#although i think i like what i did with the airbrushing and small highlights that are subtle enough to help it stand out

[puppyeared]

digital painting practice with my favorite pkmn

[unit7designmethodsgeorgesmith]

YCA Asset Creation:                   Queen Elizabeth Illustration + Cover Design

20.03.19

Today I started working on my illustration of Queen Elizabeth for this project. I wanted to have her on the front cover of a graphic novel that I would be designing. The background would have Big Ben, which you can see in the previous post below. 

Rough Linework 

So, to start with, I sketched out a rough drawing of the Queen in a drawing program called Clip Studio Paint. Out of Paint Tool Sai, Photoshop and this, I find this to be my favourite program to draw and paint in. For this rough sketch, I used a thin watercolour brush like I usually do. I used various different reference images from Google. I decided to draw her like how she looks most of the time. I think that the hat and the curly hair are kind of her defining parts. The hair was really challenging to get right—I’m not very good at drawing curly hair/hair in general. The hat looks pretty good too I think. I tried to get it to look like her as best I could, as far as this particular style will let me, and I think I kind of pulled it off, but I still need to improve on my faces in general. 

Polished Linework

After finishing the rough sketch of the Queen, I thought it time to go over the lines. To do this, I created a new layer, and then lowered the opacity of the sketch layer, so that I could go just make out what I was drawing over. I don’t really like how the lines turned out once I compare it to the original sketch work, because it kind of lost the sketchy and rough charm, but I thought that I could probably make up for that when it comes to painting it. In this screenshot, you can see her outfit now—it is her usual outfit that she appears in public wearing. I went with this one because it was simple, and I would prefer to keep the focus on her face if possible. Overall, I’m not a big fan of how it looks right now, but I’m confident that I can improve this soon. 

Colouring

The next thing to do after finishing the linework was to colour in the Queen’s main parts, so I’d decided that I wanted her outfit to be coloured red, since I was adhering to the colour palette of the Union Jack; red, white, and blue (the blue will be the sky, white for clouds). I chose a regular not-too-saturated but not-too- desaturated red shade for her clothing and her hat. For the moment, I want to have the rose thing on her hat red, but maybe it will look good if I am to make it white instead. I chose a middle shade of grey for the hair, because I would need highlights for it as well as, obviously, darker tones. A regular white skin tone and plain white for the eyes and mouth for now. The mouth is white at the moment as I plan to show teeth, but later on I change this. 

So, to colour this in, what I do is I create two layers—one where I will colour whatever I want, so the hat and torso for example. And how I colour is I use a pen to draw around the outside using the red, and then I just fill in the rest because it is much more easy and efficient than colouring in the hat, and then doing the outlines. Anyway, after I’ve coloured the parts, I use the second layer above the coloured one, and apply a clipping mask of sorts. This enables me to paint on this layer, only on the colour that I’ve filled in, an extremely useful feature. 

Painting Face I

Now it was time to paint the face that I’d coloured in with the skin tone. I added the necessary shades first, like with her face lines, which I’ve exaggerated in her favour, the shade under her nose and shadows being cast by her hair, look to the left and right of her face. Also, you may have noticed that I completely forgot to draw the eyebrows from the second screenshot onward, so i corrected that below. I painted in the inside of the ear using dark shades also. It was fun to paint underneath the head, where a shadow is being cast. The shadow being cast from her hat makes her look almost evil and scheming right now, I think it may be because the eyes aren’t painted yet. There must be a relatively harsh lighting right now with how dark I’ve made the shadows—probably midday sunlight or something. There are all sorts of shades among the shadows, underneath the hat are a mix of greys, oranges and also a bit of red and pink nearer the top, where the colours from the hat bounce off. The shadow below the head has multiple shades too, mainly the same as the shadow from the hat, except from reds. There is a slight pinkish shade on the left side of the of the shade, bouncing off of the clothing, and an orange shade just under the chin.

Painting Face II

Next I decided to work on the face some more to try and finish it. I started with the eyes. The eyes were under the hat’s shade, therefore, I needed to paint them accordingly. This meant that the main white in the eye would be a darker shade; grey. I painted her eyes a greyish blue, like her real eyes, and kept the shading quite minimal. After I finished the iris, I went over the outside using the blur tool to give it a soft look. Then I went back to the brush tool and did one white stroke on each of the eyes, and airbrushed a slight white over the middles of them. I think that it really adds to the painting and makes her eyes look less dead, which is something that often unintentionally happens when I’m drawing eyes. After finishing the eyes up, I moved to the mouth. After a bit of experimenting, I realised that making her grin was a bad idea, mainly because I just couldn’t get it to look right, but also because, once I drew her with her mouth open, presumably in joy, it looked a lot better.

I also tidied up the face shading, using the blend tool to blend parts that looked like they were too harsh and intruding. Next I continued on with the mouth area, and painted her red lips. Right now they don’t look very good, like they’re too thin or something, I fix this somewhat later on. I painted a small white dot on her lips to look like a highlight, which I think really goes far. Finally, I worked on the hair—easily my least favorite part of the illustration. For starters, even the sketches don’t look good to me, so adding depth to the hair via color wasn’t sounding too thrilling. But alas, I continued on, and painted them in a way that is acceptable, not great but I’m okay with it, so I continued with the shade from the hat, and painted a dark shadow coming from one edge of the hat to the other. It kind of dips, down and then up at the edges, which corresponds to how close the hair is to the sides of the hat. There aren’t many different shades among the hair, but I did decide to make it get lighter as it went down, no particular reason really, I just thought it would look nice and kind of a little less boring.

Painting Outfit I

Next I worked on her outfit, which wasn’t too difficult to come up with something I was pleased with. I looked at references of her wearing this kind of stiff outfit when I was sketching, and the reason I call it stiff is because there are minimal wrinkles on the outfit, not really any lines to introduce any shading to, and the lighting that I went with doesn’t really help me there either. Instead I used some of my usual tricks to add some kind of nice depth to something that is really flat otherwise. I painted a gradient from a desaturated purple-ish red from the bottom of the composition, to the red that I started with nearer the top. Although, this isn’t to say there’s no shading whatsoever, there is a nice shadow that continues on from the neck from the one that is being cast by the head. This shadow has a nice variety of shades in it, some greys, some purples and reds, and a slight desaturated orange as a bounce light from the skin tone that is very close by. There’s also some other shading as you can see in the illustration. Also a dark shade where the button is sewn through.

Painting Outfit II

I am nearing the end of the illustration, and next is to do the hat, which I thought would be difficult. Luckily so, I got kind of distracted by my linework—it was really messy still, therefore, I needed to clean it up, which took quite a while to be honest, though I think it was worth it. Essentially, I went over the hat lines with a thicker brush and then erased the thicker parts to correspond with the rest of the lines throughout the drawing. Now, it was a hat, not much I can think to shade really. I did the same gradient trick that I used with the outfit, and then also did a slight darker shade down the right hand side of the hat, to give it a slight beveled effect—make it look as though it was rounding off towards the edges, as a hat would do. I may still work on the hat some more later. I made the strip across the bottom of the hat a darker shade so that it didn’t look too boring. Now, for the white flower thing, I’m not sure what to call it, it was a challenge at first. I started by trying to make each of the points join together at the center where it would be darker, but as that looked terrible to me, I decided on a much more appealing way of painting it. As you can see, it looks quite soft and pastel-themed almost. I used a slightly large brush size to paint these blobs everywhere to create the effect of something that was puffed out. I’m really pleased with how it turned out, and I love the colours that I used in it. Again, looking at it now, the hat will probably need some more doing to it, but right now, I was roughly done with the painting.

Finished Queen Elizabeth Illustration with Cover

[taenys]

♢ shinee world v in la ♢

alright so I’ve finally gotten home and have been able to write a detailed fan account of the whole thing which includes their airport arrival!!! the whole thing ended up being over 2.5k :’))) unsurprising considering who I am (resident essay writer of the internet) but i did try to keep it as short and to the point as possible. 

anyways if any of y’all are interested in reading a really emo and sappy essay about shinee and what was undeniably the best day of my life from my seat in the pit, read on!

Airport arrival: I saw Jonghyun’s face so clearly. Key went by me in a flash clinging to him, so I got a clear profile shot. Taemin’s face was covered but his beautiful eyes were visible and I got a very clear look at him. Minho as well, although he was wearing sunglasses, he was tall and brooding. Onew passed before I could see him. Taemin looked at me wide-eyed, inquisitively. I was in front of their van on the sidewalk making hearts at them while they got in and got ready to enter traffic to leave and Minho and Taemin got a clear frontal view of me doing so and both of them smiled, but Taemin’s eyes were on me for quite a while. Once they started to drive away, I waved frantically at them and Minho waved back at all of us. 

Jonghyun’s face caught me off guard. I was in a stunned silence when I saw him, his poreless, airbrushed, perfectly chiseled angelic beautiful unreal face. The entire time I said nothing. No words came out of my mouth, no screams. I was silent. In complete and utter AWE. I’ve never experienced that before meeting an idol. At SNSD’s fanmeet, I screamed (to the dismay of Jessica lol). At every concert I’ve screamed as is customary lol. When I saw f(x) at the airport I called out their names. At EXO’s fanmeet I screamed to get Kris’ attention. But seeing SHINee, right in front of me, their beautiful faces materialized, and even more breathtaking than I could possibly comprehend, the 5 boys I have adored so completely for 7+ years, who’s music has been a constant soundtrack playing on repeat every day of my life…I couldn’t formulate words or sounds to express all those emotions. There were none that could do them justice. The love I felt was so fucking overwhelming, as soon as their van started to drive away and Minho’s waving ceased I broke. I cracked. The suffocating sense of adoration and joy at seeing them, seeing my boys, my loves, and my reasons for existence, I fucking SOBBED. Not small tears but full on snot inducing yelps. I literally choked on my emotions. I had to run back into the airport to my mom to hide these tears from everyone else because they were just so ridiculous lol. Everyone else was all giddy and going over their fancams and screaming with each other. I just cried and cried. I could not believe it. I couldn’t process the whole experience. I love them so much, I can’t even begin to tell you guys just how much. I realized it at that airport when I saw them. It was such a different experience than all my other crazy kpop idol meeting experiences. 

Also, just as a note, the whole thing about them being mobbed was greatly exaggerated. It only looked that way on camera because we had all unfortunately formed our organized lines in front of the doors, but they ended up coming down an escalator so we all had to run over and form NEW lines from the escalator to the door and so it looks like we all tried to swarm them. They all tend to walk really fast so we didn’t even have the opportunity to form new lines since by the time we got to them, they were already nearing the exit so at that point we all just tried to see them and welcome them as best we could. There were only like 1-2 fans who were being disrespectful and obnoxious, but trust me when I say most of us were filming and following from a safe enough distance or at least trying to.

The concert: As soon as I found my seat, which was in row D in the pit aka the 4th row from the stage, my heart stopped. I was so close. SO FUCKING CLOSE to the stage SHINee would be on. And I was right in the center too, I’d have a clear center super close view of them, and the realization of that was utterly staggering. The energy around me was filled with excitement and glee, but I was in my own little bubble of heart quenching awe and disbelief. I could see my mom and my sister in the row behind me and I gave my mom the “Can you believe this is happening” look and she smiled and nodded. She and Ruby (sis) were experiencing their own waves of excitement but I wasn’t with them to share in it. I was alone where I sat but that was what ended up happening during the ticket buying bonanza. I was able to score 1 pit ticket, and we all agreed it would be mine since I was the “main” fan in our little trio. SHINee was ours, but first and foremost they were mine. But luckily my mom and sister got seats together and only a row behind me, so they were just as close as I was to the stage. While we waited for the show to start the venue played their music and the crowd chanted along to most of them. I sang too with my eyes closed, ready for the inevitable. I had to told myself in the weeks approaching the date that I would do my best to study and analyze every member’s face and mannerisms as best I could. Since I knew they’d move around and switch sides a lot, I knew I’d have an opportunity to see every member at some point.  When the venue got dark and the light blared and the first VCR started my heart was racing a million miles an hour. My mind was repeating “this is real, this is happening, they’re going to come out and you’re going to see them, you’re going to actually fucking SEE them. The boys who’ve made your entire life worth living for the past almost 8 years are going to be right in front of you, singing all your favorite songs (because all their songs are my favorites, LITERALLY), and you’re close enough that they’re going to see YOU too,” that last thought being the MOST mind blowing of them all. The people sitting directly in front of me were luckily not taller than me, so my head was higher than theirs when we stood which meant SHINee would get a clear shot at my face when they looked in this direction. I opted to wear these cute aqua cat ears with flowers on them in my hair to hopefully draw their eye. 

Finally the VCR ended and we all stood up and we knew it was time. We screamed. I screamed “I’m not emotionally ready oh my god” to the girl sitting next to me (lol). I wasn’t ready and I don’t think I ever WOULD be ready. How do you prepare to see your favorite humans of all time? They opened with Hitchhiking and I was screaming the lyrics along with them, and oh my god they were so close to the edge of the stage, closer to me than I even imagined, I could see every detail of their faces and it was breathtaking. At one point Jonghyun looked directly into my eyes and held my gaze for a few seconds and smirked. What I noticed first was, they’re all so much more beautiful in real life than is even humanly possible, and secondly they were all dancing SO HARD and with SO MUCH INTENSITY it was stunning. They were dripping in sweat after the first 3 songs but MAN did they dance with every ounce of strength they had. Their passion and drive was just astonishing and inspiring to witness. Onew’s dancing was especially impressive. Taemin’s dancing is so fluid and poetic and I can’t believe I got to witness his shirtless godlike body in person so close WOW. Minho is so much more godly than you can imagine. Jonghyun is small (smol) and darling with those sharp cheekbones and puppy eyes. Key is so intense and cat-like in his features which are more defined in real life. Onew is pure gorgeousness, his smile is the most beautiful thing that exists and will ever exist. It’s hard to believe any of them could be so beautiful. I won’t go song by song describing how they looked and how they felt because I’d have to write over 10 pages and who has time to read all of that lmao I’ll just point out the “highlights.” Key’s English. I know we all know it’s great but hearing it in real life was an experience. He sounds so confident and cool, I adore it with my life. When he told us that this was real and we weren’t seeing them through youtube I fucking BALLED. Because that’s exactly what was so shocking and emotional for me, that I was actually seeing them. And they were fucking seeing me too. Minho and Key being playful and silly speaking English added 10 years to my life. Honestly, Minkey are so important. Their banter is the best thing. I couldn’t believe I was experiencing my otps in real life too LMAO. They were all exactly how I knew they’d be. Taemin would be shy and smiley, like the baby he is, Onew would be aloof and dorky and too precious for words, Jonghyun would be flirty and silly and not try out any English lol, Minho would be so cool and sexy during performances but turn into a sweet cinnamon roll during talks, and Key would be the leader, confident and charismatic and intense. They were all so perfect. Jongtae hugging, Taemin speaking English, it was all too cute to witness. 

Minho spent a lot of time on my side so I got the most fanservice from him. It was unfuckingbelievable. He is an actual god among mortals I’m telling you. His endlessly long legs and slim abdomen, and that tiny gorgeous face with those huge expressive frog eyes and round lips, his entire existence is bliss. He looked at me and smiled a TON because I was making hearts. Taemin was in front of me at one point too, with nothing obstructing his view of my face since the people in front were small and he looked at me and smiled that babyish smiley of his that I live for. Key looked at me and raised an eyebrow curiously at one point as well. Onew got wide-eyed and excited when he saw me and a few others make the “MVP” with our hands during his line in replay. I can’t express enough just how fucking gorgeous and perfect their faces are. I can picture them all so fucking clearly in my mind, it gives me heart palpitations. Even my mom said afterwards at the hotel that there’s no way they’re real. Speaking of my mom, Taemin is the actual love of her life, so when he did his solo stage of Goodbye she snuck up to the front row just to watch him lol. Also during Savior, Minho came right over to their side and I looked behind me to see if my mom and sister would get any fanserivce since he had a clear view of them in the aisle seat they had, and sure enough I saw my mom smiling the biggest I’ve ever seen from her, and waving at him and he looked at her and smiled and waved back. When the fans around saw that interaction between them, they all started waving too, wanting to get a hello from him as well and so he obliged and started waving around the entire section. But the waving was started by my mom and she won’t let anyone forget it lol. “Remember when Minho waved at you and smiled” has been a constant phrase we’ve been saying at random intervals through the day. 

This day meant just as much to her as it did to me. Just seeing them perform was indescribable though. I’ve loved their music and choreo for so long, and witnessing it was a whole different experience. I saw them at SMTOWN, sure, but that was only for a few songs and I was a lot farther from the stage. And even when I think back to that concert, where I saw SNSD and EXO and f(x) and so many other performers, SHINee’s has ALWAYS stood out to me as the most memorable and emotional. SHINee has always been my number one.  Seeing them for nearly 3 hours, I sang so loud and so hard (I kept my screaming to a minimum and focused on singing and doing fanchants so they’d see that we love their music here and despite the language barrier, we know their lyrics and hopefully they’d come back again someday soon). I lost my voice by the end and ended up with a sore throat and a fever the next day, but it was well worth it. I also couldn’t walk for the rest of the week lmao It was like I’d run a marathon after living a sedentary life for years and not doing any kind of training beforehand. My legs did not survive. And neither did my heart. I couldn’t listen to or watch anything SHINee related this whole week honestly. Even seeing pictures and fancams of the event (speaking of which, my sister got a fucking glorious fancam of Onew) hurt my heart and so I avoided everything like the plague. It ended too quickly. The whole experience ruined me though. I crave them so much more now. I want to save up to go to Korea to see them since I know they probably won’t do another US tour. I am going to live out the rest of my life just following their careers and loving them unconditionally as I do now, maybe even more so if that’s even possible. If I had the means and the money I’d probably drop everything and become a fansite owner who travels everywhere and sees them and even befriends them. 

Their music represents so much for me. It represents the bond I have with my mother most especially. Experiencing all of this with her made it so much more emotional. We’ve bonded over SHINee since the beginning. As soon as I discovered them nearly 8 years ago, I showed them to mom. She was the first person I showed a kpop video too and of course it was SHINee We watched Hello Baby and their other shows together, and she learned about them with me and grew to love them as much as I have. Her and I listened to their music more than anything and their songs, their passion, their existence gave her and I a sense of happiness and motivation in a difficult time in our lives. We all just…clung to SHINee’s music. Their music is just so fucking GOOD. She has her own copies of all their Korean albums in her car and they’re the only thing she listens to. It was my dream, my ultimate dream to go to a SHINee concert with her. I wanted her to see them. I saw them before at SMTOWN in 2012 and it was MAGICAL. My mom didn’t get to attend because we couldn’t afford another ticket but she was in the parking lot waiting to pick us up and decided to get off and wait inside to try and hear some of the concert and she says she heard Sherlock and saw glimpses of SHINee performing through the curtains in the venue and she cried. She cried because she was so happy that my sister and I were there seeing them, and she sang along to the song and felt like she was a part of that experience with us. And now she got to see them with us, and us with her, and it was pure and utter magic. 

Anyways, SHINee is my entire life and I will never be over this experience. But man oh man, loving them this much has only made the whole “post-concert depression” about a million times more painful and unbearable than anything I’ve ever experienced. Something that can only be cured by seeing them again. I NEED to see them again.

[ellayvonne]

Birchbox: June 2017

It's month 3 back on the Birchbox train and I'm so excited to share with you guys the products I've received this month! I love testing out subscription boxes, both new and old, and love getting to see what products are sent each month! I've been loving Birchbox over the past couple of months but I can't quite figure out if that's because the products I've received are better or if I now have a better appreciation for all things beauty and skincare! Birchbox is a monthly beauty subscription ($10/month) that sends full, deluxe, and sample-size beauty, hair, make-up and skincare products! 

amika: Perk Up Dry Shampoo

I’m not a frequent user of dry shampoo since I wash my hair every morning, but it’s always nice to have a small can of dry shampoo for summer lake days or camping trips! I used this dry shampoo before a day of paddle boarding and it left a little bit of white residue initially but ultimately kept my hair from looking greasy all day - so I’m pretty happy with it! My only complaint is that I received a product from amika last month so I'd really like to try some other brands as well :( 

COOLA: Mineral Face SPF 30 Rosilliance in Golden

I enjoyed trying this product out but it just isn’t something I would use on a regular basis. It’s described as a BB cream/sunscreen hybrid that also offers sheer coverage. When I applied this to my face, it didn’t look like there was any coverage at all 😔 At least it offers some SPF? 

Balance Me: Instant Lift Primer

I love the feel of how this primer applies to the skin - it feels much more like a serum rather than a primer. To be honest, however, I couldn’t really tell if the primer did much for actually smoothing out pores or helping the staying power of my make-up. This is a product I was happy to try but probably not something I’d go out and buy for myself.

The Beauty Crop: Blush Duo in Papaya Don’t Preach

I wasn’t too sure about this blush duo at first but I’ve grown to love it the more I’ve used it! It’s a powder and cream blush duo - but the powder blush is so shimmery/bronzey that I’ve been using it more as a highlight. The cream blush is SUPER pigmented so be prepared to blend it out but I love that due to its strong pigmentation, the blush still shows through after I’ve dusted setting powder over the top! 

Benefit Cosmetics: Boi-ing Airbrush Concealer

I was so, so excited to receive this concealer because I’ve heard lots of good things about Benefit’s new airbrush concealer. For me, however, it did not live up to the hype. According to its description, it offers sheer to medium coverage the doesn’t crease, cake or crack - but those were the exact things I experienced when I tried to blend it into my skin! To be fair, I’ve been experiencing some especially dry skin on certain areas of my face but most of my other concealers have still looked fine blended on top of it. This concealer did not blend easily, didn’t offer a ton of coverage and looked a little too cake-y. I still think I’ll get some good use out of it for lightening up my dark circles, but for any other spots on my face, this is a no go.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with this month’s Birchbox! Although I didn’t love every specific item in this box, all of the products sent to me were things that I would use in my regular routine and I love getting the opportunity to try new brands of products that I already use in my everyday life! What did you think of your June Birchbox? I’d love to hear your thoughts!