FALL WIP wasn't sure I wanted to post...

chrisaakins

@jason-bowen haha no problem. Thanks for taking the time to look at my artwork.

demotlj

When you initially asked whether to ink it, I was going to say I liked it as it is but now that you’ve posted the inked version, I love it more. As others have said, the colors become more vibrant with the ink and the whole thing looks like an illustration from the early 1900s. It’s a great style.

chrisaakins

@demotlj Wow! Thanks for that. I actually love the illustrations of illustrators like N. C. Wyeth and J. C Leyendecker.

NessIllustration

I think this looks really nice! The anatomy could be a little polished going forward (the hands especially, and the face is a little asymmetrical) but the facial features look really nice and the rendering is great too! The inking gives it a really nice look as well, and your line work is well done. Great work!

Whitney Simms

@chrisaakins looks beautiful! If you used your wife as a model she should be very pleased. There is a lot of love in your painting. Love the veriations of color in her hair.

chrisaakins

@nessillustration Thanks for the tips and the compliments on the line work. I have been working toward making my lines more expressive and watching the weights and such. I will say it is easier to do digitally than with a real live brush pen. About the hands... I realized that one hand was drawn too small and one of its fingers is probably not capable of bending like that, but I was too far down the road so to speak to change it. I tried enlarging it with paint and it helped some but I know what you mean. Oh well. FInished not perfect right? As far as the face goes, you will have to take that up with God since I was using a photo reference of my wife as the model. (Of course, since she is perfect in every way, I MUST have messed up! hehe.)

NessIllustration

@chrisaakins LOLLLLLL re your last sentence Haha smooth!
I find that sometimes, even when using a photo reference I can still skew the proportions especially if I'm working in a big format... In this case,flipping the picture might help you see discrepancies in the symmetry:

I don't know if that helps at all... I'm also a great believer in "finished, not perfect" and think most of the time it's best to take it as a learning experience and move on to the next piece! Reworking the same piece over and over is kind of a creativity killer

chrisaakins

@NessIllustration Oh Wow! I see what you mean now that I see it through your eyes. Thanks for the advice. Ha! That one pointer finger that you corrected was the one I tried to fix by enlarging it. I think I made it look like she smashed it. Who knows, maybe she did. I think the face became asymmetrical when my wife expressed her dismay at the double chin I was creating. I think in fixing one problem, I created another. In the work that I did not show, her face was more symmetrical but her chin was way too big. That is the downside of working with traditional. Once you make a giant mistake you have to either embrace it or scrap it. I had already scrapped one start so I decided to go with it. But that thank you so much for the advice about flipping the image. I would not have thought of that. I will try that in the future.

NessIllustration

@chrisaakins Hahaha you're funny! Maybe she did smash it And for the double chin, I can totally imagine how this went down. I had a similar conversation with my fiancé this morning when I asked him to take photos of me "working" for my website I'm currently building. He told me maybe we should wait until tomorrow because I looked tired and puffy - than line of thought did not go well for him

Chip Valecek

@nessillustration LMAO!!!