New one's. Mandala and bird

[Cyberthrasher]

Here are a couple of recent pieces I've done. I've been spending a lot of time on calligraphy lately to improve my lining and hand control, so the portfolio work hasn't been abundant.

The mandala is all Pigma Micron and the bird is prismacolor. I had some glare at the end, so here's a head on in progress shot that worked well.

That's actually the first time I've done any realistic animal, and first realism of anything in color pencil. So, it was a learning experience. The good news is that the artist I'm hoping to approach for an apprenticeship used to be a wildlife painter and has already told me how much she loves it.

 

[soulstare22]

mad props for drawing the mandala out by hand, that would drive me insane

the bird is veery pretty, especially the color scheme, and the texture on the chest

 

[Cyberthrasher]

Thanks man. Drawing out the mandala like that is really good for teaching me to just let things happen. Just design each ring without any thought into what the end will be. Most importantly though it helps me with precision in my lining. It's not there yet, but that's why I do these things.

I'm pretty happy with the body and head on the bird. I tried out some new techniques of burnishing everything with white to help my layering and get the feeling of motion in the wings. Those parts worked, but I feel like I lost a lot of the vibrance in the wings that was in the reference.

 

[Dika O'Real-coach]

Mandala looks amazing! What an effort! Well done!

 

[Cyberthrasher]

Mandala looks amazing! What an effort! Well done!

Thank you Dika

 

[Cyberthrasher]

That Mandala was just on regular inkjet paper and I'm trying to keep everything 9x12 in my portfolio. That, and I've been practicing a lot of lining since then so I wanted to do another cleaner one. I wrapped this one up yesterday, but I had been up since 3am so I'll probably go back and do some cleanup work on it. Some of the same elements are in here, just arranged a little differently. I need to work on expanding my selection of design elements.

 

[Jerry7297]

Change up the interior. Too many small lines IMO. Also if you are drawing this with pencil/ pen and paper. Maybe start with some tracing paper draw 1/2 of it perfectly and then trace onto your white paper with a light box. This way everything is the same, alot of inconsistencies on this at the moment. I am sure you were tired but work smarter not harder.

 

[Cyberthrasher]

Thanks. In regards to the small lines, its actually pretty big. But, other than that, all of that accuracy stuff is actually what I'm working on. Trying to maintain consistency everywhere and being aware of how small mistakes multiply down the line. I have a bit of a looseness in my hand from charcoal work so I'm working specifically on breaking that through practicing the hard way.