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Description
A stage by stage progress image.
1. Rough pose sketch.
---- I did this on Monday but didn't know where to go with it. I actually had the idea of a woman swinging in a garden. If you've seen the 1994 Secret Garden, that's the idea I was going for. This took me about 20 minutes because I kept drawing and redrawing. When I went to bed, I wasn't happy with the pose. The legs and arms looked wrong. Arms still look wrong.

2. Body, clothes, and hair roughed in.
---- You can see I changed a little bit here in terms of body positioning, mainly in the legs. Some time this morning, as I was working, I decided she wouldn't be in a garden (otherwise you'd see rough garden going on). Gardens are hard and I'm still working on learning landscapes. It'll be a long time before I can do a good one. I spent probably an hour just on the face and hands. That's seriously the hardest part for me. And I'm still not pleased with them.

3. Clean lines.
---- I changed her face slightly because I wasn't happy with it. I wasn't sure yet what the colour scheme would be so I left it alone for a little bit. This took me about 30 minutes. I'm bad at lining.

4. Flat colour.
---- Even once you start colouring, you can still change lines a little. In this case, I changed her nose and upper lip a bit. I wasn't pleased with it. Still not. Also not pleased with her hands. Too blocky. I'm not good at hands. At this point, I had to set my colour scheme. It's important to remember, when you're working on fan art, that you don't have to make the character exactly as they are. You can have creative license. I made the rows of beads pink. Because I wanted to. I like pink. All in all, it took me about an hour and a bit.

5. First Level Shading.
---- Blocking in the shadows kinda as a template for further shading. Gives me a better idea of the light source. This was pretty easy, but there was a lot I wasn't pleased with. Spent about 30 minutes on this. Way longer than I usually would've.

6. Complete Shading.
---- I pulled background shades throughout the shading to make it feel more "attached." Like the foreground and background worked together and existed in the same space. I briefly considered leaving it at this stage, but that would be stupid. This was the bulk of the work. It was about 1.5 hours. Usually I'm faster with shading, but I just wasn't liking it and deleted and redid and bunch of shading layers.

7. Complete.
---- I added flowers and glow and a few more lighting effects to give it a bit of a warm tone. I really wanted to emphasize the gold tones. The last stage took me about an hour. Most of it was roses. The sparkles took just a couple minutes.

All in, about 6 hours. There's a lot I'm not happy with and I look forward to improving on my next drawing attempt.
I'm trying to get into the habit of logging my hours for the purpose of selling art. I'm not very good at it yet.
I have a lot still to learn and I have another idea for a swing picture.

Description
A stage by stage progress image.
1. Rough pose sketch.
---- I did this on Monday but didn't know where to go with it. I actually had the idea of a woman swinging in a garden. If you've seen the 1994 Secret Garden, that's the idea I was going for. This took me about 20 minutes because I kept drawing and redrawing. When I went to bed, I wasn't happy with the pose. The legs and arms looked wrong. Arms still look wrong.

2. Body, clothes, and hair roughed in.
---- You can see I changed a little bit here in terms of body positioning, mainly in the legs. Some time this morning, as I was working, I decided she wouldn't be in a garden (otherwise you'd see rough garden going on). Gardens are hard and I'm still working on learning landscapes. It'll be a long time before I can do a good one. I spent probably an hour just on the face and hands. That's seriously the hardest part for me. And I'm still not pleased with them.

3. Clean lines.
---- I changed her face slightly because I wasn't happy with it. I wasn't sure yet what the colour scheme would be so I left it alone for a little bit. This took me about 30 minutes. I'm bad at lining.

4. Flat colour.
---- Even once you start colouring, you can still change lines a little. In this case, I changed her nose and upper lip a bit. I wasn't pleased with it. Still not. Also not pleased with her hands. Too blocky. I'm not good at hands. At this point, I had to set my colour scheme. It's important to remember, when you're working on fan art, that you don't have to make the character exactly as they are. You can have creative license. I made the rows of beads pink. Because I wanted to. I like pink. All in all, it took me about an hour and a bit.

5. First Level Shading.
---- Blocking in the shadows kinda as a template for further shading. Gives me a better idea of the light source. This was pretty easy, but there was a lot I wasn't pleased with. Spent about 30 minutes on this. Way longer than I usually would've.

6. Complete Shading.
---- I pulled background shades throughout the shading to make it feel more "attached." Like the foreground and background worked together and existed in the same space. I briefly considered leaving it at this stage, but that would be stupid. This was the bulk of the work. It was about 1.5 hours. Usually I'm faster with shading, but I just wasn't liking it and deleted and redid and bunch of shading layers.

7. Complete.
---- I added flowers and glow and a few more lighting effects to give it a bit of a warm tone. I really wanted to emphasize the gold tones. The last stage took me about an hour. Most of it was roses. The sparkles took just a couple minutes.

All in, about 6 hours. There's a lot I'm not happy with and I look forward to improving on my next drawing attempt.
I'm trying to get into the habit of logging my hours for the purpose of selling art. I'm not very good at it yet.
I have a lot still to learn and I have another idea for a swing picture.