Illustration - Orange fruit

Hello,
I have done illustrations before, but I dunno why this feels like my first one! It was really quick and simple. Started with a simple circle for the orange and some tracing for the leaves. Lots of burn and dodge, and glass + ocean ripple effect for the orange texture. Its really easy.
I couldn't have thought of the distort>glass effect if I hadn't read this sweet tutorial.

My wine bottle has a background now!

Heya,
After a long long time, I am suddenly back to my all-time favourite tp, Photoshop.
Updating my skills, with some amazing tuts on the net, will mention them in another article.
Well, there was some work that I had left kinda incomplete (http://beautifulcopper.blogspot.com/2010/01/photoshop-illustration-wine-bottle.html)

Just finished it yesterday, and added a background for fun :) Hmm, i would love some red wine right now..

French comics - AYA

Note : Please click on images, to view them in big.


Hi,
This post is about a new comic that I discovered at the Alliance francaise library.
I am so much in awe of people who create comics. The illustrations, the story and the
humour in a good comic is a total DELIGHT. AYA, written by Marguerite Abouet and drawn by
Clément Oubrerie, is one such pleasing discovery. Ok and its in french.

AYA, is based on a teenager's life on the Ivory coast, in 1970s Africa. All the characters
are black, and that was a first for me. Its a window into a culture, that was, quite
unknown to me. I found myself as much interested in the the colourful illustrations of
African houses, streets, landscape, clothes, as the story itself.
Theres just so much to look at and admire. For ex: In a lot of places, the sky is greenish
or reddish. All in all, the visuals, made me wanna be there, in hot, beautiful Africa.

Add to this, all the comedy that you find on every page. Its entertaining ; you find people
doing things like sneaking to parties at night, stealing boyfriends, making a pass at a
close friend's daughter and having sex under the open sky. The protagonist is a
level-headed pretty teenage girl, called Aya. She is the narrator, who observes all the
silly antics of the people around her, young and old.

Why am I blogging about this? Because, i loved AYA. I have grown up reading Tinkle,
Archies, and the usual American fare, and this is a big change for me. I am thrilled to get free access to all these exotic comics at the Alliance library :) One thing is for sure, if i ever have a story to tell, I will tell it through pictures.




You can read more abt AYA, and other comics here :
http://www.guttergeek.com/2007/May2007/aya/aya.html

Drawing from Archies

Hey,

Like I had mentioned before Archie comics is really the best source to learn figure drawing from.You can find archie and gang in many many different natural postures, and the illustrations are really clean and simple to follow. And lot of times, the characters are on the beach, so you can find them in bikinis, so they are easier to draw. See the pic above this? I tried to draw them and heres what I came up with. Hehe..m jus learning ok. I wish I could draw like this from memory.

Barbie drawing

Boy! Do I need practice. Heres something I made while practising drawing. I usually draw from Barbie books and Archie comics. Archie is the best comics to learn figure drawing from. Am totally in awe of dem who can draw so fast and so well.