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Description
A lot of my watchers message me asking about my process and so I'm going to give an explanation here. It's going to explain what was going through my head during this particular drawing.

When I started this as a sketch, the girl looked very 'anime-like'. Usually, I retain this look and just give her some life-like characteristic later on i.e. nostrils, inner ear detail, etc. She started with a helmet but I felt that was obscuring her face and she is the focus of the drawing. Additionally, the theme was Little Red Riding Hood, so in the first set-up, the thing behind her is obviously the "Wolf" (with a nose-ring, don't know why that happened). As this progressed I realized that the setup was static, it didn't look like the Wolf was chasing her or that she felt she was in any particular rush or peril. Also, even if it did, what was the premise? Why was she being chased? I considered placing a floating device that had her Grandma talking to her but felt that might be distracting or not easily interpreted/understandable.

The whole thing was getting a bit convoluted so I started turning it into Goldilocks and the Three Bears. This helped a lot because I also didn't know what I was going to do with the billboards in the background. There was also a key element in the story: Porridge. Now she is holding porridge, and bags of porridge or porridge "secret recipe" mix. Anyway, now there is a reason for the chase and for a few more rockets to convey distance. I still had a problem with her face and I had to think what kind of face would match this somewhat cartoony style? I looked at some of dcwj 's older works and some of his newer works, he sometimes uses a cartoony face (he is very versatile as an artist) and I used this as my guideline for the new face. Then color tweaking followed and I thought it was a relief that she was blonde because now that really pops with the blue "sky"/atmosphere around her.

Anyway, this was created for a contest and my main concerns were:

1. How can I make this look as interesting as I'm capable of?
2. Okay, now that I have something down, what looks wrong, unnecessary/superfluous, boring, etc?
3. How can I incorporate a message that's both tangible to the audience but also relative to the picture itself?
4. Are the colors creating a vibrant, upbeat mood? I wanted this to look not necessarily "happy/cheerful" but just a general "energetic".

What prompted this change in my workflow was going to animation class and having [sometimes] the same work critiqued several times, drawn over and edited by my teacher and critiqued yet again the next week. This was an eye-opener to me and made me realize that I 'can' spend the time to step back and gauge my progress and make changes and sometimes [most of the time] these changes are 'good' or even 'needed'.

Naturally I'll still have a general feel to my workflow that I'm comfortable with, but taking classes has really helped me (I'm also taking perspective), and my teacher has pointed out so many things about my line weight and general lineart/drawing quality and for so many years I've been doing that stupid thing but honestly I really wasn't aware I just felt it was my "style" but once it was pointed out, drawn over/corrected and presented to me in such a way, it was clear that my approach was flawed and not time-efficient.

This was longer than I intended but I hope that gives some insight into my workflow at present and how it's constantly evolving due to the help I'm receiving from my teachers and my own initiative to cultivate a stronger foundation for my art.

www.facebook.com/misstaho
www.twitter.com/artoftaho
www.instagram.com/artoftaho

Description
A lot of my watchers message me asking about my process and so I'm going to give an explanation here. It's going to explain what was going through my head during this particular drawing.

When I started this as a sketch, the girl looked very 'anime-like'. Usually, I retain this look and just give her some life-like characteristic later on i.e. nostrils, inner ear detail, etc. She started with a helmet but I felt that was obscuring her face and she is the focus of the drawing. Additionally, the theme was Little Red Riding Hood, so in the first set-up, the thing behind her is obviously the "Wolf" (with a nose-ring, don't know why that happened). As this progressed I realized that the setup was static, it didn't look like the Wolf was chasing her or that she felt she was in any particular rush or peril. Also, even if it did, what was the premise? Why was she being chased? I considered placing a floating device that had her Grandma talking to her but felt that might be distracting or not easily interpreted/understandable.

The whole thing was getting a bit convoluted so I started turning it into Goldilocks and the Three Bears. This helped a lot because I also didn't know what I was going to do with the billboards in the background. There was also a key element in the story: Porridge. Now she is holding porridge, and bags of porridge or porridge "secret recipe" mix. Anyway, now there is a reason for the chase and for a few more rockets to convey distance. I still had a problem with her face and I had to think what kind of face would match this somewhat cartoony style? I looked at some of dcwj 's older works and some of his newer works, he sometimes uses a cartoony face (he is very versatile as an artist) and I used this as my guideline for the new face. Then color tweaking followed and I thought it was a relief that she was blonde because now that really pops with the blue "sky"/atmosphere around her.

Anyway, this was created for a contest and my main concerns were:

1. How can I make this look as interesting as I'm capable of?
2. Okay, now that I have something down, what looks wrong, unnecessary/superfluous, boring, etc?
3. How can I incorporate a message that's both tangible to the audience but also relative to the picture itself?
4. Are the colors creating a vibrant, upbeat mood? I wanted this to look not necessarily "happy/cheerful" but just a general "energetic".

What prompted this change in my workflow was going to animation class and having [sometimes] the same work critiqued several times, drawn over and edited by my teacher and critiqued yet again the next week. This was an eye-opener to me and made me realize that I 'can' spend the time to step back and gauge my progress and make changes and sometimes [most of the time] these changes are 'good' or even 'needed'.

Naturally I'll still have a general feel to my workflow that I'm comfortable with, but taking classes has really helped me (I'm also taking perspective), and my teacher has pointed out so many things about my line weight and general lineart/drawing quality and for so many years I've been doing that stupid thing but honestly I really wasn't aware I just felt it was my "style" but once it was pointed out, drawn over/corrected and presented to me in such a way, it was clear that my approach was flawed and not time-efficient.

This was longer than I intended but I hope that gives some insight into my workflow at present and how it's constantly evolving due to the help I'm receiving from my teachers and my own initiative to cultivate a stronger foundation for my art.

www.facebook.com/misstaho
www.twitter.com/artoftaho
www.instagram.com/artoftaho