Flora and Daniel (Farah OCs)

I'm not really good making lines by computer, so every drawing I make is first traced with a pencil. I scan it afterwards, then use layers in Photoshop Elements: one on which I retrace the entire outline, one for the colors without shadings. At this point we don't see the original drawing anymore.

Layers are, if you don't know yet, like transparent sheets you put on top of your original drawing. You can therefore draw, erase or modify colors on these seperate sheets without affecting the content of the other ones. It also permits you to put transparency to certain colors, like the boy hair covering his eyes, through which you can see the eye color.

For the dress, I searched for a symbol that would look like flowers on Internet (and I'm more than sorry if it's supposed to be copyrighted or anything) and used Photoshop options to turn it to blue, and pasted it over the background color of the dress. That's why is looks better than the other clothing.

Many other layers are needed to make the shading and the eyes. Eyes are something I work on much in each of my drawings. They are made with an outline (the black lines making the eyelids and the circle around the eye), a layer for the darkest part of the eye), another one for a little fadeout effect joining the top, dark region, and the bottom, light region of every eye. Finally another layer and effect is added: a darker line inside the eye, going midway between the outline and inside parts of the eyes, giving a deep effect when looking at them.

Shading is an abuse of layers as well. I select a darker color and draw over my original color, but as I'm using a layer, I can erase or modify the new color without damaging the light colors behind. Different levels of shadings can be put one over the other this way. I try putting a bit of shading to every large strand of hair, but I also put a more global shading to the head of the characters, though harder to spot. It's slightly visible on Flora's head. When this is done, I added white semi-transparent spots on the hair for an additional lighting effect.

I should say that my drawings are more about patience than talent. I've observed tons and tons of images to understand some techniques used by professionals (well, artists way better than me), like how often a girl hair cover the junction between the head and the neck... I'm giving about 5 hours just to make the hand-made version of the drawing, and more than that for the coloring. I'm learning with every new drawing I make, trying to make a better and better one every time. I'm still awfully bad with poses or clothes wavering; I'll have to work on that one day, by observing other arts and learning from what I see.

Well, I hope this answered your question well enough. Thanks for the comment, and don't hesitate if there's anything else on your mind. ^^

Excellent drawing.
The both look very chraming.

wow! i love the dress and flora's hair, also i love the expression on daniel's face, thats cute!