A few days ago I was asked if I had started doing freehand drawings, of course, the answer was yes and a no.
The reason is that I do more portrait drawings and art with references than I do freehand sketches or imaginary art. It has always been a challenge for me because doing a free abstract sketch means your imagination has got to be very good.
It also means that you must have mastered the human anatomy very well, including its postures, emotions, etc. You don't just pick up a pencil or pen and start sketching at random, you need to have all those things at the back of your mind.
And you also have to be conversant with your light sourcing or the direction of the light to know which side of your art those highlights and lights will reflect on, alongside the shadows too.
So you see freehand and imaginary art seems to be a bit tough at times for some people, not everyone though so that's the essence of using references in some art, especially on the lighting and shadings.

I have only done a few freehand sketches and some usually don't turn out as I imagined or expected. I was challenged to start working on freehand sketches again when that question was thrown at me. I still have a long way to go with freehand and imaginary sketches though but I am willing to try and give it my best effort.
This is a recent piece I was working on. It wasn't something serious, I just wanted to give it a little anime look. Meanwhile, I am not good with anime sketches and I rarely do that so pardon me if you think it's not even close to what an anime should look like😂 remember I had no reference or something to start with. I just got it all from my imagination, the posture, the figure, and all.
Let me show you guys a few steps and processes on how I accomplished this.

Work Process

I didn't have the specific looks I wanted in mind, I only had the posture or how I wanted the anime to be seated and so I made a skeletal figure of it first as you have seen in the background of the sketch. I did that first to use as a guide before drafting something out of it, following the direction of the skeletal figure I made.

I followed the direction of the skeletal figure until I was able to draft out something similar to the sitting posture of the skeleton I had. The skeleton there acted like my compass to help me know what or how my anime should be placed or seated and so I finished the draft with that in mind.

After which I added a new layer to work on the main art using the drafted piece I had. I used a much better and sharper brush to sketch out my outlines from the drafted piece I had there. I adjusted what needed to be adjusted from the draft, I added what needed to be added and removed what I thought was best to remove, and then I kept doing that until I was done sketching and extracting my fine outlines as you can see here.

The next thing to do was add colors to my outline sketch. We all know that animes don't have the same skin color or tones as human sketches, animes take up much lighter tones, and their art piece is always almost flat without giving too many details on their skin and so I tried as much as I could to stick to this and not miss out and start giving skin details and structures. I wanted it flat as an anime, after all my concept was to make something similar to an anime. And so I just added the color, picking and comparing the colors until I got the light skin tones I wanted for the work.

After choosing the skin color, the next was to paint the dress. This also took a little bit of my time cause I was trying to figure out which color would fit her skin best. I don't have a problem when it comes to dressing color combinations at times but when a person's skin doesn't match well, you will be left trying different colors, styles, and patterns to get the one that matches their skin color or tone best. So this is what happened to me, I kept changing the color of the top and bum shorts until I got the one that matched her skin better. You can agree with me that the color of the dress did go well with her skin.

Then we moved to the hair, the part I usually love the most. Bust since it is an anime sketch, trust me, I didn't really need to spend too much time on it but guess what? I still did cause it's a part of my sketch I love the most lol. Meanwhile, I didn't really focus on it like I usually do with the rest of my work. You could tell the differences too.

Here I painted her shoes and her hand bands. I bet you must have not noticed it if I didn't mention it lol. I gave her hand bands a matching color with her dress. And the shoes too had a slight match with her top. Not the same color but something close. I mean you wouldn't want her to wear color block, would you? I wouldn't even want that. So yeah, I did my best not to cause that to happen by finding matching colors for everything she wore.

And there, I worked on the hair again in a new and separate layer, giving some portions of her hair a much lighter outlook and leaving highlights on some portions too. I had about three to four different layers just for the hair. You know what I said that I have a thing for hair and I always try to leave details on it though this one wasn't detailed as it should be but I still did touch a few portions to give it this outlook. What do you think?

And finally, I left a few details on her skin and bum short, and then I adjusted the color of her hair. I also choose a background for my anime sketch. Pardon me if the details I gave on the skin are not in the right portions, I am not yet very good with light sourcing and again I had no reference photo for this so I only added the details according to my art experiences over time. Although I don't think I placed the details wrongly, what do I know? 😂💔
And that's it for my not so anime sketch lol.
I am very much open to correction.
And I've realized that we don't really have anime and manga Artists here on the blockchain. I would have loved to connect with a few of them, although I am still looking out for them and hopefully I will get to meet a few someday.
That's it for my artwork today. I pray you all have a lovely new week.

             26 September 2022
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                 Monday