steady as we go - Doctor Who

[aimeekitty]

~ fave on DeviantArt


Post Season 4, Rose and the Doctor.
I imagine this as the night after Dårlig ulv Stranden.
Rose cracks a smile despite her sadness.

If you'd like to see my steps on this one, again, please scroll down to the bottom.



"I'll walk halfway around the world
Just to sit down by your side
And I would do most anything, girl
To be the apple of your eye
Well troubles, they may come and go
But good times, they're the gold
And if the road gets rocky, girl
Just steady as we go

When the storm comes down you shelter me
When I don't say a word and you know exactly what i mean
In the darkest times, oh, you shine on me
You set me free and keep me steady as we go

So if your heart wrings dry, my love
I will fill your cup
And if your load gets heavy, girl
I will lift you up
Well troubles, they may come and go
But good times be the gold
So if the road gets rocky, girl
Just steady as we go"

~ steady as we go ~ Dave Matthews Band

This one took a while for me to get a good expression for Rose and a good mouth for the Doctor. You can see that both change a bit as I go. The coloring took a really long time. *_* It's dark, so I kept layering it until I was happy. I even ended up making it a bit darker once I brought it to photoshop.

Again, I draw in red pencil, then graphite on top of that (same page) and then I remove the red in photoshop. I then do the marker on a separate sheet (with a photocopy of the original black and white drawing underneath) using a lightbox.
I then composite the marker layer and the black and white drawing in photoshop (by putting the BW layer on "multiply".)

(Please note that the red drawings down here were not scanned, they are just quick flash photos... )

Comments

[rangerinblack.livejournal.com]

Ooh lovely~!

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

thankyou! :)

[yacoba.livejournal.com]

Wow....just bloody WOW

You're art is beautiful! I love this picture, I love getting to see the progression of your art! I'm always just fascinated by it all. I went and looked ad you devian art page and was blown away by both you drawings and photography.

I would love to ad you as a friend if that's alright, I would really enjoy seeing more of your work!

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

wah, thankyou so much! I'm grateful that you took the time to leave me an indepth comment and check out my other stuff!

absolutely no problem to ad me, I'm grateful! I don't really add people back very often unless I know them really well, I hope you don't mind.

Thanks a bunch!

[yaso-khuul.livejournal.com]

I had no idea you're doing your markers on a separate level! Does the light from the lightbox not...get in the way?

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

it does get in the way, unfortunately. I turn it on and off a lot.

However, if I color directly on the photocopy, the resolution is too low and gets in the way of the better lineart.

Sometimes I choose to retrace the iffy areas with a light pencil and then color directly on that, but then that shows through a bit too. so you know.

It's really kinda half a dozen of one or the other. I could retrace the lineart with a permanent pen and then color directly on that, but that gives me less fudge room with the color, and I truely hate inking things. I like the softer messier look of the pencil as the final line.

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

also, I feel like doing the final line on the same sheet, as long as I can remove the red rough drawing later, makes it easier to keep the energy of the original red sketch.

[yaso-khuul.livejournal.com]

I follow the trick with drawing directly on the red sketch religiously. The difference it makes is enormous, I get to keep the intended facial expressions etc. Doing a clean-up on a new sheet of paper (in my case at least) kills all the life out of the drawing.

I gotta try markering with a lightbox, so far I was doing the photocopy method, which I feel limits flexibility a bit.

[hezmanagirl.livejournal.com]

It's like she can't believe he's really there. Her brain has got to be racing trying to take everything in!

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

poor Rose! She has to deal with a lot, huh?

[slai.livejournal.com]

Hi Aimee,

Awww, that's so sweet ^-^!

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

Thanks Sonia!

[shionthekid.livejournal.com]

Amazing! Love the step-by-step in addition to the finished pic, great to see how you do it :)

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

:) glad you enjoyed it, thankyou!

[dusk-in-dendera.livejournal.com]

*melts* I love it.

If you haven't invested in some of the Doctor Who audiobooks, I recommend you check out the ones read by David Tennant ("The Stone Rose", "The Resurrection Casket", and "Feast of the Drowned"). He does the entire cast's voices and it's simply fantastic! I've found I can't start my mornings without him reading to me ^^

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed the Stone Rose, but I haven't listend to the other ones yet!

[dusk-in-dendera.livejournal.com]

Ooh, you'd love "Feast of the Drowned" ;) It's lovely and creepy! And you can just picture the expressions on David's face as he reads. LOVE that man!

[dusk-in-dendera.livejournal.com]

Let me see what I can do for you ;) I'll be e-mailing you in just a moment!

[fanbot.livejournal.com]

I'm nosing in. Any way I can get in on the action? I loved "Stone Rose" to bits.
fanbot at fanbot dot net

[dusk-in-dendera.livejournal.com]

Weeelllll (Tenth Doctor impression), I suppose so. Any friend-fellow-commenter of Aimee's is a friend-fellow-commenter of mine ^^

[fanbot.livejournal.com]

*big hugs*

[ashbet]

"The Resurrection Casket," at least, is amazing -- we have it!

-- A :D

[caerbannog.livejournal.com]

Hello! I hope you don't mind if I friend you. I watch your doll journal and really like seeing your artwork. Especially the Who art! It's very adorable.

[strawberrycake1.livejournal.com]

This is really cute! I love your stuff :)

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I've been waffling all day about commenting on this 'cause I didn't want to look like a dork. But it's a great piece of art on its own and I've been lurkily enjoying your stuff for weeks (I'm a friend of <lj user="bluejeans07") so I thought I would, dork or not. I love the Doctor's posture and the overall composition of the two figures, especially his shoes on the chair and her arms over her knees. You've got a nice touch with the markers, and seeing the process, especially the markers without the line drawing, is cool. And this one especially got to me 'cause I've been working on a fic about Human!Ten post-Journey's End that has much the same...feel as this work. So. Hi! I like your art, and this one smacked me in the head, and I thought I'd say so. :)

[ashbet]

Love it. Really, really love it.

And I'm enjoying seeing the steps, too!

-- A <3

[ultrarabbit.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for posting this, I always get a warm fuzzy feeling inside when I see very skilled artists using reference to create such original work. Especially since I pretty much always have to use refs to produce something I'm happy with.

Also you've inspired me to try the separate colouring and scanned lineart. I've tried colouring photocopied lineart before, but I when I go to scan it the lines become dotted and yuck.

I love the Doctor's expression here, it's so perfect. And the poses are cute :) This is amazing work!

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

it's possible to create without ref, but you have to have committed something to memory. like when I've been working on a particular show or project for a long time, then I can draw the characters pretty well from memory. I could probably do most of the Futurama characters from memory, for example.

You'll notice though that I try not to draw from something directly. A lot of the time if you copy a photo line for line, it's just stiff. Plus what's the point. I wanna make something new but I still want to make something informed.

[ultrarabbit.livejournal.com]

I suppose that's what I meant to say - I love that you've used reference photos for inspiration and created something completely unique and very much your own style. It's interesting to me because on DeviantArt in particular a lot of people seem to think using reference (especially for fanart) is cheating or not original enough, or they just never bother to use it.

I do tend to draw from photos directly, but with slight changes to colours or the composition. Now I'm tempted to try a different approach :)

Again, thank you so much for posting your process here.

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

well, it's like how if there is a particularly lovely photo of someone,... you'll see 50 drawings of that same photo. But oftentimes, unless they really add their touch to it, it doesn't really add much to it, right...?
but if you learn how someone's face looks, but looking at reference images, and watching videos, etc... it'll end up feeling more like them, but in your own way. more life to it. that's how I feel anyway! :)
though, I'm sure that sometimes my own personal quirks take away from the likeness more than some people would like, but I guess that's a price to pay.

(and thankyou again)!

[arashi-taro.livejournal.com]

You have very beautiful works, and i can say "thank you" for them. I draw too, but not as good as you. I hope that someday i will see more and more your drawings.

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

Thankyou so much! I really appreciate it, seriously. Keep drawing! I know I'm better now than I was 5 years ago!
I have a lot more on my website if you like! But I haven't updated with all the recent ones from the past couple weeks.

[arashi-taro.livejournal.com]

Me too! (hope, my friends will forgive me as i didn't renew my paintings for a long period of time). I saw your works, and they are all amazing! I am so lazy to colour my last work in Photoshop, so i decided to colour it by pencils. It will be pleasure for me, if you will see my works. They are at my LJ, from previous page under tags "drawings".

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

your work is lovely! Keep it up :)

[sprout19.livejournal.com]

i found this on devart and couldnt resist seeing the steps you took (and very glad i did too ^^, i think youve just helped me with my art homework ^-^) - this pic is fantastic, and inspires any number of fic ideas so thanks ^-^
~have fun ^^

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you enjoyed it! good luck with your project!

[sprout19.livejournal.com]

hehe thanx, im gonna need it - and if i write a fic based on it i'll credit you for my inspiration (of course) :)