Floating

3.1.22 - 3.14.22

Project Proposition:

This month I will be doing another positive themed piece with my year's theme of Individuality. Just a few days before writing this, I was attending my state's Scholastic Art & Writing awards gallery, and that has given me a lot of new ideas for my next pieces. I am very excited to work on this piece, as I want to experiment with a more realistic style and use a proper reference. For the past two pieces I have not used any references for posing, so I would like to use a reference to help me develop a different and more realistic style.


The composition of this piece is going to be more simplified, as I want to work on adding a lot of detail and dimension to the figure. This will be a basic front on shoulder up perspective of the figure who is laying down, with their hand blocking out light from the scene. The shadow of the hand will block one of the eyes, but there will be a lot of highlights from the colored light source. I plan on using another unique color scheme to keep developing my niche, and I may have to take a picture of myself for the reference. I haven’t decided what textured brush I would like to use, but I may want to experiment with using softer edges to make this piece less sharp.

General references, right by YanjunChengArt, "Color and light study" on Artstation

The meaning behind my piece and the title of Floating, are related to the moments in life where I appreciated life the most. Sometimes the happiness feels blinding, since this intense happiness and contemptment is something that I don't feel often. In these moments, I feel like I am above the world and that I have found my true purpose in life, just existing and appreciating every second. Genuinely these moments make me feel so light and like that I am just floating, so I want to share this feeling through this piece. I hope that others can feel this emotion within their life, as it is something that I have felt at the peak of being individualistic.


I hope you enjoy the journey of me creating Floating, as I am very optimistic on how this piece will turn out.

Sketch:

Here is a rough plan of the composition of this piece! I am very surprised that I sketched this out without looking at a picture of my face haha! I am really liking this color scheme and I am going to plan on adding some more definition everywhere. I am liking the eyes the most, but that is only because I haven't added any eyelashes.


Some things I am going to clean up and refine are the ears, as I commonly out turn the ears in my non-realistic style. I am going to add darker shadows, and later add more highlights to get a high contrast within the piece. I am leaving the hand that blocks out the light till the very last, because it covers the parts of the face that I am currently working on. I will also plan on adding some clothes, since I personally feel I have already drawn too many nude figures haha.

Half Way:

Already I am proud to say so far that this is a really good realism study! I am currently 9 days into the month, and I will probably finish this piece really early.

There are a lot more parts that I will need to refine, but I will begin with the biggest features. I have very quickly roughed out the hand shape, but I definitely need to change the size and coloring overall. I will need to make the hand a lot bigger, but also be able to position it in a way that does not cover any important features of the face.

Besides that, I still need to go over these details again and blend out a lot of the hard color blocks I put in. Specifically the shirt and background clouds need some more transition colors. I may add some gradients to the blue sky to help build the composition even more.

I need to change some of the anatomy on this piece, as the hairline near the sides of the head are not accurate. As well as this, the chin and jaw shape is not completely accurate to my face shape. And I will change up the earlobe shape of the ears, because I have bigger earlobes than I thought haha.

Besides all of these criticisms, I am incredibly proud of how Floating is looking so far!

Revisions:

I am now on the final stretch of this project! I have a few details that I want to fix up though.

I'm really liking the hand right now with the wrinkles and highlights! But I forgot to go over the knuckles on the backs of the fingers, so I will need to clean that up.

Another detail that I forgot to clean up was the neck, as the shading is still pretty messy. I may change the lighting as well, as there is going to more lighting hitting the neck than the face from my imagined angle. So I will go back and make the neck lighter, and change up the shadows under the head.

Finally, the shirt needs just a little more work. The collar needs to be refined as well as a few more wrinkles.

Besides that, I should be finished with this project soon!

I am glad I changed up the anatomy of the face to help resemble my features more. The forehead, chin shape, and nose length were adjusted a bit. Thank you for my best friend telling me how my face should look haha, I need the extra input since I didn't want to take a picture of my face as a reference.

Final Thoughts:

Here is the finished product of this month's piece, Floating! I am really proud of this piece, as this drawing tested my realism skills that I have not practiced often.


There are many things that I love about this piece, but I think the mouth is one of the favorite features that I drew. I really like the color and highlights that I added, since they create a nice contrast. Arguably, the facial features really display the emotion and theme that I wanted to get across. I believe that I did a good job on the anatomy of the face, as well as the stretches in the skin that are near the mouth. These factors really helped shape this piece the most. Besides that, I really enjoyed drawing the hair and creating an ombre from the root to the ends to create some interesting colors.


Of course there are some things to improve with most pieces, and Floating is not an exception. The main feature that bothered me a lot were the ears, since I was too stubborn to look at a reference haha. I shaped the ear a bit so it is closer to the head, but it is still unrealistic because it sticks out too far from the head. The collar of the shirt and some folds don't feel like the best I have ever done, mostly because I've been struggling to get a good blend with the brush I use. I may try to find another brush to help with this problem, but I would like to add more textures to this piece next time. Besides all of that, the hand was a bit of a struggle too with the finger positions, so I will practice drawing some hand angles soon.


I really love the main meaning behind this piece, as I enjoy drawing these positive themes of Individuality more. To restate again, the feeling and emotion I wanted to capture is a personal emotion I have felt when I am satisfied with where I am in life. Some days my whole mind and body just feels very light and full of energy, that I feel I am on cloud nine. The result of this is by me following my dreams and ambitions, and being an Individual has guided me to follow my desires. Many days I feel so proud and happy of how far I've come in life, because I am in tune with my thoughts and desires. I really hope that other people besides me can experience this happiness sometime in their life, but of course, it is not possible to feel like this every day. I hope this positive theme of Individualism can help inspire people to listen to themselves and to become the best version of themself.


I hope you all have enjoyed the progression of me making Floating. I hope you all do what you really want to do in life to reach this height of happiness, and follow your sense of Individualism.