#obviously it’s traced but I was testing colors layers lighting and shading and other stuff ig also boredom which is always my reason to draw

[nocturna1sea]

Danganronpa!

[mysticsparklewings]

Covered in All the Colored Lights‪

Well, this looks wild and different coming from me, doesn't it? If you've been a Sparkler long enough, you may remember this character of mine from ages ago when I made This Is Where You Wanna Be, which featured her. Her name is Windith, and she's a performer who likes mixing old-time circus elements with more contemporary stuff.   (She was originally just a circus performer but that felt too limiting for me, and I'm thinking it might be a little too passive for her personality. I don't have a set story for her, so her character will perpetually be in development ) This drawing was also me testing out some new paper and the new Skin Tone marker set from Ohuhu. Which I simply had to get because it meant more colors of their brush tip markers that I've tested out in the past. (Ohuhu Brush Marker Review and Sweet Ohuhu Snail) I'll cut to the chase for those that aren't interested in the longer version: I kinda hate this paper and it, unfortunately, was not the best choice for what was supposed to be a mostly-marker illustration. But I like the markers! The markers themselves are nice as always, and I like the addition of the new colors, but the one thing I have to point out is that Ohuhu is still lacking in good colors for super pale skin that doesn't have a strong pink or gray undertone. They're doing really good with peachy tones, mid-tone, warm browns, and the new colors add some really nice darker/cooler browns, though. In fact, the new marker colors are what primarily inspired me to bring Winidth back into the fold in the first place; some of the colors looked like they would work really well for her skin tone in particular, and I've avoided drawing her traditionally in the past because I wasn't sure I could capture it accurately with the supplies I had. And...that's really all I have to say about the markers, actually. As brush markers, virtually nothing has changed from the last two rounds of testing I did with the Ohuhus, and thus the only thing I can really comment on is the colors. I really appreciate having more to pick from, especially because some of the colors in the set really do stand apart from the rest of my alcohol marker collection, but a lot of the "light skin tone" options are either too orange/pink or too yellow or just generally too dark for a light/pale skin tone. So, my final commentary is the same as always: More colors, please! Now, as for that paper... I picked up a new sketchbook from my local Ross, which I've known for a while now as having a surprisingly good (maybe not the best, but surprisingly good) art supply section. This paper is by a brand called Craft Smith, which as far as I can tell seems to be very into making scrapbook/craft paper and doesn't appear to be actively selling/promoting sketchbooks currently. (At least not anywhere I could find online.) It also claims to be "Mixed Media Paper 120 lb (180 gsm)." I actually have some 120 lb mixed media paper that I use semi-frequently in the form of a sketchbook by Denik. And funnily enough, that's the same paper I used on my other two Ohuhu marker pieces. So we have both a baseline for comparison in terms of performance and in terms of feel. Now, I'm not an idiot. I did inspect the paper before I actually bought the sketchbook, and it's alarming how deceptive this paper is. It definitely has the right weight/thickness to it, even compared to the 120 lb. paper I already had once I got it home. The only truly notable differences are 1. This paper is a brighter white (the Denik paper is almost on the blue/purple side) and 2. This paper feels smoother. And the second point was actually one of the reasons I bought it, as I thought it was make for a really nice marker paper. (Smoother paper tends to be a better option for brush markers so you don't wear out the nibs as quickly)   Oh boy, how wrong would I be! So, let me explain just by going through my process for the art, since that and discovering the atrocities of this paper go pretty hand-in-hand. Trying desperately to get used to my current tablet situation, I started by doing the lines for the illustration digitally, having been inspired for a pose/facial expression by some Ball Jointed Dolls over on Instagram. The lines didn't turn out perfectly, but they were good enough that I felt comfortable printing them out and re-inking them traditionally as I did for Fairy Enchanting, the artwork featured on my Commission Sheet. In that process, I would end up with a 1/2 of the drawing that didn't print correctly, the proper print out I used to do the inking, and also similarly to Fairy Enchanting, a first attempt at tracing my lines that was not turning out how I wanted that got scrapped. So, essentially, I had 1.5 test pages just for colors/color placement (as they were on regular printer paper), and 1 to see how this paper would actually handle my supplies. And while normally I'd be scolding myself for wasting paper and ink, in this case, it's actually a very good thing that happened. My second attempt at inking on this paper went a lot smoother (I think I just needed to loosen up the inking part of my brain), and I was actually pretty happy with how the lines turned out. So much so that once I discovered major problems with the paper, I actually scanned the inked version in to preserve it, just in case. And I even inked it a third time on to the Denik paper I mentioned earlier, extra-just in case so I could even do a side-by-side comparison of the two papers to show "this paper is crap, this other paper is not." (Fortunately, I don't think I'll be needing that third inking despite the tale I'm about to tell.) I started out by using the different test pages to make sure I had the right tones/colors I wanted for the skin. The swatches looked okay, so I went ahead and tried coloring the skin to test some blush and shading. Right away I noticed that 1. The ink feathers/bleeds across the page (outside of lines) way more than it should for a paper this thick, and 2. once the ink settles into the paper, it's kind of patchy/spotty. And 3. If you trying layering a light color over a darker color with alcohol markers, it makes the patchy/spotty-ness more apparent. Obviously, these things combined make layering and blending tricky without the end result looking strange and uncomfortable. Just in case there was something this paper didn't like about the Ohuhu markers, in particular (and also because I wasn't super happy with my color choices for Ohuhu for this particular hair color), I did try a test blend for the hair with some Copic markers. Nope, still feathering badly and doing the weird spotty thing. Still not layering very well without re-working the entire area. Briefly, I panicked. The whole idea for this paper was to be for markers, and I had largely intended for this illustration to be pretty markers-only. But this paper, quite apparently, hates markers. Okay, okay. I tried one more blending/coloring test, this time just seeing if I could do the skin and get it to look decent on this paper inside my lines, and while not super ideal, I did manage to get something I was mostly happy with. Likewise, my next step was to do that again on the final piece. At least then I'd have the most important part--the skin--for this piece done and then I could proceed with whatever seemed like the best option for the rest of it. So the skin actually turned out okay in the end because I was being exceptionally careful to work with the issues I'd already discovered. By nature, it's not the best (as in it would look better on better paper), but it works. I still had at least a small problem on my hands though. To be fair, even before I printed the lines off I was thinking I might try washi tape for her clothes/shawl/whatever, so the paper not liking markers really just re-enforced that idea. The problem was I still had the hair to do. I tried a couple more blending/coloring tests, trying desperately to make the markers work for that, but it just wasn't happening. The way I blend hair just requires too many layers for this paper. So my next solution was to try some tests with colored pencils. For smooth, flat color, this paper is actually pretty nice for colored pencils. For layering and blending, however, (just as I suspected before I even tried it) it's too smooth. Blending works pretty okay if you're just doing 1-2 layers, but anything beyond that is just slippery and unsatisfying, to say the least. That was my two main mediums thrown out the window. Now what do I do? Because I was largely at my wit's end, I got a little crazy and tried some tests using some Faber Castell gelatos to see what they would do. And I have to say, putting the gelatos to this paper does feel exceptionally good, as the smoothness of the paper suits the creamy texture of the gelatos. Although the gelatos don't blend out super well when you add water to them on this paper, so that limits what you can do with them by a fair amount. Not really knowing what else to do, I broke out some actual watercolors and tried those. Fortunately, while the paper does warp fairly easily (that's to be expected with any paper less than 140 lb.), the paint lays down and blends fairly smoothly and nicely. And so I finally had something to work with. There's a reason when I work with watercolors I usually don't go for a hard illustration like this, but I think I managed fairly well to get the paint to do what I wanted. I knew going in it wouldn't have the same look or dimension as my markers or pencils, so I made my peace with that ahead of time. The main thing I wanted was at least the suggestion of shading and relatively smooth coverage. There are some small areas where the paint just did what it wanted anyway, but it's little enough I don't think it ruins the whole thing. I'm sure I could've worked with the hair more to get arguably better results, but by this point, I was so relieved the paint was working that I decided not to push my luck. (I did end up having to digitally tweak it because it shows up as a little more blue on the scan than it actual is, but that's not really the paper's fault.) Since I wasn't sure what exactly I wanted to do with the face/makeup at this point, I moved on to dealing with the washi tape. Fortunately, this ended up working out fairly easily. I actually put the tape down on my inking-gone-wrong (as the areas where I needed to cut it turned out well enough it would work for this) and used an Exacto knife to carefully cut the top of tape away to make the neckline and keep the tape from covering up the little bit of hair that reaches down that far, the hair being the tricker part to cut. Even so, I had a less challenging time than I thought and I only minimally dented/cut into the very top layer of the paper underneath. (Which was why I wanted to cut the tape on not-the-final-piece in the first place; I knew indentions were going to be made from the knife no matter what I did, but it's hard to predict how bad it'll be until it's usually too late.) Once that was done, I could simply peel the pre-cut tape off of my test page and re-apply it to the final one. Naturally, the cut wasn't 100% accurate, but it was close enough that the little bit that wasn't quite right was easily disguised but going back over my lines again and filling any gaps. I went back to the face once that was taken care of, and I ended up relying on the heavy feathering this paper does to get Windith's eyes right. Originally when I drew her, I tried to give her "oil slick" eyes. As in, her eyes are black but have a rainbow sheen to them, like how if you ever see oil in a parking lot, it's black but has that really pretty rainbow shine to it. I never had to consider before how this might translate into a traditional drawing though since that drawing was done digitally and at a time where I thought digital art was going to be my primary medium going forward.  (My oh my, how the tables have turned indeed...) After a couple of failed tests (failed due to personal preference and actually not the paper this time) I ended up going with a dark selection of alcohol markers in very teeny tiny dots to make a pseudo-rainbow. It's not a perfect translation of what her eyes are supposed to look like, but it's close enough to suit me. Then came the makeup. Originally, I was going to just make her lips a more natural color and largely call it done, but I didn't want them to blend in too much with her skin and even when I tried a less natural berry color I just couldn't get the blending right in such a small space on this paper. And I was also thinking it would be nice to give her eye shadow and bring the colors from her shawl-thing up into the face area a little bit. But I'd already discovered colored pencils weren't the way to go and I had a feeling I wasn't going to like how this paper handled pastels either, so I just skipped testing that altogether. After some thought, since I originally thought of Windith as a circus performer, I deiced to do some testing with gel pens (which I figured would handle just fine on this paper, given the nature of gel pens in general) and this simple kind of clown makeup. (I'm sure there's a more proper name for it out there somewhere but I haven't the foggiest idea what that said name is.) I ended up really liking that, especially with how the bright colors pop against her dark skin tone, and in that, I thought a bright color would work well for her lips, too. I tested my orange gel pen, but it was a little too bright and just a little too imprecise for my taste, so I opted for a little fluorescent orange watercolor instead. I know the makeup probably looks kind of silly to most, but I really like it and how it ties the colors together better. And besides, I think it says a lot of about Windith's character that she can wear makeup like that but still looks as confident and determined as she does here.   But I wasn't done quite yet. I wanted to do something to fill the empty space in the background, but as I mentioned earlier I really was not keen on finding out how this paper would handle pastels after the struggles I'd already been through. And also I didn't really think any of my pastel colors would work all that well with the other colors going on here. It's not too much, but I ended up defaulting to some of my dollar-store stencils to add some florals and a little butterfly back there. I figured that would tie in nicely with the floral washi tape, add a bit of color, yet not totally overpower everything. I also ended up with some artsy white dots because I somehow got some random ink dots/smudges around a few edges and once I covered those up I added some more dots so it would look like an intentional part of the look. Unfortunately, said white dots did not show up on the scan.   The final piece is definitely far from perfect and this paper is not good for a lot of things I was hoping it would be (I can report it seems to work pretty good for regular sketching, though, so it won't go to waste!). However, I still managed to get something pretty decent out of the equation, I think. Small victories? I may not be looking forward to making more finished pieces with this paper, but I am looking forward to playing with the Ohuhu Skin tone markers more, that's for sure. I've got a few sketches that I'm thinking about turned into a mini-series illustrating a few different skin tones with them, but I haven't decided 100% on that just yet. I do have a couple of other projects definitely coming down the pipeline though, so stayed tuned. P.S. The title is a reference to The Greatest Show, the opening them from "The Greatest Showman," the same song that largely inspired the first time I drew Windith. It's just kinda her thing now.   ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram