Practice illustrations

This is the 2nd drawing practice note by a beginner for an illustration.

Today's illustration

Left one of next illustrations is one before I practiced and right side is one after I practiced. I haven't finished painting colors, like adding shades or shadows, to them in order to check and practice what can be significantly better in terms of lines drawings at first.

BeforeAfter
Before practiceAfter practice

It might be hard to notice what was changed, but I practiced hands and fingers because it looked weird on the left illustration.

These are summaries for today's practice

  1. Hands are complex so that we should draw roughs by multiple steps, and not by a single step. In some cases, it's better to draw after most of other parts is complete, especially when hands do not affect other parts
  2. There are many small things that could change an impression of fingers.

Here is the links to today's illustration on my SNS accounts.

I tried these steps to improve this original illustration, which was the same way as last time.

  1. Figure out what can be better
  2. Pick up a few things I need to focus on improving
  3. Practice and figure out a few things I have to do
  4. Redraw the illustration and check what was improve

1. What can be better

I checked my original illustration and listed up what can be better. These are what I thought:

  1. Fingers of a right hand were supposed to be bent and also be thinner
  2. Drawing nails, like shapes or the sizes, can be improved especially when fingers are bent
  3. Skin colors can be more natural than current colors
  4. Chains of her belt can be bigger so viewers can recognize them
  5. The position of her right elbow is supposed to be higher
  6. Details can be added around her right breast
  7. The lines surrounding her breast can be to imply the size of her bust by being drawn by shorter widths
  8. The stregnth of a darker pen and lighter pen with same size isn't so different
    • I used a darker pen for the frame lines of most of body, cloths, or accessories, and use a lighter pen inside lines of each body part, cloth, or accessory.
    • LIghter pen with the same width should be used for a real or clear line, but shouldn't be used for weak lines like a wrinkle. For it, it's better to make the width smaller.
  9. The position of her left shoulder is better to be lower
  10. Gravity should be considered more. I considered it when I drew her hairs or ear rings, but it was not sufficient and also it can't be seen for a skirt.

2. What I practiced

I practiced hands, especially fingers, and those when fingers are bent

Videos that I checked in order to learn how to draw hands:

Also, I practiced drawing hands by a croquis by watching next video.

But I noticed it was especially hard to draw fingers being bent to the far side, and not bent to the left or right sides. So, I practiced hands that fingers were bent but the point of view isn't diagonal, because I thought it was the best practice for this illustration.

3. What I found

As I wrote, at first, I tried a croquis, and next illustration is an example of what I drew. It's really good to practice hands by a croquis, especially a lot of forms, but not good to find new things and how I can improve.

Croquis hand practice

Then, next illustration was the one I tried to draw and tried to find what I could improve, though each of them was small thing.

Hand practice

Besides, during this practice, I noticed it's better to draw hands by multiple roughs, to make it better gradually. I had drew the hand in the original illustration very rough at first, and jumped to draw complete hand, but a hand is complex and drawing hands should be taken care more like other human parts. I think if the hands are not the main part of an illustration, it's probably better to draw roughs of hands after roughs for most of other body parts ended because it's doesn't affect other body parts so much but may get affected by other body parts a lot.

Other learnings

Custome brush

This was the 1st time to use a custom brush. I used it for the chain on her skirt. In order to use it, I just downloaded "Necklace brush" made by Fukomu (ふうこむ) and used it.

There is an official help page for how to use downloaded brushes, so check it out for more details.

What I redrew and what was improved

As I posted on the top of this page, this is the illustration after I modified her hands.

After practice

I think these are improved points:

  1. The shapes of nails became more natural
  2. Each part of hands can now be distinguished clearer. It can be done more by drawing lines clearer around knuckles.
  3. Fingers became thinner and more natural
  4. Fingers on the left hands become more natural because skins under nails can be seen on this angle
  5. Fingers might be too straight after modifying it

Wrap it up

First thing first, hands and fingers are small parts compared to other body parts. It's better to draw them by multiple roughs and draw them gradually to make them natural. The shapes or angles of hands can be changed variously on each situation, so it's really hard to find the common techniques to draw them in any situation other than those introduced in the learning materials shared on this page. So, I'll need practices in each case.