A Joker turned Raphael

 

I drew this using a Joker reference on youtube. However, it somehow turned into Raphael from Soulcalibur. At least that's what it looks like to me. Still, not too bad. Done in pencil and I believe I used white posca or gel pen to add highlights.

~AnnElfwind

I did these in pencil

 

Honestly, I have no idea where this came from. But it reminds me of that one Pokemon.

Rose Garden

 

And no, I'm not talking about the book (or movie) of the same name. Even though I had to read the book some years back for school. It wasn't a bad book but it wasn't exactly my cup of tea. So, this pic. Done in pencil over some sketch that looks like it's green? No, wrong. The green came later. I started with a pencil only. But then came the green and the roses. Hence it's called Rose Garden.

Pencil Picture Vomit

 

A sketch of some rocks. This is based on a youtube tutorial I've seen. And then I made it look like they were submerged in water. Not too bad, at least it doesn't seem like that to me.

Male portrait practice

 

Another pic. This time I was practicing drawing portraits. And, for a change, I didn't get inspired by Yong Chen but by Paul Priestley. And this is done using shadows and not really lines or outlines. I mean, I had to use some lines for the hair, but the face is more shades and smudging than anything. Hope you like it.

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 5th of April 2021

Curly hair

 I got inspired by Yong Chen on youtube. Again. I love his videos. They are very informative when it comes to drawing techniques. And they are very easy to follow. He did it in charcoal, I did it in pencil with a little bit of help from a white gel pen. What do you think?

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 13th of February, 2021

A Little Chick

This little sketch was heavily inspired by one of Yong Chen's videos on Youtube. It's done in pencil and in my smallest sketchbook. And I'm starting to want to add c before h in every word because I've been brushing on my german and it's how you write it there. It's a little annoying that my fingers do that without question even if I'm trying to write in English.
Hope you like it.

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 14th of January, 2021

Mouth and a Jug

So I got two pics to share with you. Both done in pencil. The first one is a study of lips. While it is quite sketchy, I really like how it turned out. It was done on my favorite smudgy paper. I even did some blending. This time with just a tissue wrapped around my finger. And my actual finger. No home-made blending stump this time. I did this based on a prompt I found here. They have some really good prompts, even though this month (October 2020) is strictly anatomy. Oh well. Maybe it will help me improve some areas I know I'm not as good at as I would like. 

Share what you think? 

A Cat, A Hand, And A Forest

Hello everybody, I got three new pictures for you. I also have to write this on my notebook's inbuild keyboard and it's a pain in my neck. I prefer an external keyboard but I didn't want to bring that monster of a thing with me. So I have to make do with this one. Oh well. So, the first picture is a painting of a Cat that Got the Canary. She's looking way too smug for anything else. It is done with acrylic paints on a canvas board. I first painted the background with a pastel shade of green and let it dry. Then I got out my brown, white, and yellow paints. Yes, yellow. And I'm glad I added it. It brightens the cat considerably. Oh, and she almost didn't have front paws. I forgot about them. But then I remembered and added them. More of an afterthought but at least I didn't forget altogether. Like I did when drawing this dragon picture. I forgot the back wing. And then I had to add it. And re-photograph it and re-upload it and it was a pain. So I'm glad I didn't forget this time. Really good thing that, as this painting was a gift for my aunt. So you can't call dibs! 

The second picture is just a practice sketch of a hand. I did this while watching a Yong Chen video on YouTube. He has really good tutorials. Though most of them are with charcoal. I got nothing against charcoal it's just that I prefer a pencil or other media. Even paints are preferable to charcoal. But I'm learning nonetheless. So I did this practice hand and while it's definitely not perfect, I also think it's one of my better ones. I do struggle with hands quite a lot. Not always, sometimes, it turns out exactly as I want but more often than not, the fingers just look way too weird. This was a part of a bigger picture originally. But the topic of the video was just the hand so he eliminated all the other elements and said to focus just on that. So I did. And then, just to make it pop a little, I added a highlighter outline. Because why not. And because I got a set of four brand new highlighters from my mother who got them at work but had no use for them. So I confiscated them. 

And now the last one. This one had inspiration from Pinterest. I even saved said inspiration on my inspiration blog. On Pinterest, it had the name of Forest of No Return and I really liked the name so I kept it. My version of the picture is decidedly less realistic and I think it strays into impressionism. still, I like how it turned out and I think that's the important thing. 

It is done with water... Nope. It's done with alcohol-based markers. Because I had several Tombow markers and I even pulled out my Tiger markers to add deeper black and add the blue tones to make it look more winter-y. It may be a little weird, but I still like it. Also, the white on top of everything, that's my acrylic paint marker. Basically, something like a Posca Pen, but it only exists in white, gold, and silver as far as I know. And I only own the white one. I had two thicknesses, but the thin one died on me. So I'm stuck with the medium one, but so far, it's working when I need it to. It's not like I use it that much. Most of the time, I add highlights with white acrylic paint anyway. So it can die on me too if it wants to. But it is a little more convenient for when I don't want to pull out all the stuff I need for the actual paint...

So that's it for now. Hope you like them and if you do, let me know in the comments below. And even if you don't, let me know what I should work on to improve. Okay?

~AnnElfwind

An Antique Vase

More pictures. Well, one. I was watching a tutorial by Chen on YouTube and well... Decided that the object he was drawing was interesting. It was a vase. And I'm like... Hey, when it's done in pencil, it might look cool! So I started following along. He was doing the demonstration in charcoal, but I decided to use just your regular pencil. So I'm drawing, and then I'm done with the vase itself. All nice and shaded with highlights and I think... What if it was lying on some grass... And so I draw grass. Well, at first I was just gonna do some shadow to indicate a surface but then the grass idea came. 

And so I drew blades of grass. I just turned my pencil flat to the surface and did some hard flicks and strokes upwards to indicate the grass. Nothing too fancy but then I had the brilliant idea of using an eraser. Because! the grass was practically invisible on the vase itself. And I wanted to have some of the blades in front of it. So I did some flicks with my kneaded eraser but it wasn't bright enough. So I took a regular eraser and did some harsh flicks with an edge of it. And lo and behold! Grass! It looks so good! I have the original nest to me as I'm writing this. Well, I had, I just closed it like ten seconds ago. But I kept looking at it! I couldn't help myself! I just had to look at it! 

Please tell me what you think of the picture. I would like to know your opinions. So leave a comment? Please? 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 30th of June, 2020

A Shroom

New pic. Drew this just a few minutes ago. I was just staring at my computer screen wondering what to do when my eyes drifted to the stack of sketchbooks on the side of my desk. So I'm like: "Maybe I should draw something?" And I went to youtube and opened my watch later playlist because I was lazy to search for something new. And I need inspiration when I'm drawing. So I picked a Paul Priestley video to watch while I draw. It turned out to be a tutorial. So I decided to follow along. It was a good idea. I mean. I wasn't following along very strictly, but it always helps me to draw when I have inspiration from somewhere and an art-related video playing in the background. Or even in the foreground. 

The shroom was drawn into a rather small sketchbook. The format is A6. So a quarter of a regular printer paper. I know you Americans are always spewing your numbers in inches, but I'm from a country where we use the metric system. And the A+number (or B+number) for paper sizes. I have no idea what an A6 would be in inches and I'm not gonna measure it. I wish the whole world would use the same labeling and measuring system. 

And since I'm actually not talking about the pic anymore, here's another thing I observed. And I think this is American nonsense again. Three-ring binders. You probably would think that what we have here is nonsense and feel free, but I think that two or four makes more sense. Though again, it's not about what makes more sense or what doesn't. It's about it being so different. I'm pretty sure it would be really hard to find two/four-ring binders were I to move to America or another country with this system. And vice versa. As much as I scream for individuality and lots of different things, there are some that are more convenient while unified across the world.

Excuse my rant and enjoy the drawing, please. 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 3rd of August, 2020

Various

So, I have several new pictures. This first one is of a white trillium. At least that is what they said. I'm still not sure I believe them. Them being Pinterest. But I'm willing to not care. It's a white flower and that's all anyone needs to know. Anything else is irrelevant. It was done with oil pastels and giocondas. I love mixing those two together. It always give s me such interesting results! The background is just some colors spliced together because at that point I was too lazy to draw more leaves. So I left it like that. Considering it's done on a rather small-sized paper, I don't think it matters all that much. Though looking at it now, I think I should have gone way darker on those leaves. Like, black level darker. Or... No. No or. Definitely should have mixed black in that. This way it's way too light where it shouldn't be. But alas, I don't think I'm gonna fix it now. Too late for it. I sprayed it with a fixative and therefore I won't be able to do anything more with it. However, at least I know what to do next time I draw something like this. Right? Tell me what you think. I would very much like to read your comments.