Sunday, 30 September 2012

• Pastel Experiments

  In case you didn't know, I like to draw and do other creativey type things. I'm not actually terribly good at drawing which is fine because I just do it for fun. I've posted some of my stuff in the past on Xanga, and it's also available for general mockery in other places, such as HERE.

  For a longish time my usual medium has been colored pencils, which I like because they're easy to control and also fun to blend, which lets the colors be way richer and allows the lines to be pretty clean. I like clean lines, so I also sometimes outline things with pens so they're even cleaner and stand out more.
  

  Well anyway after umpteen thousand years of colored pencils, I decided I would branch out and so last weekend I went to Joann Fabrics with the intention of buying some watercolors. And I did. But I also bought some pastels and thought I'd try them out. I hadn't the slightest idea what to do with pastels, as I haven't used them since, oh third grade or so? All I knew was that I liked the smooth texture of coloring with them. :)
  

  So I have been experimenting with some pastels, and I figured I shall now post them here because that way someone other than me can see them.
  

  Here is the first attempt:

  

  Entitled, "Sailor fuku," (fuku being the Japanese word for clothing). I figured I would start out with drawing something fairly simple and easy to draw, something I'd done a thousand times before. The sailor fuku is a common sight in anime, especially any anime which takes place in a school, which a lot of them do, or at least the ones I watch. Real Japanese students really do wear uniforms somewhat similar to this, though I believe in real life their skirts are a bit longer than they are usually portrayed in anime.
  

  Anyway, I sketched out everything in pencil first and then colored, in case you were wondering. I don't terribly hate this.
  

  So, here is attempt #2:
  

  

  Another thing I draw quite often is girls in long dresses, because I like to draw/design long dresses in sort of a middle-ages sort of style. This dress is not terribly inspired, but I again decided to stick to something simple for the beginnings of pastels. I do like the way the skirt came out, how the shading sort of shows the different folds in the fabric. And the shading isn't terrible.
  

  

  For my third experiment I decided to try another in a genre of anime, the magical girl. I went through a phase of drawing where I designed like a hundred outfits for magical girls. I was experimenting with a bit of different lighting here, with the fire giving off the light. It's a little subtle, maybe you don't really see the full effect, but I like the design of the outfit anyway. What I don't like is how smudgy this turned out. Because I like clean lines, I go over the end result with a pen, which doesn't work terribly wonderful because the pen doesn't want to draw over the pastels. So I might have to experiment with outlining techniques, or else give up on the idea of clean lines.
  

  

  Another attempt at drawing a "lady" type woman. I'm not thrilled with this at all. I was trying to create a more ladylike look by adding lots of ruffles, but I don't know how well that turned out, and then by the end I was disappointed enough with the overall look to not really put a lot of effort into her face. Meh.
  

  

  Never did get around to coloring in her feet, haha. Anyway, with this one I attempted to do the lines with a calligraphy pen, which I think might have worked better if the calligraphy pen wasn't dried up and dying. Again, the face is uninspired, but I do like the dress. :)
  

  

  Last one. So, I'm not really good at drawing people, in case you couldn't tell by the fact that they're all just standing still in generally the same pose. Periodically, I attempt to branch out and draw people in different poses. So in this case, a girl who is sitting down. Can you tell she's sitting down, or did you just think she was short? It's hard to convey with dresses. I sketched in a little cushion thing, but couldn't be bothered to color it. Sigh, I'm so lazy. Anyway, this one I also attempted the outline with calligraphy pen and it's not awful. Might have to buy a new calligraphy pen (or find one of my other ones, if I didn't throw them all away) and try something else.
  

  Anyway, that's all for pastel drawings. Did you hate them? Overall, I like the way the color blends, but I think they might be better used for things like landscapes or whatnot where clear, clean lines aren't as useful as they are with drawing people. I will keep experimenting, and if I come up with anything better, I'll share it.
  

  In the meantime, I think I'll start playing with the watercolors. Expect a similar type post on that subject sometime in the next year.
  

   

   

   

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