Gallerie presents: Autumn Girl




She has a story now, courtesy of [The Red Baron]. Thank you.

Autumn Girl

One by one the leaves do fall,
Following the Eastern Wind’s call,
With the cold gusts they dance and swirl
Guided by a lovely yet mysterious girl.

The leaves speak to her, “Autumn girl,
Show us how to leave this world
To the forests of the land beyond.
Mourn us not, for we aren’t truly gone.”

“Friends,” she urges, “Hurry and do not slack.
Go forth now, I know you’ll be back.
Go, I’ll mourn not, I shan’t grieve,
But Winter’ll freeze you if you do not leave.”

"We’ll return next year, we give our word,
When flowers sprout and birds’ songs are heard.
We shall return with the coming of Spring,
And maybe with us a knight for you we’ll bring."

“Leaves,” she says, “You have my thanks,
I’ll be waiting by this riverbank
For you and for him to arrive,
So that the world will once again be alive.”

---

I made this wiki page to show off the progress of a drawing of mine, with some additional commentary. Now, I know I'm not the best artist out there, but I can still indulge sometimes, no? Besides, I think it's turning out to be pretty good - at least on my standards. It might be my longest drawing project yet.




First, there was a tree. Then there was the ground below it, and some leaves flying in the wind. The top of that tree was a pain in the back, but then I ended up with the same approach as with the ground: using smudge and convolve(blur) very liberally indeed. I also used convolve to bring some life to the tree trunk, the 'sharpen' option providing a nice imitation of uneven bark. At this point, however, I noticed a problem. I should get some colour to the sky, and when I tried to do it on a new layer that I then would have lowered to the bottom, I encountered a slight road bump.

Written about Sunday 2006-10-01
Written:2006-10-01 23:28:15

Learning things on GIMP the hard way is actually fun.
"Oops. I should've made the first layer transparent, too. Oh well, noooo worries, I'll just remember it nex time. *extra-careful airbrush strokes*" Though I guess I should have realised right away that if I want to work with layers and move them around, they'd ALL need to be transparent. xP
Ah, nevermind. I control my mouse well enough not to mess it up, and there's always 'undo'.

*blinks at the clock* Whoopsie. Time for sleep.



Then, I proceeded with colouring the sky, trying not to ruin the leaves and succeeding quite well, as seen below.



Being, for now, satisfied with the first layer and feeling that it definitely should have a character on the foreground, I started with that, not really knowing what I would do but sort of going with the flow.



Initially, s/he had both of her hands in the pockets of the coat, but that felt too dull. The drawing needed some sort of movement apart from the leaves flying in the wind. So, I portrayed the character snatching one of the leaves in her hand.



Then for some colouring, the face, and the hair... The last is on a separate layer, and I must have worked on it alone at least for an hour. I rather like the result.



Not satisfactory. Not at all. There was definitely something missing, but what? I posted this version in my photo slot with the description saying: "It's still missing something... Suggestions?" Fortunately, this question was answered by a person whose house I'd zapped a while earlier.

Letter number: 63831119
From: [Vampyric Unikorn] (damnit)
To: [Linderel] (And then she was very, very tired.)
Sent mail 2006-10-03 17:32:08
Comment in 63831189

you asked for suggestions on your first picture. I'm looking at the purple jacket that i'm thinking that you have shading throughout the picture but her jacket is mysteriously blank. actually as a matter of fact she is missing all depth she looks just 2 dimensional. I'm not saying it's not a wonderful picture. But she just doesn't fit.


Letter number: 63831189
From: [Linderel] (And then she was very, very tired.)
To: [Vampyric Unikorn] (damnit)
Sent mail 2006-10-03 17:34:41
Comment to: 63831119
Comment in 63832361

Hmm. Thanks for the comment. I'll see if I can work on that.



And thus, I proceeded to do just so. Eyes were a crucial point in making her face look more real. As they were, they were quite lifeless, but I couldn't figure out how to improve them. At that point I decided to take a pencil and a piece of paper, seeing as I'd developed in drawing eyes, them having been one of my main subjects of doodling for many years. Then, I proceeded to imitate the eye on the paper, made things easier for myself and hid the other eye with hair (yes, I know, I'm lazy), and came up with a much better result than before.



Though the character is now much better, the piece still has room for improvement. I kind of feel the ground stops too suddenly, and there should be something more, but I just can't decide what. And comparing the hair and the coat, the latter still needs some more depth.



Tried giving her an eyebrow... It's actually better without one. Funny.



Attempting to give the coat and the shirt a little more depth... Alas, my skill goes no further. I know it still has room for improvement, but I'm all out of inspiration for this particular piece. It was fun while it lasted, though. And it probably is my best drawing yet.



Now I'll just have to think about a story for her.