Sketching Out Loud

As I mentioned last time, my IDS is to explore and improve skills in sketching, chiefly doing pieces for online display and working on a book for kids. One way I am currently doing this is by creating fan art, the goal being to try out different techniques and familiarize myself with minor digital editing while working with existing characters I’ve seen before.

For example, here are two pieces I have already posted on my DeviantArt page.

Yes, I watch “The Loud House”. No, I’m not a Red Wings fan.

Anyway, both of these pieces were created the same way — I did a pencil sketch, fine-lined a copy of the original sketch, and scanned and edited the piece on Photoshop. It’s a convenient procedure that I hope to optimize further, as it still takes some time to do. There are obviously some challenges to the design process, such as tidying the lines and shapes to get them to look just right. In the case of the image on the right, the octopus in Lana’s hand was a bit of a challenge to do since I was not familiar with its complex anatomy. These are things, however, that helped me improve the way I sketch and familiarize myself with certain editing techniques. With the octopus, I took advice from peers that saw the sketch before posting and utilized my (somewhat rusty) knowledge of Photoshop to add more cephalopod-like features.

Ultimately, it’s pieces like these that have allowed me to have fun and pay homage to movies, TV shows, and other things I like to watch, while at the same time learning how to create and edit sketches — traditionally and digitally — with the aid of set guidelines. In other words, there aren’t many ways a specific existing character can be depicted without rendering him/her/it drastically unfamiliar to viewers, and the relatively tight parameters enable me to have a set goal regarding what I want the finished product to resemble.

(For additional information on how the pictures came to be, the respective links are found here and here.)