New Release - Day of the Dead Marie Antoinette

I  thought I'd write about my doodling process today. :D  I say 'doodling', because that's pretty much the attitude that my personality requires for me to tackle something with enough playfulness.  Otherwise, I get a little too serious, and frankly, when that happens, the results are not that great. ^^;  Besides, we should always take things a little less seriously.  Stress is everywhere these days if we're not careful.  The last thing I'd want is 'art' to become 'not fun'.  I've been close in the past, but thankfully, I was able to catch myself in time to prevent a runaway disaster. LOL

Today, I released a new digi, Day of the Dead Marie.  She's a fun mishmash of Mexican Day of the Dead holiday's Catrina face with the Rococo excess of big hair and ornamentation.  Well, I thought it might be fun to draw something like that that involves a lot of details, and it was... for the most part. ^_^

This is where I start.  The rough sketch, or what I call 'the scribble'.   This can happen on any type of paper. (And I mean 'any' type of paper.  I've done a sprite sketch on the back of a store receipt! LOL)  I do have a sketch pad that I bought at an art supply store, but more often than not, an idea would come and I tend to grab any scrap paper with enough open area for a scribble.  This one ended up on a back side of an Etsy receipt I printed for a customer that didn't quite come out right when the printer was set on 'draft'.

When I get started on a poor quality paper like that (although I use a fairly heavy weight, acid-free printer paper for all business-related printings - not art-related printings, mind you), it makes sense to just scan the sketch and open it in my trusty old Corel Painter for digital inking and cleaning.  If I start on a thicker paper (highly unlikely unless I set out with clear intent to begin with), I'd ink on that paper.

And here's a screen shot of the project in Corel Painter.  I'm not a huge fan of the way the stylus tip glides so smoothly (really, too slick for me) on the drawing surface (Wacom Intuos 3).  I prefer the slight resistance of the bristol vellum (140 lb to 150 lb range) for inking...  But I persevere.  It's a trade off.  The 'erase' and 'undo' are truly the most priceless of the functions available when drawing digitally.  It's not fun to have an accident in ink on paper that you can't do much about...  really.  I'd be honest, sometimes I don't feel up to the challenge. LOL

This one took me two afternoons because of the mind-boggling hair details (Them pearls!) and the floral frame.  Although I've gotten pretty quick about drawing roses after drawing so many over the past few years.  The only two things I looked up reference for were the spider and the cat skull.

And here's the final preview of the PNG version of the digi listing.  Another huge plus of drawing digitally is the ease of removing the background's white.  ^_^  The digi is available at my Etsy shop (in JPG version and PNG version).  The JPG version is also listed at the Aurora Wings web shop.  I'm still undecided on how I am going to organize the PNG listings in the web shop, so I am yet to start offering them there.  ^^;  Honestly, one person making art, processing for listing, keeping up with social media, etc. is entirely TOO MUCH.  Or I'm getting too old for it. LOL XD

The ladies of both the Challenge Blog and Showcase Blog DTs have kindly made beautiful samples using this digi to have a stunning showcase.  You will not be disappointed to check out the blog post here.

Now, I really would love to do a color version of this if I can find time for it.  I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that I'll get to. :D