My project for this month is coming along, although I'm struggling a little to balance it with my school responsibilities. Summer classes are hard! Figuring out how to cope with multiple responsibilities is never bad practice, though. Not to mention having something creative to do outside of school is refreshing (I'm taking art history and Japanese culture classes, so not much art creation going on right now). Here are the drawings I completed since my last update!
In case you missed my last post, what I'm doing here is going through my pet photos, choosing ones that seem like my pets will look interesting or funny without the support of their context (i.e. their environment), and then drawing just my pet and seeing how it ends up looking! So, with the drawing above, removing Kenshi's context made him look like a round head with a couple of paws underneath ๐ Kenshi was my dog all the way from high school until just a few years ago, when he passed away. This sweet-faced pose reminds me of all the good times I had with him ๐งก
My next drawing features my handsome prince, Bear, who recently passed ๐ค This is one of the most successful pieces from this experiment, because it ended up looking like he's breathing fire! I decided at the beginning to make the photos a Patreon-exclusive reveal, as a digital reward for Studio Mikarts members, so if you would like to see the secret behind this or any of the other images, just click through one of the links below the drawings, and you'll be able to sign up!
Next is another drawing of Sun! This one didn't turn out as engaging as I expected, even though something very specific and cute is happening in the original photo! The thing I'm learning the most while doing these drawings is that I'm not really able to predict, just from viewing the photo, how successful the final drawing will be. Maybe I'll get better by the time I finish all eighteen drawings for this month ๐ค
The tenth drawing in this series features Kiki, our only female cat, who is very spunky. But this drawing doesn't show that side of her! With this one, I was hoping to capitalize on the perspective to get an interesting result, but in the end, what I found most compelling about it was the way her fur pattern came out. I must admit, I'm pretty proud of being able to capture it using nothing but black lines on a white background!
Here is the third appearance of our recently-departed prince, Bear. The photo behind this drawing was taken when he was in his prime, the pinnacle of big and fluffy! It's been so long that I completely forgot that he used to look like this ๐ฎ So far, folks have had some guesses as to what's got Bear in this position, but no one's gotten it right, hee hee...
The final drawing in this post was completed just yesterday. It's Kiba, the black Manx's second appearance! This is based on another older photo but Kiba's looks haven't changed as drastically as Bear's did. He's a naturally small, short-haired cat, so the changes he's undergone as he's aged aren't as obvious ๐ I love how the final drawing makes his body look smaller than his head! Or maybe like he has the body of a perching bird XD
๐๐๐๐
I realized I'll have the perfect number of drawings at the end of this project to spread them out evenly across three blog posts, so that means there's just one more Pets Out of Context post on the horizon. I'll be moving onto another project next month, but there's always the possibility of more drawings in this style later on. Please look forward to the final six drawings in a couple weeks!
I thought up a new project! You see, we have a Google Nest Hub in our kitchen
that displays randomly selected photos we've taken, and one day a couple weeks
ago, it showed a very silly looking photo of our dog, Sun. In the photo, he
was sleeping on the couch with his snout tucked into the arm cushion. The
result was a very odd position that almost looked painful or physically
impossible, but which must have been comfy since he was sleeping like a log ๐
As we were walking Sun a while later, it came to me that it could be fun and
amusing to draw Sun as he appears in the photo, without drawing anything else,
so that the oddness of his position could be fully appreciated. I realized
this could be quickly done, which meant I could do it without compromising
schoolwork, and finally decided to make it my visual art project for July!
For my first entry into this series of drawings, I decided to choose a photo
of Sun, our Shiba Inu. He was the one who inspired me in the first place,
after all! I didn't use the photo that originally inspired me, though. I
didn't take that particular photo myself, so it was faster and easier to look
through my own library.
The next pet I chose to draw was our Ragdoll/Norwegian Forest Cat, Bear. He
was the oldest of all our pets, and very sadly, passed away only days after I
drew him. It was a long time coming, so it wasn't exactly unexpected, but I
was still happy to have drawn one more picture of him while he was still with
us ๐ค
The next pet I drew was our Manx, Kiba! He's a funny kitty who has undergone
an extreme personality change over the past few years, all for the better. We
rescued him as a stray (he had been living under our house for about a year
ever since the neighbors moved away and abandoned him; we finally took him in
when we noticed he had lost a worrisome amount of weight) so he was
understandably skittish when he first joined us. These days though, he is more
silly than scared, so we have a lot of good photos to use for this project!
After drawing three of our pets, I couldn't not finish off my first four
drawings with our last pet, Kiki! She's an American Shorthair (or
thereabouts), and a super playful, mischievous, athletic girl. She's the only
fellow girl I have here at home and I like to think we have a lot in common ๐
For my fifth drawing, I came back around to Sun again. This was the piece
where I had to make some decisions about things like collars. If the pet was
actually wearing it, should I draw it? In the end, I naturally ended up not
drawing them. I think it makes the final image even more interesting ๐
The last drawing I'm including in this post was finished just yesterday. For this one, I reached way back into the past and chose a photo of our family cat, Gaki, who has long since passed on ๐ค Kiki has been reminding me of Gaki a lot recently, so I think that combined with the inherent qualities of the photo itself is what lead me to choose the photo reference for this drawing.
๐๐๐๐
That's all for this post! I intend to keep drawing these throughout the month, so be on the lookout for future digest posts like this one! Stay safe and healthy everyone ❤
This year I did something I'm actually surprised I never have before: drew all my pets in chibi form! Pet caricatures are something I've done here and there in the past, but this year I've been taking it to the next level, promoting this artistic service as an inexpensive way to obtain custom artwork in my unique style. So, who better to model for this product than my own precious fur babies?
Click images to see them larger :D
Another reason I drew this set of chibis was because I needed subjects for the weekly themed drawing I started doing for my Twitch livestreams, Chibi Friday. I wanted to avoid too much fan art and everyone loves animals, so I figured my pets were a great subject that anyone could enjoy (^^) Each of these drawings took about two hours to draw, give or take, so they were also the perfect fit for my standard streaming window!
"Chibi Kiba"
ink, marker, colored pencil, 4x6"
Completed February 2018
The first pet I drew was my black Manx, Kiba. I don't know why I decided on this, but I started with him because I wanted to draw everyone from smallest to biggest. The reference photo I used showed him laying on the floor on his side, looking up at the camera. I'm not sure if that comes across here without a background, lol.
Here's the video of Chibi Kiba's creation!
"Chibi Kiki"
ink, marker, colored pencil, 4x6"
Completed February 2018
Next, as the second smallest pet in the house, I drew my cat Kiki. Her full name is actually supposed to be Tanuki because of her adorable striped tail, but that name was very quickly shortened XD For her chibification, I chose another unusual pose as reference. I wanted to challenge myself to draw chibis in positions that I never have before. So she's sitting on the floor, looking straight up at the camera, in her reference image.
Here's part one of chibi Kiki's creation...
...and this is part two!
"Chibi Bear"
ink, marker, colored pencil, 4x6"
Completed March 2018
Next on my list was Bear, my second largest pet and the biggest cat. He's also the oldest pet! If I remember correctly, Bear's reference image was unique among this series because I took it right before I started drawing. We had only just got his weight back to normal after years of trial and error so I wanted to draw him looking his healthiest (^^) He wasn't very amused by my picture-taking so that's why he looks kind of annoyed in the drawing, lol.
This is chibi Bear's video~
"Chibi Sun"
ink, marker, colored pencil, 4x6"
Completed March 2018
Finally, the last pet in this series, and the only dog, is my Shiba Inu, Sun! His name is pronounced "soon" like the Chinese surname (I named him after the Sun clan in Dynasty Warriors and Sun Wukong, the monkey king X3). His might be the most difficult pose I took on but I'm extremely pleased with the result! In the reference image, he was laying upside down in a recliner, lol.
And here is the creation video for chibi Sun!
So that's everyone, three cats, one dog, Kiba, Kiki, Bear, and Sun~ If you'd like me to chibify your pet, or even your favorite animal, I am always open for these quick projects! Just email me at Denise.Mikarts@gmail.com to get set up!
Ink and marker on smooth Bristol, 2.5x3.5", Completed December 2017
And here we finally have it, the last cat in the "You as a Cat!" series of ACEOs I made last December as Christmas presents for my closest friends and family. This one features yet another good friend from high school (and grade school), Reece! Honestly, now that I've posted and talked about all the pieces I drew in this series...this cat might be my favorite of the lot. The wide eyes and gaping mouth make such a fun, excited, even surprised expression (it's the most animated face of all the cats I drew) and I'm extremely pleased with how all the colors work together, they remind me of a rainy spring day in Seattle. Nostalgic.
I think there's a very good chance that the reason I love this final drawing so much is that it is the culmination of all the planning, experimentation, and practice that went into making the previous 13 cats. I chose this extreme pose based on Reece's personality, but would I have been able to pull it off as well if this had not been the last ACEO I completed? Maybe not, but since I KNEW it was the last piece on my list, that could have given me a boost, too! After all, this was the fifth drawing I did on the last day I worked on this project. The drawing had the potential to suffer due to my exhaustion, but instead it came out one of the best entries in the series!
It took me all the way to February to share all these Christmas presents. I definitely intend to do more art presents this year (in fact, I have already done a birthday present in January!) so I hope you'll look forward to them throughout 2018 (^^)
Ink and marker on smooth Bristol, 2.5x3.5", Completed December 2017
We're down to the second-to-last "You as a Cat!" ACEO Christmas present that I created in December 2017. This one is based on another close high school buddy, Jeremy. I had a pretty hard time finding a relatively recent, well-lit, and complete reference image of Jeremy, but I finally settled for a somewhat older photo that showed his hair blowing epically in the wind. I tried to replicate that effect with the cat's fur :3
Making art as Christmas presents is always a tougher challenge than I expect it to be (no matter how many years I do it!). Sometimes throughout the year, I feel lonely and friendless, but when I put together my recipient list, I realize I actually have quite a few good, close, cherished friends and family! Five, ten, or fifteen close relations doesn't seem so big a number until you sit down to make five, ten, or fifteen individual art pieces before Christmas hits! This year, I may start my present-making at the beginning of November to give myself a good head-start and plenty of breathing room...
Ink, marker, and colored pencil on smooth Bristol, 2.5x3.5", Completed December 2017
This is definitely the most different and difficult breed of cat that I attempted to depict in this series of ACEOs. The fur is so short that I had to draw every curve and wrinkle that is normally hidden by longer, thicker fur on other cats. I chose a curly-coated, red Devon Rex to represent my friend Katrina because the breed's appearance is a good translation of her human one: thin build with curly, strawberry blonde hair. I really love the coiled whiskers on this cat! So cute I wish I could pet them for real!
If you're keeping up with my posts in real time, you'll know this is the twelfth cat I drew altogether, and the third on my busiest and last day of working on the project. I think I was getting tired by this point and I remember taking a break after this cat, before starting again to complete the final ones on my list. When you look at them, ACEOs don't seem like they should take very long to make because they're so small, but it's still a good 2-4 hours of constant work per item to get a result like this!
Ink and marker on smooth Bristol, 2.5x3.5", Completed December 2017
This is one of my top favorite ACEO cats I did for this series. It was the eleventh "You as a Cat!" present I drew and the second I drew on my busiest (and final) day of the project. It's based on one of my best friends, Krystal. She has lovely long black hair and Asian features so an Oriental Longhair was the perfect match. The reference image I found was so epic and gorgeous, I can only hope its beauty came through in my version of the cat X3
It's interesting to me how I found on certain cats in this series that I wanted to use colored pencils to give that final detailed touch but on other cats, I didn't find it necessary and relied only on the marker and white ink to do the job. It didn't coincide with any fur color or length or anything. The overall effect just sometimes needed that bit of extra and it was impossible to tell until I got to the very end of each piece.
Ink, marker, and colored pencil on smooth Bristol, 2.5x3.5", Completed December 2017
The tenth "You as a Cat!" Christmas present I completed was for my good friend and bearer of many nicknames (kinda like Gandalf) whom I call Scotsman. I gotta say this is one of my top favorite entries in this art series. It just came out so nice, the happy expression and lively eyes, the long fluffy fur, they look great on their own but also really remind me of my friend! It's always fun when Scotsman is around (^^)
Aside from being the tenth ACEO I completed for this series, this is also the first of five that I completed all in the same day. It was finally crunch time--December 22nd--and I had to either get them all done or skip some of the people on my list. I'm happy to report that I didn't skip anyone and I managed to complete every ACEO that I initially planned on before Christmas! It's a good thing I had so much practice making all the others that came before XD
Ink, marker, and colored pencil on smooth Bristol, 2.5x3.5", Completed December 2017
The next Christmas ACEO I have to share is the second friend-cat of the lot. It features my handsome high school friend, Nat! I literally searched "handsome cat" to find a good reference photo for this X3 I didn't mention that to anyone so I was especially pleased when Nat's comment about it was "IM THE MOST HANDSOME CAT!!!" It couldn't have been more perfect!
This is the third cat I drew for this series which had brown eyes and black fur. I'm pleased that all three cats have their own unique vibe and don't come across as too similar (at least I hope that's so!). By this point, after making nine ACEOs with the same theme, the process and details started to get both fluid (good because it took less time to make each one) and fuzzy (bad because I kept worrying I would forget something important). My confidence was both high and low at the same time! (And I still had several more to go...)
Ink and marker on smooth Bristol, 2.5x3.5", Completed December 2017
For anyone who hasn't been following along, in 2017 I made a series of ACEOs as presents for Christmas. Each one features the giftee drawn as a cat. I started by drawing my family, seven cats total, and then I moved onto friends. So here we have the first friend cat I drew, which is based on one of my best friends whom I have known for over fifteen years, Sarah! When I was looking up reference images of her, she seemed to have long hair just as often as short, so I decided to pick a cat that reflected that. The cat reference I found depicted a longhair Manx--short tail, long fur. This is the second cat I drew with brown eyes, but since they have so much light shining into them, it doesn't look as unnatural as some of the other brown-eyed cats in this series...
After finishing a few cats in this series, I started to get more and more concerned about their reception as gifts. I kept doubting whether people would appreciate them, or wondering if the recipients would be confused or, worse, disappointed. I knew it was that silly inner critic talking and I kept overcoming the negative thoughts and pushing forward every day, making more and more cats so that everyone on my gift list would get one by Christmas. This is one of the biggest projects I've ever done, in terms of number of individual pieces. I think that novelty pushed me out of my comfort zone which then triggered the doubt. I worked hard on this series and I'm happy with the results. I hope the people who each received one of these cats are happy, too :3
Ink, marker, and colored pencil on smooth Bristol, 2.5x3.5", Completed December 2017
With this "You as a Cat!" Christmas present, I finished all my drawings of family. This one depicts my younger brother, who is actually between my two sisters in age, but I drew this and Aryssa's present during the same art session, so my drawing them out of order isn't completely nonsensical XD I picked the reference photo for this cat based on its pose. It matched really well with the photo of my brother that I used as reference. With this cat begins the unnatural eyes; since I wanted to make the eyes match the human, I ended up drawing several cats with dark brown, almost black eyes. It kind of bugs me 'cause a dark-eyed cat just doesn't look right XD
This piece ended up one of the darkest, color-wise, of the lot. Since I was pulling the background colors from those which I had used on the cat, I didn't have very bright options here. I don't think it's a problem that this is dark or anything, though. Just gives it a much different atmosphere than most of the other drawings in this series.
Ink, marker, and colored pencil on smooth Bristol, 2.5x3.5", Completed December 2017
The next You-as-a-Cat! present I made was for my younger sister, Aryssa. By this point, I was really starting to get the formula for creating these cats down. I think this is one of the brightest, most vibrant pieces in this series (probably because my sister has light colored hair and blue eyes). It just feels...refreshing X3
As you can see, this was another piece where I just completely forgot to add the whiskers. I did all the other highlighting details, but for some reason it just slipped my mind to add in one of the most iconic cat features XD I'm glad I realized it later and fixed it before these got opened on Christmas!
Ink, marker, and colored pencil on smooth Bristol, 2.5x3.5", Completed December 2017
For the fifth entry in this series of Christmas presents, I drew my youngest sister as a cat! For reference, I used a photo I had taken of her at Thanksgiving wherein she made almost this exact same face XD She made the face again when I took a photo of her holding up this ACEO and it proved to be an excellent match. Of all the cats I drew for this series, I think the eyes on this one are my favorite. The color and the shine just came out so nice, they look almost real.
By drawing all of my closest family and friends in succession, immediately one after another, I came to realize that I have a LOT of relations with hazel eyes! I counted all the cat eye colors in this entire set and found I have five with hazel eyes, five with brown, and four with blue. Pretty evenly matched! Of course, that also means I don't know anyone with true green eyes...
Ink, marker, and colored pencil on smooth Bristol, 2.5x3.5", Completed December 2017
The fourth "You as a Cat!" Christmas present I completed last December was for my husband, Sean! I looked really hard for reference photos of a cat that wasn't just fluffy but was fluffy in such a way that it appeared to have a beard. This is because, earlier in 2017, Sean grew out his beard really huge and even wanted it bigger, but he had to keep it in check to stay professional for work XD I gave this ACEO cat the red color that makes up a lot of my husband's beard color.
Starting with this ACEO, I began losing focus and forgetting to complete small details. I took the photo of this and a few other cat drawings and wrapped them for gifting before realizing that I forgot to add the cats' main whiskers! Luckily, the way I wrapped them was simple so it wasn't too much trouble to get them back out and fix them. I'm dang glad I had decided to take a photo of each ACEO as it was completed or I wouldn't have known which cats needed whiskers and I would have had to open ALL of them to figure it out!
Ink and marker on smooth Bristol, 2.5x3.5", Completed December 2017
With the third entry into my Christmas present series, I completed all of my gifts to parents! This one was for my husband's father, whom I refer to as Papa-chan in writing (to match Mama-chan!). I had to call in reinforcements when it came to determining eye color because his glasses in photos made it really difficult to determine! Got a special glasses-less close-up photo and written description in the end, so hopefully I got it right XD This cat is another one of my favorites of the bunch. The light grey tabby pattern just matches perfectly with Papa-chan's grizzled hair.
Of the cats in this series so far, this was the first one on which I didn't see a need to incorporate colored pencils. Since the cat is just shades of grey anyway, I was able to get the color and texture I wanted just by layering ink, marker, and more ink.
Ink, marker, and colored pencil on smooth Bristol, 2.5x3.5", Completed December 2017
The second Christmas present I completed last month was for my dad. He's always grumpy about something or other so I found a cat that looked the same XD I chose a cat with folded ears to represent my dad's bald head and the fur color is a reflection of his hair color, as well. I can't remember for sure, but I may have exaggerated the grump in the cat's face, lol. My dad took the perfect photo of him holding his ACEO in front of his face while pulling the biggest frown and it made my drawing look just like him!
I'm really satisfied with this particular drawing, it's one of the best of the lot I think. The colors I used look great together, unified, and the anatomy turned out near perfect. This drawing made me realize I didn't need to use such a wide variety of colors for the background, instead I started choosing from the colors that I had already used for the cat.
Ink, marker, and colored pencil on smooth Bristol, 2.5x3.5", Completed December 2017
This was another year wherein I decided to create art as gifts for Christmas. As with some previous years, I chose an overarching theme that every present would share: for 2017 it was "You as a Cat!" I had a relatively large gift list so I also went with little ACEOs for the format to ensure I could actually get everything done on time (^^; I'm proud to say I did! The first present I made was for my husband's mom, whom I dubbed "Mama-chan" long before Sean and I were married. I actually used a photo I took at Thanksgiving just weeks earlier for the human reference image. I chose a cat reference photo that seemed to have the same sort of expression. I made it a light-colored red cat to imitate Mama-chan's hair color. The idea with all of these cats was to make a more realistic cat version of each person, rather than a cartoony image where the cat has a human haircut and wears glasses and such. So, while this cat has a tabby pattern, hopefully it's obvious that Mama-chan does not XD
Since I was in a rush to complete my full list of ACEO gifts, I didn't take any progress photos, but I did take one photo after each piece was finished which shows the art along with every marker and colored pencil that went into its creation :3 Shows really well how much detail and effort goes into even a tiny trading card-sized artwork at Studio Mikarts!
I'm moving right along with my Inktober drawings! Day 6 is already done and it's only lunchtime! It helps that my previous piece bled through to the next page; I used those cloudy marks to inform today's work and it made my subject really easy to draw.
As a reminder, I'm using the 2016 drawing prompts list so that I can finish what I started last year. Day 6's theme was HIDDEN. The general shape of the blank space between the two major bleed-throughs on this page reminded me of someone hiding in a huge fluffy blanket, so that's what I drew! I gave the face a suspicious look just because it fits the Halloweeny mood of October. Even though the subject looks on edge, what I really wanted to convey was the comforting, tactile sensation of a huge, heavy, warm, fluffy blanket. Maybe they're on edge because someone is trying to steal their cuddly blankie? Maybe that's why they're hidden!
Anytime I focus on any kind of book for too long...
In the middle of working on this, one of my cats, Kiki, very adorably got right in the middle of my work XD She kept purring and fluffing herself up and rubbing on my face until she finally stepped exactly on my sketchbook, lol. Typical cat behavior but absolutely adorable no matter how often it happens~ So I took a million pictures of her naughtiness (I picked just one to share here, lest my blog be taken over by her as well!) until she finally got bored and jumped down.
After adding the first round of hatching, I thought of calling it good and stopping there but I decided to add a bit more presence with big inked shadows. I ended up taking it farther than I first thought but happily didn't take it too far. Sometimes when I shade without a plan, I end up going so far that I have to add more to the entire piece, changing the whole mood or message. That can be fun, but for a daily drawing like this, I really don't want to do that much work.
Challenging myself to complete the full month of Inktober has been teaching me a lot. Not about drawing and inking, but about myself, the way my mind works, and what I have to change in order to get something like this done. I have to force myself to forget about perfectionism, remind myself that these are just daily drawings, not masterpieces. I have to get started immediately and remember that if I don't get it done today, there's no make-up time later. Stuff like that may seem simple, but my mind doesn't naturally think along those lines (it's more like "If it's not done perfectly and to the best of your ability from start to finish, there's just no point"). I think this month is going to help me become more flexible and productive as an artist.
