Ninja vs Penguin

Ninja June 13th, 2008

Ah, I know it’s Friday, but I don’t dream that often. Instead of posting a dream this week, I thought I’d offer up this portrait that I just finished inking.

Meet Dan. He’s the owner of the barber shop that I frequent. He’s a very sweet guy, but he acts all tough. He’s also a huge NvP fan—he told me that he painted and decorated a whole room to match our First Kiss print (which is proudly displayed in said room). O.o Wow, thanks, Dan!

When I last visited his shop, he joked that I should paint him some time. Why not?
Here’s a bit of my inking process:

I finished most of the line work, but the wash on Dan’s shirt was uneven and boring. It could use some texture and pattern.

I photocopied the drawing and cut out the shirt portion to create a stencil.

I placed the stencil over the drawing and used nail polish bottles to weigh it down to avoid shifting. Then I dipped an old toothbrush in sumi ink and used my thumb to create small splatter marks. The harder I flicked, the larger the marks.

And here is the drawing after the stencil was removed.

Here’s a detail of the splatter pattern. I varied my flicking to create different sized spots.

Here’s one of the wallpaper patterns I made in Illustrator as a background for Dan’s portrait. For this pattern, I drew a pair of hair cutting scissors, rotated, and repeated them. I didn’t like the way it looked with Dan’s portrait, so I nixed it. I may tweak it later, and give it a go again.

Here’s the final. I evened out the wash of the shirt, then added more shading to Dan’s jaw and neck to give him definition.

Happy inking & happy Friday,
Ninja

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Tags: ink, Patterns, portrait, Process, Wallpaper

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Ninja May 22nd, 2008

Related links
+ Leesa Leva’s web site + portfolio
+ Galactic Mu—Leesa’s blog

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Ninja April 25th, 2008

A year ago, I met this girl at a birthday dinner. Her name was Genevieve.

Genevieve’s a photographer’s assistant, so I’ve seen her again at 2 different weddings (and the most recent one I attended on April 5th). After talking to her, I was shocked to find out that she doesn’t realize just how beautiful she is. She’s quite down on herself because her mum is a such stunner, and she feels she takes after her dad. Which is complete rubbish. She’s got these huge eyes framed with thick lashes, but hides them (and her face) behind long strands of hair. All the things she claims are her flaws, I think just make her even more lovely.

With her permission, I painted her portrait. And here are the steps.

Oh, haha, before we start, I should probably note that I only have about 10 acrylic paintings under my belt, and that I really just sort of feel each one out. It’s a learning process for me, and each time, I try something new.

I started with a pencil sketch on pine. Unfortunately, most of the time that I did see Genevieve during the wedding, she was either looking down and changing lenses or hiding behind a camera.

I don’t think I did Genevieve justice with this sketch. You’d have to see her in person. She glows.

Then I added a little bit of white gesso to blend the pencil.

I blocked out the highlights with the white gesso and gave her face a wash of thinned down white gesso. Afterwards, I put down a layer of clear gesso to give the wood some tooth.

The clear gesso smeared some of the pencil, tinting the wood this ugly, murky shade of grey. I had no choice but to sand that section off. After the wood was clean, I applied another layer of clear gesso to the sanded area.

I then blocked in some of the shadows with Payne’s grey.

I built up layers of Payne’s grey and Raw umber to fill out her hair (pure black would have flattened out the image too much).

I used tea for the washes on her face to add warmth and color.

Then I used coffee to deepen the color and add more depth to her face.

Her lips are a blend of Cadmium red, Yellow ochre, Thio violet, and white gesso.

Her hair looked too faded and washed out, so I added more layers of Payne’s grey and Raw umber. I also overlaid washes of a Payne grey/Raw umber mix to the hair’s highlights to tone them down a bit.

Well, there you have it. If you’ve got any painting tips, feel free to share them in the comments.

Happy painting,
Ninja ^___^

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Tags: Acrylic, Genevieve, portrait, Process

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Ninja February 29th, 2008

Oy, ok, I think I finally got this post up. I apologize in advance if you see 3 more of the exact same post!

I thought it’d be fun to play with sanguine. Too bad I don’t have the real stuff or fancy metal holders/brushes. I went to the local art store and bought some cheap, sanguine-colored compressed sticks. Eventually, I’ll give it a proper go.

I normally go all out with the hair, but this time I wanted to focus more on the face. I left the hair area alone so that the whiteness and texture of the paper would show through. Also, the flatness of the hair framed the face nicely.

Happy drawing,
Ninja

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