Perry's Obnoxious Week
Progression of Time
DXB202 Image Production
For each single day of this terrible week of his. Perry the anthropomorphic lop rabbit takes a selfie of himself after every session of high school; documenting the days after which his friends found out too much about himself for all of their own good.
All art is planned on being produced with Procreate on an iPad Pro, using a pencil sketch approach. Although other methods may be used if stated in the caption.
MONDAY
Perry just so happened to provoke one, unwanted argument with one of his school friends for reasons he couldn't quite understand. But he's still somewhat confident they'll all get over it soon. He makes a slightly uncomfortable smile.
I used a slightly modified, 6B pencil brush for the line and white highlights. Whereas the shading was done using a combination of the pencil brush and its shading feature, which can be used by drawing using the sides of the Apple Pencil's tip. Kind of like using the larger side of your pencil tip.
As a new user, I was quite disappointed with how the smudging feature worked in Procreate, since how it functions is quite sensitive and dependent on your opacity setting, which felt very odd compared to what I was used to in digital art. Too high and it could distort your lines, shapes and forms; too low and it's too weak to blur the area you want to be smoothened out (e.g. shading). I found that setting the smudge brush to 75% opacity achieved the closest desirable effect.
The linework's a bit rough, unclean and inconsistent. Especially around the eyes, and I'm not too sure about fixing them up because of how much time can be spent doing that. I also feel that the drawing could be slightly improved by erasing the unfinished lines on the bottom, where Perry's shoulders end, as to give it more sense of depth.
TUESDAY
A pretty slow day, social-wise for Perry. Seemingly nothing went wrong with his friends this time, but then again he didn't really interact with them much either. He makes a bit of a small and somewhat tentative smile; slightly more confident than how he was yesterday, though.
Made in Procreate like before. However, there is some unerased residual left over from the rough guidelines I used to model his head. There may also be some noticeable inconsistencies with his appearance/anatomy, due to how I'm still figuring out his design and not to mention I wanted each 'selfie' to have a slightly different perspective and pose (e.g. less tense shoulders, face protruding slightly closer to camera). Maintaining the general pose and angle I feel is necessary in order to stay consistent with the theme of 'progression over time.' I also used a more of a variable, opacity 'layered' brush for the whites of his eyes, for a potential, subtle traditional look.
I think I also made the left side of his face and his chin slightly more angular than how I wanted it to be. He's supposed to be 15 years old and I associate angular, less chubby faces with maturity.
Another notable improvement for the images could be to implement a kind of 'paper texture' overlay on them to make them appear more traditional. I may need to do a bit of Googling for that and possibly need to use a program, besides Procreate as well.
WEDNESDAY
One of Perry's friends still can't forgive him for what happened on Monday and possibly even what happened last weekend, when they found out about his embarrassing little secrets. He is still trying to be optimistic about things, but there's only so much caution he could exercise. The small smile he made on Tuesday has dropped, although not entirely and his lips are generally wider. His eyes and expression are a bit sad and slightly weary and his head is slightly leaning downwards, with his shoulders tense.
In this image I decided to add more detail and strength to the lighting, with Perry's left side shrouded in shade, which makes the highlights/rimlights pop out quite a bit more. It's also generally more dramatic, too. I also decided to add sheens, which I was previously somewhat reluctant to, due to how the smudging mechanics in Procreate work. A subtle, paper texture has been added to the image for a more, traditional and organic feel. However it may be too subtle and could be made more noticeable by zooming it in further (and or increasing its contrast) since it is derived from a Photoshop fill pattern tiled onto a blank, 8k resolution canvas.
I found that using larger brushes for smudging tended to achieve an effect closer to that of what I'm seeking. Getting the nose right was a bit tricky, since I was relatively unfamiliar with the angle and didn't really use any proper references. So far, the drawings have been done mostly without references, besides my own previous sketches of the character and pictures of Judy Hopps and lop rabbits on Google.
Also, I just realised that I probably made the base of his neck a bit too wide this time. I meant to give him a bit of a lean build.
THURSDAY
It finally happened, Perry just incidentally upset his friends again, two times in a row and they all snapped. He's now afraid that they're now going to beat him up.
I decided to make a good portion of Perry, particularly his right-side back shrouded in shade again for more dramatic effect. Also added a few more sheens, in general, this time, if I recall correctly.
FRIDAY
Both Perry and his former friends were given restraining orders, in which they are never to make direct contact with one another again. Perry has been kicked out of his school and forced to settle into a different one. Perry may have very well destroyed his social life.
I decided to have all the shading done in the same layer as the linework for a hopefully, faster workflow. It was quicker at first, but in the long term, it may have made things just as long, if not slightly longer. This allows for a more painterly look to the drawing, albeit more difficult to keep consistent.
I also used references of people wiping a tear from their eye, and a reference photo of myself making a similar gesture.
I decided that I wanted to make Perry's muzzle (mouth/nose area) more 3D and have it be defined by the shading. However, with the way it's implemented, it looks like he's older and has a stubble. I also drew pretty much his entire upper body as visible in the canvas, to fit with the fact that he's got his hand on his face.
