Morning Glory {Process Post}
Full size illustration of morning glory drawn for September patreon theme. This is the uncropped unfoiled version!
For this drawing I thought it will be a nice idea to talk about how I proceed towards drawing realistic objects. One of my greatest goals as an artist is to contrast the super anime with the super realistic items. I love love that style and is slowly working towards improving my technique to get there.
So how does one approach an instrument, flowers or objects of great anatomical detail. When done incorrectly, you can't recognize what it is. I don't really know how professional artists do it so I have a sorta self-taught method doing it.
1. I always start with the sketch and layout of how it will be placed. For my style in particular (which is rather not really anatomically correct in the first place), I have to make objects fit my style and not make my style fit the object. So instead of worrying how something will look like, its better to just be be easy and loose.
2. I will look for references of what I want to achieve for the sousaphone. I went through several pictures of sousaphones before finding the one that closely match the picture. Then I break up the image and place it in a way that will fit the pose my character is doing.
When I take photographs of my objects or find a source of my own, I will do a more detailed trace but for general google images, I usually just get the rough shape down just to get the reference correct. I do take a lot of my own pictures whenever I go out / w/ its always useful to have a resource folder on hand even for stuff you might not draw but things you find interesting.
3. For the morning glory, these are pictures I took during walks. When I find a lovely flower, I like to take pictures of multiple angles to see how the petal dimensions are. Since these are my pictures, I can do a more direct trace. :D
4. After coloring is done, you can see the difference. I simplify some parts and also forced some panels to shift in order to connect to her fingers. I used the lighting for the picture as reference on how I should shade and color. The final result is something that looks convincing as an instrument but...at closer look, not fully accurate haha. In the future, I want to be more accurate with my drawings and find the perfect balance between anime and cool instruments. ; w;/
Thank you so much for reading this long post and hope you look forward to September rewards!
