Couple's Counseling #1: Spider!!!
That's right, another thing different from pet portraits! I swear I will get back to those furry buddies soon enough (no seriously, I will be drawing a dog next), but for now I'd like to introduce you to a new concept I have for a "comic" series called Couples Counseling.
Origin Of An Idea: I'm quickly coming up on the one year anniversary of moving in with a boy. A boy! Ick! I love Kyle and all, but we definitely have things we can work on, like me not hogging the couch and him finishing his can of soda before opening another one.
One day I was staring at his pile of Mountain Dew cans in my non-confrontational manner when my mind started daydreaming of an extreme reaction I could have storming the mess (you'll see it sometime later because it is a planned drawing), and I broke out a piece of paper to write it down. More and more ideas started coming to mind about different "issues" that come from living with one other person, and this is how Couple's Counseling came about.
New Style: Before I could start drawing "issues" of this series, I had to come up with a style. I'm so used to drawing realistically that creating a cartoonish style was definitely a challenge, and my first attempts at creating a character were pretty blegh. Then I turned to one of my friends for inspiration, and eventually I came to something I was happy with (though I am still learning as I go).
Spider!!!: Here's the story that inspired this drawing: Sometime last week I was getting ready to head out and run some errands when I saw a giant spider on the wall above the bookshelf, staring down my Batman action figure like it was ready to become a super villain. It was just out of my reach, not that I wanted to feel the horrible squish of that giant monster anyway, so I turned to Kyle and cried "Spider!" as I pointed in defenseless terror. Kyle looked over, smiled, and went back to playing his computer game. Psh. So with that, I left.
During the days that followed I often thought about where in the apartment that spider was hiding, so I finally mentioned it to Kyle again. To my relief he told me that he killed it after I left, but I don't know if I should believe him or not. So thus came about this extreme idea of a couple both too afraid of a spider in their apartment to confront it themselves.
Materials Used:
- 11x14" Strathmore sketch paper with a fine tooth surface
- Lead holder with 2H lead
- Prismacolor Premier fine line marker - .03
- intuos 5 touch professional pen tablet
- Corel Painter 8 (materials within the program: Pens - Flat Color)
Like with my last drawing, I started by penciling out the drawing in my sketchbook, going over the lines with black ink when I was happy with it. Then it was the scanners turn so that I could get it on my computer to color with my tablet and Corel Painter.
Pretty sure that for flat color like this I will keep working with this process, but unless I get much better with these materials I am going to stick to my pencils for anything involving blending and fine detail because I just don't have as much control as I want in this new process. No matter what I decide for other things, I will definitely go with colored pencils for my pet portraits still.
So what do you guys think of this idea for a series? I have a list of a bunch of ideas for more drawings, but I'd love to hear your suggestions!
Until Next Time! Lauren H.
Follow @BewareOfTrees