Tag: Challenge

Inktober: Days 8-14

Day 8: Star – Star Flower

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From the previous post, it seems that I had jinxed myself, as with this piece, I had struggled with time. As I was at college during the day, working on other projects, I believe I had gotten home at 4/5 and had to rush my piece so that I could take a photo of it within the natural light. At the time of this photo, the natural light was more cool toned than previous pieces had been, and although I tried to fix this problem when editing the photo (as to make it cohesive with the other pieces) I feel you can still see the difference when looking at them all together.

Other than the lighting, I also feel this character has more issues with the drawing, specifically with proportions and angles and so on. When completing this challenge and compiling the designs into one zine, I believe I will go back and try to fix this character, as I do see her potential, but do not believe I achieved it on this day.

The flower I had chosen for this prompt was pretty self-explanatory, and I wanted the character to have a ‘stardom’ quality to her. Imagining this character in the society I have created, I believe she would be a celebrity figure, whether that is in a good or bad way. I want her to be in the limelight in this society, but the other characters could have different opinions of her, depending on what they’ve heard or believe.

 

Day 9: Precious – Kadupul

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With this character, I had searched the rarest flowers and had found two that I felt most inspired by, one being Kadupul, and the other being a Kinabalu Orchid. For this specific prompt, I felt the Kadupul would be better suited as it looked more gentle, whereas the Kinabalu looked more sinister in a way. The Kinabalu will be used for another prompt ‘expensive’ as I see that character being more snobby than I would the Kadupul.

I wanted this character to be quite doll-like, angelic in a sense as if she has been untarnished by the world. As a character I feel she would be a princess figure, the other people may not see her very often, as I imagine she is protected a lot of the time, but when they do see her, they are enchanted by her beauty and grace.

 

Day 10: Flowing – Water Lily

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This is my favourite piece so far, I am so happy with how she turned out! For the prompt ‘flowing’, I instantly thought of water, so had chosen a flower to fit the theme, this being a water lily.

When creating her, I wanted a similar petal hairstyle as my piece for the Chick and Hen character. However, with the reference I was using, the model had hair flowing across her face, so I decided to keep this element, and I am so happy that I did, as I believe in my design, the hair almost looks wet on her face and could resemble roots from the flower, as if she has just been taken straight out of the water.

 

Day 11: Cruel – Ricinus Communis

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With this prompt, I wanted to create a villainous character who is very upright and has a scheming look on their face.

When looking at the plant, the Ricinus Communis, it had big leaves and red spiky balls. My initial idea was to have the leaf as a collar of some sort, then have the balls growing from the character. However, when drawing this piece, the leaf had become bigger than I had intended, wrapping around her body, as opposed to just her neck. I do still like the design though, as I feel she does still have the villainous appearance, which I feel the other characters would be afraid of.

 

Day 12: Whale – Pansies

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The link between flower and prompt for this character is a bit farfetched. As I could not necessarily find a flower by searching ‘whale flower’ or ‘whale plant’, I tried thinking of colours, specifically from an Orca whale, with the black and white patterns. This had led me to pansies, as they often had a dark centre, which is then surrounded by white, and then followed by another colour.

Although I like the design for this character, I don’t really have a backstory for her as of yet. She does look like a quite strong character, but as of the prompt, it has not given me much inspiration as of this moment in time. But I will come back to her another time and try to develop her story further.

 

Day 13: Guarded – Pycnostachys Urticifloia (Blue Witches Hat)

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With this character, as the appearance of the flower suggests, (although the colour is not shown) she is a witchy type character, but not an evil one, I believe she is a good witch that helps others with spells, love, healing, etc, but her speciality is with protection spells, linking back to the prompt  of  ‘guarded’. I feel she is a kind character but has her guards up as other characters may not react well when finding out she is a witch, even if she is good.

There are some issues that I can see within this character, specifically within the face, so again, like with my ‘Star’ character, I do plan to fix and refine these issues, when compiling all of the characters together in a zine.

 

Day 14: Clock – Passion Flower

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I enjoyed working with this specific plant as it had so many different elements to play with.

I feel I slightly lost control within the inking process, as there are a few shaky lines (especially on the shoulder) and when shading her face, the ink on her chin had bled too much up into her face, whereas I had wanted it to bleed down into her neck instead, creating more shadow, as opposed to a beard.

Again, when it comes to creating the zine, I will come back to this piece and refine these problem areas, whether it is just done digitally, or whether I redraw the character.

 

So far, I do love every character that I have created, and even with the ones that have gone slightly wrong, I do still see their potential, either with their stories or the imagery I have created. So, I will come back and fix these characters, once the challenge is out of the way and when I start concentrating more on the creation of the zine. If anyone does buy the zine, I want them to get their money worth, so with any imperfections I see, I want to fix these problems beforehand, so that when the buyer receives their product, they won’t find any issues and won’t question why they spent their money on it.

Inktober: Days 4-7

Day 4: Spell – Yarrow

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With the prompt, I had searched ‘flowers most commonly used in spells’ in which it had come up with a few suggestions, and for a while, I was back and forth between Yarrow and Lavender, however, I personally have not heard of yarrow a lot, so wanted to play around with that imagery.

I tried to approach this piece in a similar style to the bonsai tree pixie, but I feel it may be too similar, the only difference being the figure and the type of branches. I also feel I may have made the face too masculine, as the jaw is sharp, the neck wide and the shoulders do look broad. Although I felt this was an issue a couple of days ago, I have had time to reflect, and have since realised that the piece is not bad, as there are women who will have more masculine features, such as strong jawlines and are proud to have those features. So, through this piece, I have found that I don’t just have one face syndrome (a case in which an artist will unconsciously draw almost the same face in every design), I am able to work with different faces, features and shapes.

I imagine this character to be the owner of an apothecary in which other pixies will purchase medicine, or purchase ingredients for spells and so on.

 

Day 5: Chicken – Chick and Hen plant 

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I was really stumped with this prompt and how I could find a flower or plant that would relate to it, until I had searched ‘chicken plant’ in which the results had come up with a chick and hen plant, which is a type of succulent, which I believe has its name because they will often have one big plant, which I assume is the hen, which will be surrounded by a few little ones, which I assume are the hens.

For this character, I wanted to make it seem as if the plants were growing from her, so decided to plant a few big ones around her body, which would then be surrounded by the little ones. Then, instead of giving the character hair, I wanted to make it seem as if the leaves were her hair, so inevitably, I had given her a big succulent growing out of her head.

The ink within this piece had my bleeding issues than any of the previous ones, which I believe was due to all of the smaller leaves that I had drawn within the plants. Because of this issue, however, I have started to use a white ink pen within my designs, which has helped a lot, especially for covering up any accidental bleeds. I also feel it helped given the designs more lighter areas, particularly within this piece as I have been able to add highlights to specific leaves, which has helped break up a lot of the darkness from the ink.

 

Day 6: Drooling – Sundew

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This flower choice is based on the prompt ‘Drooling’. The plant itself produces a sap that attracts flies which I then believe it eats. When looking at photos of the plant, the sap does look like drops of drool, and I felt it would be fun to attempt to illustrate it, especially when using ink.

For this plant I had started by drawing out rough shapes for the curling spines, I then started adding in the little strands in which the sap would be produced from. Then with water and a paintbrush, I started bleeding out the ink, which had made the plant almost look more feathery and softer. Once the water and ink had dried, I then went in with my white pen, highlighting specific strands and adding in the sap drops to the end of them.

I do like this design as I have approached it in a different way to the previous designs, and believe the new technique has given her a more interesting look as she definitely has more contrast in comparison to the previous characters.

This character to me has a sense of ‘look but do not touch’ quality to her. I believe her beauty would draw other characters in, but like the flies with the actual plant, they would not have a very fortunate end.

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Day 7: Exhausted – Jasmine

I had chosen this flower when searching ‘plants which help you sleep’ in which one of the answers had suggested jasmine.

I wanted to keep this character very light and airy in comparison to the last piece, as to give her a more dreamlike and airy quality to her.

To me, this character would be very kind and gentle, but also quite ditsy and airy. I believe she would sleep more than any of the other characters, but when she is awake, she is a joy to be around because she gives off a quiet peaceful energy, letting other characters stresses disappear, even just for a little while.

 

WEEK ONE IS COMPLETE!

I have enjoyed doing each of the pieces so far and believe I have discovered a good flow/system for creating them. I don’t believe I have struggled much with timing as of yet, but in the weeks to come, when other projects start to run alongside this one, I feel I may begin to struggle more with timing, but I will soldier on, as I refuse to miss a day!