SOTW #1 - Coffee

[quote=Kinen]Yeah. To be honest, the sketch looks miles better than the painting, I could probably have made a half-decent sig using the scans, or by using pencil shading rather than digital colouring. I've a lot of experience with graphite pencil but pretty much none with digital media. I've had my graphics tablet for two years now but that's the first time I've made extensive use of it. Despite the fact I don't consider the painting to be anything approaching what I'd like it to be, I am extremely pleased with the progress I made during its course. I pretty much painted the subject twice, bar details such as the hair, as I swept from right to left and realised what I had first started with could now be so much better. In typical fashion, I took on a project too ambitious for my experience. I really need to do some portraits, maybe some figure paintings, and clothing baffles me, I mostly draw nudes. I won't have a great deal of free time at Uni, but I've picked up art again and I'd like to see where I get to with some focused practice :) That said, while I spent easily a dozen hours on the painting, the sig itself was shoddy half-assed work. When I had the inspiration I envisioned Forecast Janna with a mug of coffee occupying the entirety of the sig's dimensions. This then had text and layer effects applied much in the fashion of the banners in my forum signature. I never accounted for the dimensions when I started the artwork and wound up with something unsuitable for a signature. I could have just used the face and mug, but I was burnt out from spending nearly two entire consecutive days finishing off the last bits of painting and didn't feel like thinking how to actually use the artwork in a way which would be effective. To quote myself, "I spent all week working on the painting for use in the sig so everyone has to look at it anyway >:|". I'm toying with bringing some drawings into my entry for your competition, although it's something much less technically demanding so the composition and idea should not be hindered by my lack of skill. The challenge for that will come more from deciding [i]what[/i] to draw than how I colour it and getting my art to fit with the render, although I think my concept solves that problem perfectly.[/quote]

[quote=The_Nameless_Bard]I'm jelly. wish I could draw. at all. ever. it's ok though, I have other talents probably.[/quote]

[quote=jhoijhoi]Kinen: omg, that's amazing! Truly! I'm sure if people knew you had actually drawn that, they would have voted for you. I can't imagine the amount of work that went into it. And your concept, about Janna, that's so cool. Honestly, can't wait to see what you do for the Battle Arena, I'm sure it'll be fantastic. +rep, anyway. By the way, if text isn't your strong point, don't use it! You don't have to have text with every signature :)[/quote]