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DragonPress — Nina and Me - Sketch Portrait
Published: 2010-05-14 17:42:59 +0000 UTC; Views: 1157; Favourites: 17; Downloads: 23
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There it is - my most recent self portrait with my daughter as an added bonus - it printed up really nice tooi did note that none of my facial scars are visible in either the photograph or the sketch - i know they're faint, but i see them easily all the time - except in the photo, which means not in the sketch! weeeeeird....
i'm very happy with this...though it was frustrating at the same time! God i have HORRIBLE teeth - checking into braces now actually, but i tried to tone them down a little to keep them from being too....distracting.
ORIGINAL PHOTO: I cropped it in severely to do this picture - my cousin too the photo at Old Westbury Gardens and my daughter was feeling sick - i think the poor baby has allergies. this was the best pic of the day and we left a very short time after that.
oh yeah, a B, 2B and 7B pencil were used for this....
on hammermill bright white 80lb cardstock
Work in Progress
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Comments: 50
Nice work! You have a really good sense for lighting.
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Amazing work indeed !
What a lovely pose , so sweet and spontaneous !
I particularly like these kind of works with a lot of contrast between shadows and light , I think it leads to a a very vivid result then
Bravo to you !
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thank you SOOOO much
it was definity a spontaneous thing. I had asked my cousin for portraits and we went out to a gardens area, but my daughter was so sick (allergies. we discovered that day she had ALLERGIES) she just wanted to curl up on me and kept insisting "all done mommy. let's go home".
while it wasn't the shots we were going for, my cousin did NOT miss the opportunity. Now i've cropped it in A LOT from her original photo, and i think that the very shadows you like and i thought were great for doing this was actually what made other photographers think the shot was not very good at all. they kept telling her she should have gone at a different time of the day for better lighting and that the shadows were too harsh, but i LOVE the picture with its shadows a LOT. Plus, the time of day was my fault. it was all i had available.
so um... lol, now that i've talked your ear off - thank you SOOO much! i'm glad i managed to capture the same sweet emotion i felt at the time of the picture, and whenever i look at the photo - and thanks soooo much for the fave as well!
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You're very welcome , and yes I know that generally speaking photographers like to get some blurr in their pieces of work , meaning soft contrast between shadows and lights , but I totally think that in some cases you need to get strong contrast at the contrary , and that this is the way you get an outstanding result : but it's tricky to manage , and you have to be as skilled as you are to get the result you wanted in the first place I don't say here that it's easy !
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Again, thanks!
*nod nod* yep, it does seem to be what they're looking for when they do portraits, that certain. But i agree that some times the stronger contrasts makes for a more dynamic picture - especially when converting it to pencil!!
I'm currently redoing a self portrait of myself from college that my teacher had suggested I NOT choose out of the 6 photos taken because there weren't ENOUGH contrasts (on the face) but the others were just too BLAND for me - and because of the SEVERE wash out, rather than the normal contrasts, it actually made the picture HARDER (i have the old version already up in the gallery, and i'm about 1/3 of the way through the new version) - so i see both ways being just as hard. so as you say, its a fine balance getting the right setting - and what works for us, may not work for the photographer lol...now i'm paraphrazing...
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omg this is such a cute reference. it made my heart melt into a stream of toffee... aaawwwwwww!!!!! 
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thank you SOOOOOO much!!! 
but thank you for the advice! i agree, i'm just having trouble doing some of it...
and again, thank you SOOOOO SOOO much! :dances:
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wow on your bed??? don't you have a kitchen table or something like that
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yup, on my bed.
i do have a kitchen table, its not so much fun to sit at, its always covered, and i would be unable to work there late at night since it is open to the living room, which is slept in. and i'm a night worker.
plus, if i need privacy from the toddler, i can shut my door.
yes, i used to have an ebony pencil..plus, EE pencils, if i recall, those are darker than 9B's, but then, as i said, I don't have 'em anymore so i don't recall off hand, but thats what i remember.
i love using ink - but i'm not so good with brushes - anything that requires painting of any kind is iffy to me...and i'd be afraid to touch the piece!!! *o.o* that is very neat though!
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you just need a really thin brush. have you ever seen those really cheap little desks from ikea you put at your wall? maybe this would be something for you. it hurts my soul when i think of you not having a place to draw 
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hehe, i've never been much for brushes....ah well
there is no room for a desk, absolutely non. i'm still trying to figure out how to get rid of stuff in here. i'm constantly worried about an 'inspection' from the complex and someone saying my bedroom is a firehazard (worst room in the apt)
anyway, its comfortable for me. i got used to doing it that way a looooong time ago. i never really thought about it, but i have always done my work whereever i could - i didn't have a drafting table when i was growing up, and then in college, my desk was uncomfortably high to sit at. When i graduated I moved into an apt with 4 other people and there wasn't much room....
plus, i tend to work small - so i can travel with it - i use a storage metal clipboard when i travel, and as mentioned i use canvas boards on a pillow on my lap when i'm at home. i have a makeshift 'table' next to me, thats where my laptop goes though when i'm not actively using it (i.e. using it to watch stuff or keep an eye out for important messages while i work), and the 'makeshift' is a couple of stools we were given and have no place to put, so i put a board, then a box and then another board on top so its not exactly tall enough/sturdy enough or have room for knees and most chairs hurt my lower back if i sit in them too long so again, its comfortable for me to work on my bed.
but i thank you so much for the concern 
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if you like it that way its good
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heh, well, i started life with lower back problems - like the rest of my family....
i'm DEVELOPING shoulder and neck problems that's shooting down my arm - all on just one side. and thats as much from my actual job as it is from doing the art...though an overabundance of either can make it worse.
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It's a really cute pose, the two of you!
A portrait doesn't have to be exactly like the photo...artists are supposed to "edit"
I do it all the time, whether or not I realize I am doing it
try invisalign (for teeth) I never did, it's fairly new, but I had my teeth straightened twice in my life! (big teeth, small mouth 
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thank you!
yes, i agree, but there are some out there who would get upset that you 'changed' this on them...Eh, its artistic license lol
thats true - i have tons of issues with scanners and my portraits in general. i had to change my portrait style because the scanner just couldn't pick up the subtlety of shades i was using and the whole canvas would look practically blank, so your right, that probably did happen quite a bit. and true on the camera thing too...when i go to cons and want records of art before it goes off to its new home but don't have computer/scanner set up on me, i do the same thing - and it can come out so horrible sometimes
oh actually, yeah, invisalign is what they're going to see if i can use - i'm a borderline case so they have to double check, but at least the checkup for it is free. i'm 33 and never had my teeth straightened, they're not too BIG, they're too MANY for my small mouth and i've already had tons of teeth pulled. its a family genetic thing too, my teeth, moms, my sis's and my aunts all looked exactly the same, the same shape and everything...bleh!
thanks for the comments and thank you so much also for the fave
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You're very welcome, the fave is well-deserved
I have a Epson Perfection 2400 scanner, an old 5 yrs, maybe? model, an inexpensive flatbed. To get the best out of it, I have to set it at 300dpi or higher with no automatic adjustments. I do all my correcting in Photoshop. That's just for the B&W drawings I do. Correcting in Photoshop is necessary to get the image to look as close as possible to the orig. drawing. My scanner is what made me change from using pencil to charcoal, btw!
I had 8 teeth pulled before having my teeth straightened the 2nd time, just so there'd be room in my mouth, so I know what you mean. I come from a family like that, too. My daughter (she's 15 now) faced the same problem some years ago...but now they use palate expanders first to widen the arch of her mouth before straightening the teeth. She has a fabulous smile now
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oooh thanks again!
i currently have a canon lide 30 i got pretty darn cheap and its been very good to me. its my traveling scanner because it is lightweight and skinnier than my sketchbook.
i ALWAYS scan in at a minimum of 300 dpi - i'm primarily an inker and if i don't , then when i 'threshold' the linework to prep it for color, the lines pixelate and turn nasty. i have had to adjust pencil portraits before, so i know what you're talking about there.
ugh, i hate teeth! lol....darn my mothers insurance while i was growing up thta insisted ANY dental work (even if you were in pain) was all cosmetic and therefore not covered....
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ridiculous- even straightening teeth is not altogether cosmetic, because straight teeh are easier to keep clean and flossed, therefore less likely to get cavities
though dental insurance usually sucks, I must admit. Basically it goes like this: if the procedure is expensive, they won't pay for it. yeah- that's what they should put on their brochure covers
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yeah, tell me about it - thankfully my insurance is better. they're not covering braces (or things that act like braces) but they cover a good portion of just about everything else - as long as i don't exceed m 1500 dollar limit for the year.
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yes, that's what I have- Dental Direct - it costs a little less than if I paid out-of-pocket, but doesn't cover anything like braces, no.
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welp, i guess its better than nothing
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Sorry it took do long for me to get to this
It's beautiful! And there's nothing wrong with taking a little artistic license to fix flaws . . . portrait artists do it all the time! 
I think it's sweet and beautiful . . . a wonderful self portrait
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Also, how the heck do the emoticons work, the special ones? i can SEE them taunting me. decided to try one. clicking on it doesn't put it in my message, and 'dragging' it puts a link to my own front page instead!
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You can either find one with the emoticon link at the bottom right of the text box . . . or hover over one and it will tell you the description.
Example 
But the link will show you all of them and how to write them, in the beginning I'd just select/copy/paste the text in from the emoticon menu.
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yeah, i'm not getting any links....and hovering isn't giving me anything either....but
each one has a name next to it, so lets try that with the colons
:euphoric:
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[link]
That has the list of all the emoticons . . . try there.
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nope, that didn't work, but i finally got the link to work....sorta....euphoric is not even listed there...which probably means its one of the base ones from before the 'titles' showed up.
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lol, thats too funny em! i posted it and left for work and then on a trip and haven't come home again until half an hour ago - so you still commented before i got in!
thank you soooo much and for the fave too! hehe, glad you think its so awesome - it has been declined once again from this one club i submitted it to -
( i submitted it to three, but two are still pending, but this one has declined every picture i sent them except the inked house i did for my co-worker - and i KNOW my picture is as good as some of the others they've accepted. not as good as all of the others they've accepted - there's some phenomenal work in that club - but just as good as others that they HAVE accepted.
this picture is IMO better than the last one i attempted to send in, and the only reason i got for why it was rejected was the 'size'....and that is NOT an issue with this picture - so i am about ready to give up on this club since it doesn't seem worth it if they can't be consistent with what they're allowing)
So, once again THANK YOU!!!
[link]
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No problem, I really do like it
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YUP! thats called boogie if i want to USE it, but on the little window that i get that shows samples, its called euphoric! but i found it!
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What a precious moment you've captured forever! Again, I like the way you work with the shadows in the picture. Thank you for sharing it with us!
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thank you so much!
there are places i was worried about - wide expanses of skin that didn't have much else - and i tried so much to make sure no lines showed up....even attempted a blending stick on it AFTERWARDS to blur out the lines that DID show up....but in this 'closeup' you can see them quite clearly anyway and that makes me frustrated.
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Yes, the blending is always a challenge! I'm just a beginner with drawing, but I find that making the pencil strokes as close together as possible and then blending with tissue on the end of my finger, or a cotton swab, really helps. Then I just repeat until it starts to look how I want it to. I may need to add more graphite or take some away with a kneaded eraser until I get the look I was striving for! (I use a ton of tissue and cotton swabs when I'm drawing human skin!) I really do like your use of lights and darks still. You're doing a terrific job - keep it up!
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i may go back and work on the throat a bit more then...see if i can get that even out smoothly, maybe her cheek as well...
and thank you so very much again!
< - i'm learning emoticons!
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My pleasure! I'm looking forward to seeing what you have in store for us next!
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