Graphic/digital art/sketch/whatever-you-call-it tutorial

As I promised in my last post, this is a tutorial of my most recent graphic. I'll try to keep it short and simple. If you have any questions, you are always welcome to ask.

What you need:
- A drawing/editing program. I use Gimp for most of my graphics, but I used Pixlr (Editor) for this one. It's online and free, so you don't have to install anything.
- A tablet. I don't know if you can do it without, it will be really difficult.


1. Idea/reference

You need to know what exactly you are going to draw, or at least have some sort of idea or inspiration. It could be a photo like the one above - I was originally going for the romantic/gothic theme like on the picture but changed my mind later. It was very useful to get the anatomy right, though.
You can use a photo as a reference if you don't want to draw the outline yourself.
If you don't have a photo you could make a quick sketch of what you want to draw - but this is optional.

IMPORTANT STUFF!!! + new graphic, tutorial coming soon

I might just as well start with the "IMPORTANT STUFF!!!".

Only two people have entered in the raffle so far and it ends tomorrow, so I decided to change it a bit. Now there won't be one winner, but everyone who applies gets a graphic!

I canceled graphic requests around September, I think, but you can now apply again until next Friday, 3rd of May.

I will make the graphics in order of requests, so the two people who entered the raffle will get theirs first.

You sign up the same way as before, you only need to:

1. Be a follower of this blog (hehe :-P)

2. Comment with your name and a way I can contact you (Stardoll, email or anything else)

You can apply in the comment section of this post or the raffle, I will check both.

I will send the people who applied an email/friend request asking what they want the graphic to look like, if you don't answer within a week I will cancel the request.

Hope you liked this change :)

*new topic*

I just finished a new graphic, and I'm going to make a tutorial of it (it will be in my next post). It's just to show my way of making graphics, I'm not telling anyone to do it the same way because we all have different techniques and opinions of what looks best, and I'm far from a pro myself.

Anyway, here it is:

It's drawn 100% by myself and has taken about 865432340987654323456789 hours to finish. The shading is choppy, but other than that I'm really pleased with the result.

It's not meant to look like a certain person (does it reming you of anyone though?) but some pars of it represent me. For example the tattoo, because I love music and the Deathly Hallows necklace because... well, isn't that pretty obvious? :D I'm going to buy one that looks like this in real life, on Etsy.com. Long purple hair because I like hair in unnatural colors like bright red, turquoise and - you guessed it - purple. A neon yellow top because I see neon yellow all over and I'm starting to like it.

I also wanted to draw a cat, wolf or unicorn on the top so the graphic would be even more personalized but there's not much place for it.

That's all for now, I think. The tutorial will be up very soon.

Opinions/critique on the graphic? Did you like the change?

And don't forget to tick a box below, it's much easier than to write a comment!

Maria

Birthday raffle!

I'm really proud of my new cupcake graphic, made to fit the blog's new theme :P

As I promised earlier today, I am making a small raffle to celebrate 1 year of this blog and of me making graphics.

And as I promised, (sadly) the prize won't be big: 1 graphic/drawing/sketch/whatever you want made by me.
I will contact the winner about what it should look like (if they have a picture they want to recreate, if it should have a Stardoll face, if you want it to have outlines like my latest graphics and so on).


If you want to enter:

- You need to be a follower of this blog
- Write a comment with your name and a way I can contact you. (Stardoll, email, Skype or anything else)
- I am going to add a new tutorial soon because last time was about half a year ago, but I can't decide if it should be about graphics or pencil drawings. What do you prefer? (this is optional but it would be a great help)

Yes, that's all!

You have 1 week to enter, until Friday the 26th.


Hope you will enter :)

- Maria

Happy birthday to this blog!

Yup, my portfolio/private blog/asdfghjkl is now 1 year old. That's why there's a new layout and banner. Hope you like it :)

And here is the graphic from the first banner and my latest:

Do you see any improvement? (I really hope you do because I did my absolute best on this last one)

The graphic to the right has taken me about 2-3 hours I think? and it's made 100% by me without a reference pic or anything. And it has a big, fat outline because I like outlines, if you have a problem with that you can go away :)

Btw it's made on Pixlr.

I think I'll make some sort of raffle/contest thing later today, but you can't expect a big prize, sorry. (I don't want it to be Stardoll-related so the best I can give is a graphic or something)

Please comment on what you think about the new graphic or layout or anything else you want to say :)

Maria

UPDATE: I forgot to say that all the swirls on the banner are also made by me, I'm so proud of them haha :D

A graphic of.. ME!

(I did this before - half a year ago or something. But this time I needed a profile picture for my account on DrawingNow.com and didn't want to use a photo or old graphic.)

Soooo... here it is:

It's not meant to be a a really detailed graphic with 900000 layers of shading and stuff, I expected it to be a plain 20-minute thing with about one shading layer (and maybe an extra one for the hair. and some highlights. and a shadow. In the end it took MUCH more time than I expected.)
I like this simple technique, because if I will work like a real professional graphic designer some day it's important to work fast and not use too much time for small details. Graphics are made for cartoons and advertisements, so they don't have to look 100% realistic.

Anyway, here is the original photo:

I think it's better than my version, although it's still not too bad.

Opinions? :)
Am I improving?
And did any of what I wrote actually make sense (because I'm in a hurry)?

Maria