Hey there!
You might not care to hear this, but I tend to include female bodies in my drawings more often than male bodies.
A while back, my girlfriend took notice of this and was like... "why don't you draw any guys, huh babe?!"
So I said fiiiiiiiine, I'll draw a guy. But not just any guy. I need to make it interesting and weird. Ooo I know what I'll do...
I'll put an eagle head on him!!!
Because, why not???
Step-By-Step
Here are some step-by-step process pics that I snapped with my cellphone while I was drawing. The quality is just "eh", and the colors are a little different than the final scan, but it gets the point across... 😁
Scroll past the individual progress pictures to see an animated GIF that steps through each picture.
Steps 1-5:
- In these pictures, the base layer is being filled in, in both blue and red ballpoint pens. CROSSHATCHING GALORE!!
Steps 6-7:
- In these steps, I go over the entire figure again with black ballpoint pen to darken the shadows. I like this part, because the form of the figure really starts to develop nicely.
Steps 8-9:
- Lastly, white charcoal is used to fill in the feathers and highlight the beak and body. It becomes even more "3D" and begins to pop off of the page!
Animations
I've been playing with some very simple Photoshop animations recently. It's nothing crazy, but I made a couple for this image.
First, I made an animated GIF to help visualize the progress:
Then, just a couple days ago, I thought it would be cool to make this fly guy blink and move his head a little bit. It really isn't anything crazy special. But I had about an hour to spare, coffee in hand, so I crafted a quick little animation.
This is how it turned out:
Like I said, it's definitely a very simple thing, not-super-special thing, but I really enjoy adding a little movement and life to my drawings. It's like... leveling up on the creativity. It's like compounding creativity! (whooooaaaa... 🤩)
Let me know what you think!
I would love to hear what you have to say about the content in this post! Thoughts on the original drawing, thoughts on my process, suggestions for making better animations... or maybe all of the above?! I'm always trying to learn, so any constructive criticism would be appreciated!
I will eventually catch up on posting some of my older work here on Steemit. It highlights the path that led me to where I am today as an artist and I would love to share that with you all. That is, however, going to take some time, so in the meantime, feel free to check out my full portfolio on my website, or see my most recent stuff on my Instagram page.