2012
Here are some of the sketches I made while on my way to completing the final draft. As stated elsewhere, I use the Premiere edition of Prismacolor colored pencils for the final draft. The lead is very soft and creamy. The pigment behaves in a paint-like way in that it can be fudged around the paper a bit. However, mistakes cannot be covered when working with colored pencil. If the paper is toothy, it will take several passes to achieve total saturation. Friction may be used to heat the pigment to a high gloss. The sea background contains almost a half dozen colors from the blue and green family. I used a woodless colored pencil for the large areas. Blending around tight spaces is difficult. Undersea themes are perfect for the artist who wants to go wild with color. Check out the brainstorm sketches below.
Undersea Mystery
10/5/11
Falling Bodies I needed to show a body as it would float to the bottom of the sea. As is so often the case, a posable body model helped me a lot. Once I have a believable pose, I move on to adding fleshing it out. Although the final version will be clothed, I always get better results when I have a decent nude to work with.
FIsh When it comes to your artwork, anything goes. I goofed around with a few different paint schemes before choosing the orange and white version.
Hair Raising Time Having things appear suspended in water challenged me at every step. I roughed in this hair mock up and liked it right away. Hair is one of the most difficult things to draw. I am still learning.
It’s in the Details I learned a lot about diamonds on my way to learning how to draw them accurately. I also made a variety of hand poses such as this left hand pose that I ended up not using.
Octopus Remember that not everything needs to be drawn for a picture to look real. In this case, I did not draw all eight arms. Note that the final copy has the octopus in a slightly different pose. The suckers were tedious to color.