For the glow worm getting the texture was the challenge because in part it has a rough shell like skin but at other parts the skin is soft and fleshy looking. I've added little lines and dots of distress because I think that will show that is the rougher weathered side. I want to create a balance between my style and realistic. Obviously it has to be a certain amount of realistic because it is meant as a guide so it needs to be recognisable as the insect it is.
The Hawthorn Shield bug was one of my favourites to draw the textures onto, every part of its skin is covered in different shapes and textures. I haven't been able to show the shininess of it in the line work but I think that is something I will tackle at the colouring stage.
Technically this is not an insect but an arachnid, but at 8-12 years old they have already been taught the difference and therefore I don't think that I should patronise them in any way by omitting this.
That back leg. I hate that leg. In the reference image I was using it has it's leg stuck up and out a bit but it looks relatively normal and no matter how I was trying it always looked wrong. I finally settled on inking this leg because it is the least 'detached leg' looking but it does instead make it look like its cocking its leg to pee.
The beetle had a satisfyingly bulky form so there was a lot of space to put the texture into. I think the fact that it was made out of less individual 'parts', like say the grass hopper, made it much easier to draw, it was easily broken down into shapes.
Welcome to Joe's apartment! Cockroaches already have this big rep of being awful and disgusting but I wanted to show it's just another insect, no different. I tried to keep the textures down a bit so that I wouldn't end up extenuating any pre existing ideas of what a cockroach is.
I think this is one of the ones I'm most proud of, the perspective is a bit of an awkward angle but it worked eventually. The cricket had already very distinctive shape and texture to its body so it was relatively easy to fill up all my blank space with textures.
I think I should be able to see it's other legs in this image. It's a weird angle to work at. I like in this one that there is a mixture of areas that have clear pattern or texture and then others that are just generally rough and worn. The contrast of pattern density makes this image more visually interesting.
I think the golden ringed Dragon Fly was the better dragonfly I drew. I wasn't sure howto show the black since I'd been working lots of texture in with black ink it seems like it would jut cover that and make it flat . I did a light half scribbling over the top, it gives the right colour but the scribbles have created a mottled texture that works well on the insect.
I don't really like the hairy dragon fly as much, I think that it is closer to my style rather than realistic. The head is distorted into a big cube like shape.
The earwig was good to draw because its made up of so many over lapping layers, so there is lots of room for my dot shading to go.
The zebra jumping spider was one of the hardest ones to draw I think. Mainly because it is a furry spider and I had been dealing with things with just hard exoskeletons. I wasn't sure how exactly to create the texture. I did a few attempts but the one before just ended up looking like wood instead of soft fur. Soft things are not my forte.
No comments:
Post a Comment