I had somewhat of an art meltdown earlier this week. I wholly admit that coloring is not my strong point, but part of the reason I have such an aversion to it is because I just haven't found the right style for my line work. Realistic rendering looks weird with my bold penmanship, but I can't seem to hit the sweet spot with minimalist coloring that so many other artists make look easy.
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| Damn you talented artists! God damn you all to hell! |
Speaking of artists, there are a couple out there that I've been positively obsessed with lately, to the point where I've been trying my hand at emulating their style. Phobs, a Russian artist I discovered some years ago on DeviantArt, creates brilliant sketch dumps that I can get lost for hours in. The images are too large to do any justice posting them on this blog, but a few of my favorites can be found here, here, and here.
Claire Hummel--better known as "shoomlah" on Tumblr--has a distinctive, whimsical style all her own, and yet her line work and coloring is very much in the same vein as Phobs. I think more than anyone she has mastered the art of "less is more" when it comes to coloring. Just look at her A New Hope tribute piece--all flat colors with very little rendering, and she still manages to capture the hustle and bustle of the Mos Eisley Spaceport.
At any rate, I tried incorporating some of their style into my own sketches. They both work the "cartoony" angle more than I'm used to (at least, since I've moved away from my original manga influence), but I love how expressive all of their characters are, so I'm willing to make the trade-off.
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| My hand was not prepared for actual pencil-on-paper contact. Ow. |
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