Monthly Archives: January 2014

The Sketch Book

Chinese War Horse Daiyu #2

Happy New Year 2014 – Year of the Horse

Chinese War Horse Daiyu #2

Chinese war horse – Daiyu (Black Jade)

My Chinese War Horse Daiyu (Black Jade) is a perfect drawing to celebrate the year of the horse!
It is a re-work of this picture, but done with pencil crayons.
I’ve also created 2 videos of myself working on this picture showing the inking of the line work and the actual pencil coloring process.

The inking video can  be seen here : http://youtu.be/d_e3pWIdBdc

Chinese War Horse Daiyu – Inked line art

I find inking is a hard process as you only really get one shot at each line, and you need to do it fairly quickly or it doesn’t look good. Almost every line is drawn with 1 solid stroke and then later  with a much smaller pen tip, the line weight and extra shape/detail is added. You also need to make sure you know where its going to end up, its not like you can just erase it….

The colouring video can be found here: http://youtu.be/sCFt5inUn7k
It looks really different before the blending stage occurs

Pencil crayon before blending, it looks quite different then the completed version. Still looks nice but not as well as the fully blended piece

I really enjoy using pencil crayons. You can get a nice solid color onto the paper and they blend quite well. The overall effect is similar to a copic marker or even paint. However I do find that pencil crayon is not as forgiving as paint at all… once its on the paper it’s staying there.
Some people like to use layer of workable fixatif, however I have never used it.
I may in the future but for now I think the method I have going works well for me.

Overall this drawing is a large improvement upon the original and was great practice fro my pencil crayon work!

Chinese war horse – Daiyu (Black Jade)

-Samantha Lim

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The Sketch Book

Matt Gill

 

 

Matt Gill

This one was a lot of fun.
It’s a portrait of my friend. Then I stuck him in this world based off a description of his name we found on urban dictionary on day at lunch.
I think Matt would make an interesting movie dont you?

The description: A mythical Irishman who was said to have destroyed Superman’s home when he first synthesized Krypton in chemistry. Standing about five feet tall, Matt Gill can fly, shoot lazer beans from his eyes, drink any amount of beer, and turn any frisbee he touches into straight, heat-seeking, side-winding, and lazer-guided missles until they reach their intended targets.

Matt Gill commonly insists that he hasn’t drank, as less than 99 beers off the wall doesn’t even count in his book.

Matt Gill is an Omnihero, and as such can outrun any superhero. He eats gold and pisses rainbows, allowing him to follow the Yellow, Orange, Red, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet River to more gold, in a vicious cycle. Leprechauns worship him as their savior and upholder of Irish traditions.

When Matt Gill threw a frisbee the length of half a football field against the wind, and abruptly appeared to catch it with his left hand while not looking for a touchdown.
Thank you Urban dictionary  http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Matt%20Gill  . you are always so fun to look at!
Throw in some gold, a leprechaun, and a rainbow with Matt and Bam it all comes together!
But that Damn hat, did it ever cause me problems lol.
Matt got this as a Christmas gift, but committed a Christmas violation and opened it before Dec even started. Thankfully he didn’t eat all the chocolate form his Advent calendar. Lol, poor Matt, I get to make fun of him in his special blog >:)
But I think its ok, He is also my favorite Ginger, even if he’s the only one I know 😛
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The Sketch Book

The Blue Pansy butterfly – Pencil Art

The Blue Pansy Butterfly

 

Just testing out my pencils and paper, it was a good learning exp, plus Butterflies are not easy to draw! Damn mirror image XD
Good to work with such a rich colour on paper again 🙂

 

 

So basically I wanted a somewhat simple butterfly that had some stunning colors. There are some very interesting ones out there but I chose this one for the vibrant blue, purple and orange. It creates a great contrast and will be perfect for testing out the blending of the color son the paper.

The blue pansy butterfly is a very pretty one 🙂

The Reference photo

 

 

To do a mirror image on paper, well its really quite a pain. I started by sketching out one side then scribbling reference lines all over it to try and get the correct proportions and angles on both sides.

The Draft

When I was happy with that I moved onto a new pencil line art fixing up the details of the pattern within the wings. I ended up doing just one side to get a feel for where the colors went and how the pattern should look. (you can see them in the gallery below) In the end it came out a bit different then the ref but I think I like it.

Here was the complete butterfly line work that I came up with.

Pattern correction

I was actually pretty happy with this piece, I got most of the shapes worked out.

I continued to do a quick graphite version, as I needed to test out the paper with both colors and graphite. ( I have never used this type of paper before). Actually it was not quick, it was pretty time consuming, what a pain to color a mirrored image even with the line work lol.

It went well but it was quite different then what I am used to. This paper holds the graphite very well and the blending doesn’t work the same for me.

The entire process can be seen below if you are interested. the entire… project, took a few days to complete over a course of I maybe 2 or 3 weeks as I didn’t work on it everyday. more of an on and off project in between, that thing called life.

enjoy

🙂

-Samantha Lim

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The Sketch Book

The Changeable Hawk Eagle

The Changeable hawk Eagle

 

I really like the Hawk Eagle, I find them very interesting, I just think they are so unique.
I really want to draw/practice drawing animals again, I used to do it a lot but then I strayed from it for several years.
To finish off 2012, as my last post of the year here is my Hawk Eagle.
A traditional sketch, it took me about 3.5 – 4 hours to complete using this picture as a reference:

In the end this was given to someone as a gift. Actually to the person who inspired me to draw it. So for now it remains on his bedroom wall 🙂
To add to this, someone had asked for a quick tutorial on how I do my shading.
I though this would be a great picture to use for it

you can find it here

http://www.sammacha.com/gallery/tutorials/instructional/Shading-The_Changeable_Hawk-Eagle.html

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The Sketch Book

Daiyu – Chinese War Horse

Daiyu – Chinese war horse

 

The Chinese war horse.

SPEED PAINT : [link]

Here I have drawn a Chinese war horse
Sadly, I am not a big horse person and I’m not sure that I have correct breed listed below. This horse isn’t carrying very much right now other then its standard attire. Perhaps he is coming home from a victory :)
His name, Daiyu (黛玉) meaning “black jade”

Anyways this picture, I have drawn is for the contest held by :iconthe-saddle-club: The point is to draw a horse’s importance to a certain culture.
It has been quite some time since I’ve drawn one (I havent drawn one since [link]), I feel like I’m a little rusty on the horse, but, I like it all the same. In my opinion it turned out well.

Also, I decided that I would do a speed paint, I haven’t posted one for a while, and I have yet to do a larger picture like this so please enjoy it!

Contest information

Breed: I think this is a Ferghana horse but I am not sure ;_;

Location: China

Cultural Facts/History: now correct me if iI am wrong, but here is a bit of history on the horse
The Chinese searched for the perfect horse for battle and found in the horses found in central Asia. The Fernanda horse. Powerful, fast and with great endurance. This horse was strong enough to be equipped with supplies, armor and weapons while traveling great distances with speed. Not only that but its ability to survive with little food was also a benefit to the soldiers. They could be pushed so hard that would “sweat blood”, for this reason they were once know as the blood sweat horse.
This breed was excellent for battle and would out run, out power, and out endure and of the domestic horses that were previously used. This dominance brought on great victories and thus the horse was later re-named The celestial horse/heavenly horse (which you see on the zodiac). You can find this horse praised in all types of Chinese artworks and literature.
Traces of this breed can be found in several types of horses found all over the world.
Importance to me: I find it interesting and its a bit of my history

****Buy This****
[link]

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Refrences:
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The Sketch Book

A Light in the Dark

This is my picture of Reiz Chrise

He is one of :iconff-boy:‘s characters

This is drawn for an art trade I am doing with her, but I saw that its her birthday today!!
So…
Since last time I took forever to finish my pic I thought, hey, maybe it will be a nice surprise if I can get this done and post it on her birthday xD
I sat at my computer All day LOL!!!!

I tried out a style that I have not used for a long time. I thought that is would fit the picture I was trying to create
The lighting for this was so hard D:
I think its at least decent though!!

Reiz is a dark and mysterious character
I hope that you can see this in my pic ^^
He uses the art of magic and is very good indeed (especially with fire, as you can see since his hair is not burning lol :P )
Thats all I am going to say about this character, please go and Visit :iconff-boy:‘s gallery (its great) if you want to know more about him

also
:iconff-boy:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
and thank you or doing another art trade with me :)
We end the decade with one and begin the new with another!

I trade for this fantastic piece, she drew David for me 🙂

Mercenary by FF-boy
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The Sketch Book

David – Sam’s new OC

 

hey guys
This is one of my new OC’s David (I’m still building him)
Right now I don’t really want to say much about his story at this time
This one is more of the concept ^^
I already know all the colors but i was just seeing how I liked the design, and yeah
I think I do like him.
I am so glad to finally have drawn him! he’s been in my head for ages
I hope I can draw him more often as well
So for the Back story I’ll just say …
he is partially royalty, but more so a mercenary. Why?
because he feels like it, and doesn’t really believe in the ways of his families ruling.
Its like a hobby to him.
do they know? o maybe O-o
he also has an older brother that i would like to draw at a later date
o yes I realize the sword is a little bent
He is supposed to be holding it, its not on the belt right now
O and the broach thing he has is the phoenix’ head, but his jacket is open so…
you cant really see it

 

Here is a quick ref I did a while back, i really need to draw this character again!

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The Sketch Book

Day of our wedding

Day of our wedding

 
The bride actually had it done as a surprise for the Groom
Its a portrait of the two of them.
Constantly referring to the reference photos for all the small details was a lot of fun
yes, that’s even her dress, and the location of the wedding!!
I am very happy to know they received it on time and they were both very pleased with it.
It was a great drawing to do, and I wish them all the best!
I hope you all like this piece, but I know nobody can love it as much as these two!
It was very kind of them to let me post such a personalized picture.
~May the years bring them all the Joy and Happiness they could ever hope for and more~

i love being able to work on personalized pieces such as this!

Comments from the customer:Hey Sam,
we are both very happy with the picture you did for us!!
whenever people come over
one of the first things they comment on is the photo and ask who did it.
you got everything so accurate that it is like looking at one of the wedding photos.
this photo is one of the many things that made that day so special
but knowing that i had it and got to give it to him after the wedding was so special!!
there are not enough words to thank you. great job. who knows, I might have to have you do more!

~S~

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The Sketch Book

Linked – Art Trade

Linked

This was done as another Trade with FF-Boy

This is a picture of FF-Boy’s OC Dyraun and my OC Sammacha.
I did a sketch on paper and I really liked it, so I tried to finish it.
In the end, I used so many sheets and it ended up being the size of a poster!
I stuck them together on my computer and re-did it 12 times! this final image is lucky #13!
For some reason I just couldn’t get it how I wanted.
I know how much she likes duo-tone ( she puts out duotonic, and its very cool)

I used most of the accessories that dyruan usually has
(bandages, barbed wire, piercings, safety pins, and silver chains everywhere)
I also put in some blood because it really does go well!

FF-boy:THANK YOU!! ^_^
You’ve done a hard work and it came out great. I really, really love it (and feel a bit unworthy for this o_o )
Really love the atmosphere and color scheme here; red and black, that’s so cool! xD
And your character is so pretty with black. ;P
Thank you again, and again, for doing the trade with me. *hug*
Ps. Isn’t he a pain to draw, my Dyraun? lol I sometimes have the same problem, even though he’s my creation. o_o

 

This is the picture that FF-boy did in exchange:

Bond, by FF-boy

THANK YOU!
I really love the picture that FF-boy drew for me, and the costume design is really cool too!!

FF-boy is an awesome artist.

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The Sketch Book

Sammacha – Flight

Sammacha – Flight

 

So this is an old drawing I did of  my character, now named Sammacha.
(I did this back in 2007)
I was still learning to draw people at that time.
This is one of the first picture’s of her that I posted online (and one of my first digital drawings)
I know  I have improved a lot more since this pic but I still like it
Even if its not the greatest picture it still holds a lot of value to me

As originally stated
“she lives in a world shrouded in miasma and flies on wings that can burn like fire.”

 

Why the character was created:

Sammacha is based off of me and was created when I was assigned an art project to make a character and a fantasy comic that resembles you and had X abilities that you chose from a list. The hardest part for everyone was that it had to look like you, so it had to be a person!

Everyone chose the basic and most common ones, flight, magic, and wielding of a weapon then made their character original. My character lives in a world shrouded in miasma, and flies with wings that can create fire. She can wield a sword and her can wounds excrete a toxic gas.

As well as Sammacha there were several other characters in the story and of course a ton of fantasy creatures.

The comic did get me an A, but beyond the grade, I was not satisfied with the final product as a whole.

My drawing skills weren’t that good and the story was weird because of the assignment, and there was much room for improvement. Though I did like some of the comic after it was handed in, it was basically lost forever as I never got it back. Maybe one day I will make a new one.

Anyways I used my character as an avatar all over the web and then she just sort of stuck. Though, she will never be finished, like me, will always be a work in progress…

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