I've never felt I've been necessarily good at anyways. Plus, measuring all the sides of references and then doing the same with my drawing paper is getting really annoying. I think I'd improve more if I stopped gridding for a while and focused more on drawing from sight. Plus I should probably pick up my tablet and actually learn how to use it since it costs way too much to just sit neglected under a pile of summerwork.

I'll probably go back to gridding eventually when I actually get tools to do details better. After all, it's basically foolproof if you're looking to draw a likeness of someone or something. But yeah! I need to work on life-drawing skills! Not that I have that much time because of summerwork anyway... ughh how is it almost August already....

I should probably do a self portrait one of these days.

Anyways, I've got a tumblr at which I reblog stuff I like here: http://shaynuh.tumblr.com/
Check it out if you want to.

-S.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Ben

Ben Moss
Spring Awakening Alum, Harvard class of 2013

This boy is ridiculously talented. Look him up on youtube and check out his original songs. So good. I'm a big fan.

I'm not going to lie. I really really really like how this turned out. This is the best reference I've ever used. Photo credit goes to Emily Xie. You can see the photo HERE and HERE.

It was actually pretty fun doing the freckles. Facial hair, not so much.

My ridiculously messy desk.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Jude

Jude Law.

Drawn for a friend's birthday even though it's now a month late.

aaaand an earthquake just occurred. lovely.

Random/I don't think anyone reads this anyways:
I performed a piano solo on Saturday at my school's Showcase event and it was not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I think I've conquered my stage fright at last! Which is really a relief to me and should take a lot of stress away when I perform now. But for the first time actually playing on a stage with a tech crew and lights and everything in front of a couple hundred of people (in a floor length dress which I have certainly never done before), I didn't even feel my heart start to pound. Just went on, played my lovely Chopin etude which I still can't do justice after 15 months of learning/practicing, and left. I'm quite pleased that I now know that I can do that without getting physically nervous. It used to be that my pedal foot would shake uncontrollably (as would my hands and my heart would thump like crazy). But it's all gone now! (:

Seven more days of school = why am I still in school?

Lastly, I'm not sure how not posting for a couple of months equates two new followers, but thank you! I really do appreciate it. And it's not like i'll clog up your dashboards since I don't post very frequently anyways(:

Oh and I don't have a link to the ref. Sorry I keep on forgetting to save the URLs.
(He's in a towel, btw. That's what that giant blank space is)

THIS MARKS THE END OF BIRTHDAY GIFT ART. I'm now going to spend at least the next year being selfish and drawing the crapload of references I have queued up in my REFS folder on my desktop. Who's ready to see some major freckle fail?

Monday, April 26, 2010

carpe diem

Drawn for an illustrated quotation competition at Latin Convention, which was loads of fun. It was a nice break from all this stress going in my district... teachers are on strike, and AP testing is coming up reaaally soon... ugh.

Yeah. Back to studying chem and euro.
here's a link to my tumblr if you're interested in looking around there: shaynuh.tumblr.com

Saturday, April 10, 2010

We Could Be Heroes (Ewan)

Mr. Ewan McGregor
(post title comes from Moulin Rouge!)

Pretty happy with this, considering I got lazy in the end like I always do. There are aspects I don't like... but I'm kinda over it by now. I've noticed I tend to like a drawing less and less the more I look at it. Which is why most of mine get stuffed in some drawer after I finish them, haha. My mom always asks me why I give my drawings away... I feel that they're better appreciated when I give them to other people. Plus, I find it as motivation to draw just as well next time, so that if I keep it, I'll like it. I'm going to be kinda sad to see Ewan here go though... Now that I've taken another look at him, I'm quite fond of him... although I'm not sure whether that stems from my adoration for him as an actor or the work I put into drawing his face ahaha. Both, probably.


I'm giving Mr. McGregor here to my friend Danielle who was extremely generous in giving me these LOVELY, LOVELY supplies:
She's amazing. It's pretty ridiculous how excited I got when she told me I could have these (plus a nice pad of drawing paper which is what I drew Ewan on and a little Faber-Castell carrying case) . She claims she's had them for forever but she's never used them because she's primarily a digital artist. You can check out her stuff at her dA: http://songst3r.deviantart.com/. Ewan is partially a thank-you gift and partially a HAPPY BIRTHDAY gift! (:

But yeah. I lied. I said I wasn't going to work on this for a while (because technically I wasn't supposed to). But since school is starting again on Monday, and thus I was not feeling like doing anything academically productive, I decided to finish him up. So here he is. With sucky beard and background and all. Still looking not-so-bad though, if I say so myself.

I need to get an eraser-pen so I can do details like scruff and stubble...
Also, fun-fact, I did his hair TWICE. Because the first time it looked like crap so I erased the entire thing and started over. And I still don't really like it.

Reference HERE! Absolutely beautiful photograph.

So, AP testing coming up, as I mentioned in my last post. meaning I am not drawing until basically, halfway through May.

That is, if these tests don't kill me first.

-S.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

All The Stars Bend Over Sideways

This is nowhere near done, but I probably won't be able to work on it for a while because of testing coming up. Ignore his random bald spot. I've been having trouble with getting his hair right. Also ignore the completely off shadows/shading. And his unfinished suit.

I am absolutely dreading drawing his stubble. But I'm going to do it. Good practice, yeah?
(I've got a really nice reference lined up including freckles AND stubble! Probably saving it for summertime when I can really give it my all :D )
The beautiful reference photo I used is HERE.
I believe I'm allowed to draw it, after reading through the CC license...

Hopefully you can tell that this is Ewan McGregor, whom I absolutely adore. At one point in time, I was convinced that I had made him look like Aaron Eckhart. But I've fixed that now, I think.

Right, so. Improvement, I think, since last time I drew him back in August of 2009. (HERE)
When I have time, I'm changing my header and my side-panel link.

Ugh, I hate testing.

Stick around to see the finished product!
-S.

PS. Post title comes from one of my favorite songs, "A Comet On Its Way" by Duncan Sheik & Steven Sater. Sadly it got cut from Spring Awakening... ):

Monday, April 5, 2010

Camilla

Quick drawing of Camilla from Into the Fold.
I have a very nice reference picked out for my next drawing...
It includes scruff. So we'll see how that goes hahaha.

- S.

2010 portrait count: 4

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Rupert

Rupert Grint
(Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter movies)

Technically done for a friend's birthday... after her birthday had already passed hahaha. I only do birthday art for motivation. Which I really needed. Finally finished this portrait today after it had been sitting on my desk until a pile of crap for three weeks.

But really, I wanted to finish this so I could start new art! I will be drawing a header for Camilla's blog (http://intothefoldfashion.blogspot.com/) and I will also be doing some "thank-you" gift art for my friend Danielle (http://songst3r.deviantart.com/), who was nice enough to give me some Faber-Castell and Prismacolor pencils she didn't want!

To be honest, I only started working on this Rupert portrait again yesterday because I wanted to test out my pencils. They are very, very, very nice. Way better than my old crappy cheap ones.

I am very happy with how Rupert turned out. I kinda rushed through the shirt though, because I'm not really a fan of drawing folds. The "he's a keeper" thing is something I saw online. Because Ron Weasley's a keeper in Quidditch... and because keepers are boys that you shouldn't let go!
Ahaha I thought it was cute so I included it in some extra space I had on the bottom.

2010 completed portrait count: 3!
I need to draw more.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Zooey, take 2



Zooey Deschanel, take two.
Take one: here

The reference was a really gorgeous shot - link
Ehh, I kinda rushed this one. Wanted to get it done with. I'm not too happy with the face):
But I like the hair. And the bow.

I don't plan on drawing lace ever again.
I don't particularly like drawing full-body shots, now that I think about it. After the failed Matt attempt, and now this, I think I'm going to revert back to full-face detailed shots(:
Small faces are really hard to do well.

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!

2010 completed portrait count: 2!

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Matt attempt

Matt Doyle
Broadway's Bye Bye Birdie, Spring Awakening
He also sang the role of Peter in the album version of Bare

I am not really motivated to finish this because:
1. I don't think it really looks like him.
2. I really really suck at doing dark tones. And fabrics. And dark toned fabrics. (I probably need to buy a better 8B...and I need a 9B...)

but mainly because of 1.
Because I don't really want to invest a lot of time in something when I know I won't be happy with the result. So for now, I'm leaving this one like this. Expect to see his face on here again though, because I'm definitely not giving up on drawing him. I just need a better/easier ref... hahah. This one didn't really have a lot of shadows.

If you don't know who he is watch:
He's pretty much amazing(:

Friday, February 5, 2010

Emma & Will

Emma Pillsbury and Will Schuester from Glee
(Played by Jayma Mays and Matthew Morrison)

A really quick sketch. Drew Emma basically with no eraser, and then I screwed up Will. So that's why he looks like Frankenstein here.
I love Glee though, and I can't wait till episodes come back in April! Especially since Jonathan Groff is going to be guest starringg!

I've started a new line art. I don't know how it's going to look, because the face is at an angle in the ref, and I'm really bad at angled faces... I'll probably use this one as a practice at drawing and shading textures though because it's almost a full body shot. And he's wearing jeans.

FINALS ARE OVERRR

Sunday, January 31, 2010

hello!

Just a quick post to apologize for the lack of posts recently. Finals are this week and, although I haven't been studying as much as a should, I promised myself to put off drawing until they're over. Horrible, I know):

I'm not going to lie, my second semester schedule is really, really, really busy, but hopefully I can get through it with a decent amount of sleep! I'll try to draw as much as I can. My goal for 2010 is to end up with at least 20 graphite portraits I am proud of. Right now, the count is: 1. (The amazing Mr. Nicholas Hoult as seen in the post below) Ahaha...

So, in order to (hopefully!) motivate myself, I'm posting a list on here of some famous faces you can except to see over the next few months! I currently have a folder filled with amazing references I've found on various sites, and I already have my next ref printed out and ready to gooo.

Next up!
Matt Doyle (Broadway's Bye Bye Birdie and Spring Awakening)
Possibly On Deck:
Mitch Hewer (Skins)
Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog)
Kevin McHale (Glee)
Joseph Gordon-Levitt (500 Days of Summer)

I may draw some people more than once because there are some really great references I just can't resist, but it really just depends on my mood... I have a line art for John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness in my drawer right now, but I don't really feel like finishing it haha.

But first, Finals! Wish me luck...

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Nicholas


Nicholas Hoult
from Skins, A Single Man, About a Boy

My first drawing of the year! This is the first time I've used my Prismacolors in a lonnnnng time... but I wanted his eyes to pop out(: So what do you think?

This was another practice with gridding. It really helps and saves a lot of time. This drawing measures 7x4 inches. I drew it on regular printer paper using HB, 2B, 4B, 8B and 2H for gridding. The ref is HERE.
(btw, that's a very nice website. and so is fuckyeahmeninsuits.tumblr.com and fuckyeahmeninties.tumblr.com) :D

Anyways, I've started watching Skins and I absolutely adore it. I love the storylines, the format of the show, the actors, and even though I've only seen four episodes, I've already gotten really attached to the characters. I started watching it because I found out Nicholas Hoult was in it, haha. And I only found out about him because I saw him in the trailer for A Single Man, which looks amazinggg. I want to see it so badly. It's rated R though...

Sorry, I know it's really crappy quality. I don't know why. I probably have a sucky scanner... or I just don't know how to use it properly.

EDIT: upped the contrast and uploaded that image instead.