Surprise! Today's post is a traditional drawing and it's the first time I am posting one here on this account. This is not intentional, but rather, the only choice I have left to be able to participate to Artpark's weekly challenge two weeks ago. This was the time when my laptop was dead and the monitor I ordered online was taking longer than usual to be delivered.
This challenge was the monthly Emoji to OC. This is the second Emoji to OC, if you haven't seen my entry to the first one, check this link:
Art #26: MIPPRA | Pyra Mage
For the second challenge, the three emojis presented were: 🐛👹👙
A caterpillar, oni mask, and bikini.
The combination was interesting but it still took me a few days before I was able to come up with an idea.
"RAYDA"
I named my character Rayda, I think it fits her character. (There's no really an important reason for choosing her the name.) Rayda is an impatient girl who easily gets bored and mad. Here I drew her slouching on a table with one of her hand supporting her head. Apparently, she is having a vacation on the beach as she is wearing a black with gold polka dot bikini under the jacket with oni and roses print while listening to music through her headset which have cute demon horns. She is obviously not enjoying the trip but at least she brought her favorite caterpillar neck pillow to make herself comfortable during the travel.
(But to be honest, I just drew Rayda looking bored to express how I felt while waiting for my monitor to arrive. Haha!)
Drawing Process
I am not used to drawing traditionally as I have mild shaky hands or hand tremors which manifests especially when I'm tired. Plus, the inking process makes me anxious because it's irreversible when you have made a mistake. But again, I have no choice so I have to go traditional for this week whether I like it or not.
I drew Rayda on my old 6x9 Corona (coughs) sketch pad, but before drawing her on the sketch pad, I initially made a sketch on a different paper while conceptualizing the character. Then I drew the final rough sketch to be inked on the sketch pad itself.
I made the sketch a bit bigger than the sketch I did on the scratch paper to be able to draw the details on her jacket better. You can use any pencil you have for the rough sketch. I am using a Stabilo pencil for my sketches.
Next step I did was to do the line art. Here I used a 0.3 Uni Pin pigment ink because it's the only pen for line art that I have. I bought this about a decade ago and I have used it for several activities that it amazes me it still has ink in it. The Uni Pin pens was introduced by our Technical Drawing teacher way back high school and it has been my favorite fine line water proof pen ever since.
As you can see here, I immediately made a mistake right on my initial inking. The line of the bangs on top should be curving like a circle but my dumb shaky hand made it curve inward. Ugh! But I'm glad I was able to draw the lines fine on the rest. I just have to be very careful and pause every now and then to rest my hand and calm myself at the same time.
Next, I filled in some huge spaces with black ink using a brush pen for calligraphy. The coverage was bigger with one stroke compared with using the Uni Pin for filling in huge spaces. The tip was also pointed which makes it perfect for tiny corners. I bought the brush pen at Daiso about five years ago. I can no longer remember if it does have a brand but I liked the gold flower prints on the pen, plus, it's recommended by Jean who does calligraphy during that time. Hehe! The ink is nice and very black, however, I was a bit disappointed that it smudged slightly while I was erasing the rough sketch, so maybe next time, I should erase the rough sketch before applying the brush pen.
Now, my next step should be shading using the watercolor, but instead, I already added the metallic gold ink just because I am so excited to try it on my drawing. Lol. The pen I used for the gold color is the Sakura Gelly Roll metallic gold color. The Gelly Roll pens are popular colored gel pens, I'm just not sure if they are still popular today, but I bought some few years ago when it was very popular. Haha! What I like about this pen is that their colors stay on top of other colors. It is vibrant and has rich texture although the ink gets used up quickly even when using it to draw little.
My initial plan was to draw in manga style. You know, by shading and adding effects with black ink. But I've never done that and I think I would have difficulty doing it given that there's a deadline so I settled for using the watercolor. I diluted the black watercolor into the water so that the color wouldn't be so dark. The watercolor I used here is the national watercolor of Filipino students long ago. Lol. I had this watercolor since I was in 6th grade and it was barely used when I found it on the drawer, so I used it last year when I was participating to the weekly drawing activity of Robert Alejandro. Then after a year, I was able to use it again through this challenge.
After letting the watercolor dry, I added the rest of the gold accents. I was thinking of coloring some of the roses gold as well but I felt that it will just prevent the oni with gold horn and eyes from standing out.
Last, I added some light gold shine on her eyelids, lips, and left shoulders. I just rubbed the Gelly Roll into the wet brush and painted it over the drawing. I learned this technique through chichilittle, a Filipina artist I follow on Instagram. Glad I was able to apply the technique on my artwork! :)
Again, I repeat. Drawing traditionally isn't something I would enjoy most doing because even by just drawing this simple piece, it already made my nape hurt a lot. That's because I have to bend closer to see the details of the drawing. Although if there's a silver lining for not being able to draw digitally for now, it would be being able to hold my pens and draw on my sketch pad again.
