3rd time's the charm

I keep going back and forth with wanting and not wanting to write this blog. My time management isn't very good and I get exhausted easily when I try to do too many things at once. After a long spree of work, it's so easy to just sit in front of the computer and play games all day. WoW in particular keeps circulating all over me and I don't even remember how many times I've installed and uninstalled it.

However at the end of the day it always come down to time management and figuring out what I really want to do. Gaming is all fun and...games but at the end of the day it's just gaming. No one really cares to be honest. With MMOs I can't commit to anything due to my time schedule. So no one cares if I'm online or not since I might go offline any second. And when I look at the clock after playing for a while, the day is already gone. I don't want to do that anymore. So I try to keep gaming to a minimum and focus on art.

Art however is not the easiest hobby in the planet. For starters it can get kind of lonely. Then there's the whole improvement circle which tends to cause spouts of self-doubt and frustration. I'm a perfectionist and even somewhat neurotic so failure doesn't sit well with me. During times like these I tend to shy away from the art community and try to hide myself. This wastes precious time.

Talking about things usually makes me feel better. However I don't really have a proper outlet for that since none of the people in my close circle do art. So while writing a blog like this might take a lot of time, at the same time it keeps me grounded in art since I write and think about it.

So let's give this a one more try shall we :)

I will still play single player games and will probably do some game reviews here and there. The best thing about this blog platform is the ability to post pictures effectively.

Which brings me to what I'm working right now:

I'm still working on my serval portrait which now has watercolor layers and some first colored pencil layers down.

A photo of the serval with just pencil lines. Preparing to add the watercolor layers.

Got my watercolor layers and first few colored pencil layers down. Now I need to start tightening everything and adding more and more details. I haven't started the pencil work on the serval yet. This will take a while to finish.

Then I also started working on coloring this lineart made by MelitaGermaine on DeviantArt. I've been trying to find my preferred work method for a long time and I've started to fall in love with coloring books more and more. I'd like to try and do artworks in the same style myself. Learning inking is not a fast process but it's suprisingly fun. I printed this particular line art and then traced it onto Hahnemühle Nostalgie and once I was done with fixing the pencil lines I inked the whole thing following the artists original ink work. Penciling and inking took me a whopping 4 hours. But guess what? I sat there and did the whole thing. From start to finish! It's the longest time that I've spent on art in one sitting for a long long time. I was so proud of myself. And I had fun!

Done with the ink work. Took me 4 hours to arrive to this stage. I hope my amateur inking lives up to the original ink work.

Basic colors before cotton pud blending.

Basic colors after cotton pud blending. Such a huge difference, huh?

Got most of the elements colored. I'm still working on the dress after which I will move onto the tree trunk and the trees. I also need to work on the leg. After this I will fine-tune everything and bring the elements together.

I still need to color the trees and the tree trunk and then I will adjust the coloring here and there and bring things together more. The coloring is done entirely with colored pencils.

After I wrap these up I'm looking at making some small ink drawings onto card stock. Easter and other holidays are coming up fast so it's not a bad idea to be prepared early. I will also do some studies of comics and illustrations to practice comic style drawing and inking. I also have my old Cho'Gall drawing that I abandoned a while back:

I abandoned this guy a long while ago. I had a pencil sketch down which I tried to evolve digitally. I figured this would be a great opportunity to practice a comic style and inking so I will get back to this guy at some point. Still need to finish drawing the Horde banner and then add a simple background.

So that's that :) Let's try to keep this show on the road.