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emera — Mermaid in distress
Published: 2012-06-19 01:33:32 +0000 UTC; Views: 2064; Favourites: 32; Downloads: 49
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Description
Many hours of pain later.... something I'm rather happy with! As usual, there are still things I'd love to go back and fix, but I think I've reached the point of diminishing returns.Mermaid-with-a-hairy-problem is the result of a challenge and I posed to each other: redo a piece older than 2005 (I think was the cutoff?). She enjoined me to attempt [link] ; I attacked it with the particular goals of making it less vapidly cute and working in more narrative. (If "long hair is inconveniencing" counts as narrative...?)
This scanner is too good to me!!
Ink and watercolor on cold-pressed watercolor paper. (Oh hey, so there's a REASON people use watercolor paper for watercolors. I'm never going bahahaaack to cardstock -- !!)
Original ink: [link]
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Comments: 5
HELL YEAH LOOK AT THAT MASSIVE PROGRESS
d00d this is awesome, THOSE CURVES!!! i know i've said this before but i continue to be super impressed with your fine line control and your grasp of shapes and volumes; i wish i could see this in person!
also: if you have colored pencils and stuff lying around i've found that sometimes using a little colored pencil can look HELLA TIGHT on top of watercolor????
CAN'T WAIT TO SEE TABLETING!!!
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THANK YOUUUUUU happy sobbing. Gawrsh.
This is the first time I've been happy with my inking in a really, really long time! I tried building up short(er), light strokes to keep the loose curves of the sketch, instead of doing a really literal, solid, continuous line. Somewhat finicky and time-consuming, but so much more satisfying.
Yes, I have a set of vintage (really! my uncle passed on a lot of his youthful art supplies to me; predictably I get nervous to use them sometimes because of the vintageness) watercolor pencils that I've used occasionally to add texture and contrast. I haven't in a long while, though; I think I get more nervous about mess-ups the more variables (i.e. media) I add to a piece (sometimes I've also caught myself thinking of it as "cheating" on "real watercolors"). I guess I should try to be more positive and think about them instead as having more tools to apply to a given problem. I love the looseness that you have in layering lots of media! The white-out thing you do continues to amaze me.
And yes! curves! For my more.... "tra la la here's a cute character doing random cute things" pieces, I've been reminding myself to draw more body-positive etc. characters, both because I want my characters to look like individuals, and because SOCIAL IDEALISM. Like the fact that only 1 out of every 500 people-doodles I draw is obviously nonwhite? What's up with that? Hegemony nooooo
YOU CAN SEE THIS IN PERSON IF YOU VISIT ME
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She's so beautiful, you did a great job here !
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Thank you kindly! I wish the scan showed off her bright colors a bit better, but hopefully she's not offended.
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The scan did a good stuff too 
You're welcome, you deserve it
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