The Winged Heart

Here’s today’s drawing.  Worked on it for about an hour in Photoshop using a photo reference.  This is my first time really trying to do a realistic painting like this, or really any painting at all.  Usually my laptop overheats before I can get very far, and stuff like this takes a lot of experimentation and practice.  I’m using Nick’s super powerful PC instead today, and it’s wooooonderfulll.  Gone are the days of drawing a stroke with my tablet and seeing it finally show up on the screen 5 seconds later!  Hooray!  Still, this was tough to get started on!  I didn’t really know where to start, and it seemed like my shading was all blocky and gross.  AND I couldn’t get the face proportions right.  Finally I zoomed in on the eye and started there, working closely with the photo reference.  Zoomed in that close, my brushes were smaller and that made my shading transitions a lot nicer.  I also got over my qualms about using the smudge tool and just used it.  I’ve heard it’s bad practice.. but why wouldn’t I want to use it?  I’m already “cheating” by using digital brushes and being able to undo and erase, there’s no need to be purist about it.  I think I also heard it can make your colors muddy.. but since I’m doing grayscale that shouldn’t matter right?  Anyway, once I got the hang of it it started to be pretty fun!  I think I’ll try and work on this until it’s finished, although I’m sure I’ll step back at some point and everything will be in the wrong place! =)