Character history edit

In response to the feedback I got for my character history I decided to edit it a little.

So the history remains the same till flight school when Steve taught her the mechanics of being a mechanic and after that mostly the same as well however during flight school Jen went tinkering with Steve's own fighter. Due to a fault in the engine system, which Jennifer never touched, the fighter crashed into the near by lake and Steve was killed. The details of the crash were never released so while it wasn't Jennifer's fault she always believed it was. After a few months mourning she slowly tip toed her way back into tinkering and learning more about being a mechanic however she only ever worked on her own fighter and even if people asked her to fix their own she would refuse stating that the reason she worked on only her fighter was that if something went wrong only she would be hurt and only her would be to blame. She eventually got her confidence back fully but still refused to work on other peoples fighters, even her best friend Aden's. Just in case.

Facial expressions

I would have added the original facial expression sheet but again it uploaded upside down so the finished one will have to do. The top two images are the face and shoulders from the beauty shot with changed mouths and eyebrows (on the right image at least.) The bottom two are composites of 2 faces of Ada Wong, whom I found to have one facial expression of smug. The mouths on the top two faces were also Ada's that I warped slightly to make them fit on the face. I'm most pleased with the bottom right image as it looks largely how I imagined it would and I think brings out Jen's more feminine side, cutely brushing her hair behind her ear. In the original Ada image she wasn't smiling so I drew the corner of her mouth slightly upwards to give that cute half smile kind of look. I'm slightly disappointed about the sad look in the bottom left, again this was Ada's face with Jen's hair edited on top. To be honest I didn't really like the look, I don't really like the way her lips look, they just seem too big and obviously don't fit with the original face, because it is two different models as Pose Maniacs don't include facial expressions. I think this is definitely a weak point of mine however with practice I think I could improve, I mean I've already come a long way in 12 weeks (if I do say so myself) so I think I could definitely get much better. Facial expressions are just another thing to add to an ever growing list of stuff I need to practice and improve.

Environment and props

The environment went off largely without a hitch. I basically blocked in the colour from my scanned in drawing and touched it up a bit in case you didn't guess. It's not as good as my character which is a shame as I thought I was starting to get kinda good at this. The one thing I did add was the energy shield which I quite pleased with. It didn't turn out quite like how I imagined it would but it is close enough I think. Aside from that I think the environment looks ok, not great but not bad either. The props were interesting as I had no reference for their angle so had to guess draw it. The scanner worked quite well however the wrench didn't. I think what I needed to have changed was the angle so it was more perpendicular with the scanner and given it a much bigger shadow, also they don't look particularly metallic which is a shame as I think they look good over all. I do agree however there needs to be more in the hangar bay. I tried to show off all the bay but didn't take into account how high it would end up being or how little was actually in there. I would have loved to have done the hangar like the ones from my mood board but alas I'm not that good although considering what I've actually gotten done in the last 12 weeks it now seems that I might get as good as I want to be....at some point. The lighting also needs work too and I definitely need practice at that as well as making the materials look like what they are, the environment looks quite flat currently but with time I think I should be able to improve on this. I hope :S

The hangar bay Jennifer spends most of her time in

and two of the tool's she uses

Character image: Jennifer Grey (updated)

Well it took a while but I eventually got it done, I think at least. So the first picture is my first hand drawn image which was apparently completely out of proportion. Apparently. Personally the only thing I noticed was her way to small hand. So after going on Pose Maniacs, finding a pose reasonably close to what I wanted and tracing around it, then finding a head and tracing around that (the original poses head was too pixelated  to use) I had a perfectly proportioned person. Then came colouring, fortunately I got my graphics tablet in time so I was a happy bunny and considering I have hardly used one and never done digital art I think my shadowing and highlights of the jumpsuit, wrench, skin and boot turned out very well and I'm actually quite please with the result. Shocking I know, me, pleased with something I did. In fact the highlights and shadow were complete guess work, I had 2 reference images which I only partially used and the rest was simple guess work, I think it works though so what the hay but I have to say the Round Blunt Medium Stiff brush gives a really nice effect to the shadow and highlights. I tend to not use custom brushes I usually adapt my style to the tools instead of the tools to my style, I'm the same with games to and I just tend to put up with the defaults. The background was too boring so I decided to add a tool chest which is common sense really as she is a mechanic and I put her in the hangar bay as seeing as though that's where she works. In short I really am quite pleased with the result and it has really really come along way from the original drawing. Which is a very good thing indeed. On the whole I'm really, really pleased at how far I've come in such a short space of time. I honestly thought I wouldn't get anywhere but in truth I have and I'm pretty damn pleased too. I would have liked to have done better skin effects and shadowing but I think thats just something that will come with time and experience. For a first year drawing with no photoshop experience, I think its pretty bloody good.

So this is the failed first attempt

and this is the second not so failed attempt