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frejias β Sister Winter
Published: 2014-06-18 16:26:10 +0000 UTC; Views: 462; Favourites: 16; Downloads: 0
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Unoriginal title is unoriginal, ja? I hate coming up with titles... I don't know if you've heard the song Sister Winter by Sufjan Stevens, but it was inspired by that. Its from his beautiful/haunting/depressing Christmas album. Its worth listening to if you get the chance; its about as far away from Jingle Bell Rock as you can possibly get! Hence I'm still playing it despite it being the middle of summer
Β I wanted to christen my new sketchbook (no more terrible printer paper for me woop!) and so out came this. Its based on a doodle I did a few days ago, which was itself inspired by, of all things, a watercolour of my favourite LOTR heroine, Γowyn.
Although, once again, I didn't really use a specific reference as such, I did study some photos of Mongolian women as inspiration for the face and had a lot of fun looking up wolves and wolf drawings to get some ideas for the fur. The hair, well, I just love drawing plaits! I'm slowly getting better, but I always find one comes out better than the other; I had some real issues with the right plait. I don't know why, I tried to do both the same!
Anyway, I hope you like this, please feel free to leave any critique you may have, I always find it really helpful!
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Comments: 18
Lovely use of sketching here and the detail on the fur is amazing!
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Thank you very much! ^^
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ahhh i always love seeing your work! (i believe i critiqued on behalf of ProjectComment before for your reindeer/girl sketch.)
the shading here is simply exquisite - i love the fact that there's the crosshatching but all the lines that went with the shading lend a charm to the whole composition. her face also goes well with the shadows, and you've clearly done your work well.
i'm not sure if one of the plaits is intended to be darker than the other (they look fine, by the way), but the lighting on the face should correspond with that. her nose bridge is too narrow for my taste, and the nose in general is extremely wonky. personally, i'd add more shadows to the fur near her neck and braids. she could also use a bit more definition on the curves of her face and more work with the circlet, but overall, i'm enthralled by it. great work, and keep it up!
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Thank you for your wonderfully thoughtful comment, I really appreciate what you have to say ^^
You'll be right about the plaits, I never really gave myself a light source, so when it came to shading I was just throwing it wherever I felt like it, which isn't really conducive to a realistic portrait! I'll make sure to decide where I want the shadows and highlights before hand next time!
Thanks again
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hi!, i love the ambiance in this drawing, you know, everything is so peaceful. I should look at this every time i felt angry, probably it will calm me down. she looks like thinking of something, full of innocence. this is lovely yet really mysterious, thumbs up 
Commented on behalf ofΒ
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Aww thank you so much! That's a really lovely thing to say, I feel so honoured!
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This has quite a serene atmosphere to it, I like the fading pencil strokes of the fur, however if you may forgive me I think they look more like feathers than fur (if fur was what you intended it to be like) What would help to make it look a bit more like fur would be to apply hatching strokes horizontally following the contours of the fur, and eliminating the hard edges around each "leaf" Β and instead only leaving shadows underneath the hair strands, as the light source seems to be coming from the upper front.Β
I have found that with pencil hatching, less is more. What I mean by that is having less hatches in places that are supposed to be white space, for example on the hair's highlight strands you might want to leave it blank, while having darker, more defined strokes following along the direction of the hair's contour. It would make the hair flow more naturally and look less "stony".
Sorry for the rant
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Thank you very much for your lovely comment!
Oooo I should have taken more care with the fur, it was only after the previous comment that I twigged it really does look a lot more like leaves, I'll make sure to take your advice next time!
Same with the hair, it would have been nice to have brought out the highlights more, at the moment it is quite angular and solid rather than shiny and hair-like!
Thanks again!
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Great technique! the harsh lines nd edges help reflect the characters representation of winter. her cheek bones are also sharp and hollow which gives her an interesting appearance along with the leaf wings and wispy plaits. Great character!
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Thank you very much!
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This is beautiful! The character seems so interesting, I love the design. And your shading is really good!
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