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Description
I drew this for a friend. This is a slightly cropped picture.

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As a general layout, I wanted to convey a sort of dark atmosphere. So I decided that it would be a rainy graveyard scene. This also worked with adding in the sotoba as props. In the end, the rain didn't stay in, but the dark clouds are still here. Also, he's using his coat as a sort of cover for the non-existent rain. (By the way, his scarf is hanging on the grave). In deciding the shape of the grave, I considered having a rectangular tombstone, but it was visually unappealing so I decided on the cross. Though it's Christian imagery, there's no real deep meaning to it - I just thought it looked cool.

I noticed that the resulting image would be pretty much grayscale if I left it alone since he doesn't wear any colours and I so cleverly blocked the sky with clouds. Therefore I thought I may as well add some flowers with symbolism. Seeing as how he's the undertaker, I figured that flowers with death-related meanings would fit well. Apparently the cypress flower means death, mourning and despair. I also have marigold there, which seems to have many different meanings. The fitting ones are despair, grief and uneasiness. Since it's been awhile since I decided on these flowers, it feels a bit out of place looking at the meanings in retrospect.

As a final attempt to add colour, I also included some teal (??) highlights here and there. I also used greens and blues for the horizon. I like the gradient effect to give a sense of distance. Maybe I should use that more often digitally as well.

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Technique-wise, this was my first time mixing in block shading and cross hatching with a pen. Even more, I mixed in colour pencil. So this was a great learning experience. The block shading gave me wonderful black to create greater contrast than I would normally have if I were just using colour pencils. And the addition of cross-hatching gave a really interesting texture and made the block shading less obvious.

However, this was really time-consuming! As it is, I got lazy about the colour pencil step and didn't fully blend all the layers togehter. You can still see a lot of the paper through the colours.

And just one final thing, I swear that it looks so much more like him if I cover the eyes. (And the draft was better)!

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Quick edit: I just fixed up the contrast on the image.

Description
I drew this for a friend. This is a slightly cropped picture.

----

As a general layout, I wanted to convey a sort of dark atmosphere. So I decided that it would be a rainy graveyard scene. This also worked with adding in the sotoba as props. In the end, the rain didn't stay in, but the dark clouds are still here. Also, he's using his coat as a sort of cover for the non-existent rain. (By the way, his scarf is hanging on the grave). In deciding the shape of the grave, I considered having a rectangular tombstone, but it was visually unappealing so I decided on the cross. Though it's Christian imagery, there's no real deep meaning to it - I just thought it looked cool.

I noticed that the resulting image would be pretty much grayscale if I left it alone since he doesn't wear any colours and I so cleverly blocked the sky with clouds. Therefore I thought I may as well add some flowers with symbolism. Seeing as how he's the undertaker, I figured that flowers with death-related meanings would fit well. Apparently the cypress flower means death, mourning and despair. I also have marigold there, which seems to have many different meanings. The fitting ones are despair, grief and uneasiness. Since it's been awhile since I decided on these flowers, it feels a bit out of place looking at the meanings in retrospect.

As a final attempt to add colour, I also included some teal (??) highlights here and there. I also used greens and blues for the horizon. I like the gradient effect to give a sense of distance. Maybe I should use that more often digitally as well.

----

Technique-wise, this was my first time mixing in block shading and cross hatching with a pen. Even more, I mixed in colour pencil. So this was a great learning experience. The block shading gave me wonderful black to create greater contrast than I would normally have if I were just using colour pencils. And the addition of cross-hatching gave a really interesting texture and made the block shading less obvious.

However, this was really time-consuming! As it is, I got lazy about the colour pencil step and didn't fully blend all the layers togehter. You can still see a lot of the paper through the colours.

And just one final thing, I swear that it looks so much more like him if I cover the eyes. (And the draft was better)!

----

Quick edit: I just fixed up the contrast on the image.