Watercolor - Still Life with Lily, Poms, and a Picture of Frannie

Spent my Sunday painting this still life. It has been one week since I even held a pencil to draw. Last week was just crazy! It's a relief to be creating again. Frannie is the dog of a friend of mine. She's a funny dog. She always makes people smile or laugh. She makes funny noises in the form of grunts, snorts, and snores. She's a great family dog.

Tiffanny

Watercolor - Bride of Frankenstein (2nd place winner!)

I entered a classic monster character design contest 2 months ago. (Like Frankenstein, Dracula, etc) The winners were just announced today, and I won second place! The contest was a "learning" contest. Contestants were encouraged to show process, not just a final piece. During the process period, drawings were critiqued and guided by both contestants and judges. You had to do a model sheet of the character with an action pose. Rad Sechrist was one of the judges, (but was later replaced) and he generously donated his time doing draw-overs and corrections, as you will see in this post.

The final piece:

The model sheet:

The process sketches:

I like to start with a story in my head. I wanted the Bride to be running away from a mirror in terror, so I wanted to make sure I could draw a character as if she had just looked at something frightening and running away. I wanted to make the pose have dynamic curves. I also knew that most entries were going to be dark and scary. I wanted to be the different one, drawing something cute and colorful.

The judge encouraged me to watch the path of action and make sure that her body parts are flowing in that direction. He gave me a mini-lesson, as shown here:

So I listened, but I believed I could push the curve harder:

But was encouraged to think otherwise because at this point ribs could look missing :), here is the judges' draw over:

With the pose fleshed out, I did some variations on the character, and posted it for further critiques:

One of the critiques was that I was jumping the gun on the shape of the characters without exhausting more possibilities. In other words, I think, "thumbnail" more.

Which is what I did. I generally do not thumbnail, and I know many artists swear by it. I am really not psyched about doing little silhouettes. Eric Goldberg openly confesses to not thumb-nailing, so I am in good company. However, he IS Eric Goldberg *worship*, so he's allowed to break the rules. I suppose since so many experts out there swear by it, I really ought to listen. That's what makes them the expert, right?

I picked a few of my favorite silhouettes and did some more designs.

I ended up with the costume of the first drawing, the hair of the last one.

I did do color keys in Photoshop, but for the life of me I can't find the files to show you! Painting white was the biggest challenge. You want to add some color temperature shifts in there for interest but not lose the color's identity.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this post. I had fun drawing and painting, and I'm glad I won 2nd place. I think I get a t-shirt. :) But really, the learning experience was what I was after.

Oh! One last awesome news. Yesterday, I became a citizen of the United States of America. I am so happy!!!

Tiffanny

Naked Lunch - Michelle

Here are my favorite drawings from today's Naked Lunch session.

Here are the 7 minute poses:

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See you next time!
Tiffanny

Agent's Identity

I have this probably wrong idea in my head that when people from other countries think about the US, they think Texans. Well, since Agent is American as apple pie, I figured she should be a Texan. My husband and I named her Austin, after Texas' most awesome city. Maybe her great great grand pappy was Stephen Austin himself! When she's not doing her secret agent business, she's at her Texas ranch living a full and happy life with her faithful horse Dallas, and lots of dogs.

I haven't been putting up sketches lately. I've been posting sketches that go with paintings, but not really exploratory sketches, or sketches that don't make it into a painting. Since the title of my blog is "Tiffanny's Sketchbook" I think I will show more unfinished work.

Watercolor - Agent

Agent:36-24-36
Likes: Freedom
Dislikes: Oppression

Some sketches in case you are interested:

At the beginning of the year I did a pencil animation involving Agent, in Agent vs Nemesis. I've redesigned her with the idea of of her becoming a 3d model. Meaning more structure and details, and of course color :) I'm excited about her ribbon because I think it will look cool flapping about in 3D as she's running around karate chopping bad guys. I picture her to be a perfect independent American woman. Stay tuned for the redesign of Nemesis!
Until next time!
Tiffanny

AVAA

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Watercolor - Taveliss (My other sister's WoW Character)

This is for my sister Penny!
I really hope you like it!
Love,
TIP

Watercolor - Volleyball Giraffes

Process:

Sketch:

Drawing and painting is really hard. Even harder when you're drawing a giraffe flying in the air about to spike a volleyball.

Time for a little story!

I used to be heavily into video games. The first thing I would do when I started a new game is to turn the difficulty to the hardest setting and start the game (for example, Street Fighter.) This would make me learn so fast and give me lightning reflexes that I could beat anyone who challenged me! When it comes to drawing, I feel the same. I don't know if I'm wrong or right, but I don't really believe in baby steps when it comes to drawing and painting. I believe in making it  hard on yourself as often as you can. Make it a challenge. Draw something from weird angles, draw something foreshortened, paint with watercolor!

By challenging myself I'm hoping it will increase my drawing kung fu faster.

Ah well enough of my ranting,
Tiffanny

AVAA

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Gotta go. Post stuff later. Bye!
Tiffanny

AVAA - Cammy

Conte crayon drawings. This model has Sandra Bullock's face!

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Sketchbook

I love sketching in my sketchbooks. I rarely post sketchbook material which is strange, since this blog is entitled "Tiffanny's Sketchbook". Most of the stuff I sketch is loose and crappy, but once in a while I think I get nice drawings. Here are some of my favorites in my current sketchbook (all in pen):

This is our cat psycho, who got shaved because he was so matted. He looks silly but I love that I can really see cat anatomy, instead of the usual ball of fluff.