Monday, April 26, 2010

Portrait of Shayla


Since Shayla's birthday was yesterday, today I'm posting her portrait that I drew. I took a photo of Shayla, opened it in Photoshop and created a layer on top of her photo. I dialed the opacity back on the layer and used my Wacom pen to draw on top of the photo. I really liked how this turned out, especially the line quality. I will continue to experiment with this technique more in the future.

3 comments:

  1. I like this. I guess it looks like it could be photo referenced but you managed to keep it from looking outright traced. The sketchy quality gives it life I think. I've used this technique myself a couple times and I know that you still have to make a lot of decisions in regards to what to draw, what not to draw, and what to change.

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  2. Thank you. Some people might consider this technique "tracing", but as you said, it's a little more involved than that. You're absolutely right about making decisions in regards to what to/not to draw. This was especially the case with her sweater pattern. I didn't want to "copy" exactly what was in the photo, but I wanted it to look "hand drawn". Also, it takes a certain level of skill to master the use of a Wacom tablet. I don't think just anybody could "trace" a photograph using a Wacom and get professional-looking results.

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  3. I meant to comment on the sweater specifically. I like how you handled that.

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