An Illustrative Adventure: I drew a boy!

Now, this may not seem like a big deal to many, but to me, this is a pretty big deal. I have never ever ever draw a boy/man before, this was mainly due to fear of messing up and well, I just preferred to draw pretty little ladies. However, as of Monday the 16th of March, the tip of my pencil stole my boy drawing virginity. I have become a whole new woman, I see the world so much clearer, I can take on anything. That small quiet boy over there, I can draw you! That bearded old man, I can trace your wrinkles at the stroke of a brush! I thought I would share my humble process with you, as it is a little adventure into my own self discovery.

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It was a nice morning and I had just sat down with a cuppa and well, fancied drawing something! I hadn't drawn a person in a long while so I thought I would go onto the world wide web and find me a muse. I came across one of my old reblogs on my personal tumblr and thought I would give him a go. Putting pen to paper, I knew this was going to be a good sketch, the lines seemed to be falling in all the right places, with second to none mistakes. I looked up at my muse and back to my sketchbook, I had done it, I had drawn a boy, a boy that actually looked like a boy!

a very excited snapchat

Next was inking this bad boy (no pun intended). Now, this could either make or break the image I had so lovingly created. I decided to use my Japanese brush pen instead of my ink pot and paint brush, as I find it has better control and enabled me to create thinner, more delicate lines. After a shaky start I had completed the line work, and erased the pencil sketch beneath. The moment of truth, does it still look like a boy?! YES! Yes it does! Magic has happened on this day.

My lil dude looked a bit lonely in his blank space surroundings so I went with some oak-like leaves, now this is looking real funky and ready to be scanned.

Instagram: @rooobar

Once scanned I alter the levels so I get a clear black and white image, and erase any ugly markings that have showed up in the scan (I need to clean my scanner bed, not going to lie) Then go in for the kill. 

I use the basic brush tool on a new layer to add in colour, using "linear burn" to get it to sit underneath the line art. I play around with the colours as often as the English weather changes, until I am reasonably happy. For the background I use whatever brush tool will give me a cool pattern, I went for this almost Spirograph effect, I find it complements the image fairly well. I like to slightly colour my line work with a colour layer underneath the image, using "lighter colour" for it to turn from black to (in this case) plum.

Orange leaves??? hmmmm....

I do like the neon, but it is 'me'? 

The final illustration. After about an hour, this what I came out with, and you know what, for a person who "can't draw boys!" I don't think I've done too bad.

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Thank you for scrolling and maybe even reading your way through this post, here are some snazzy links you may want to check out,

where you can see even more of my illustration adventures:

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