More Thangka images

**Fred vanderZee** · 15 February 2011, 11:46 AM

I posted some of my thangka work some (or a lot of) months ago. In the mean time I've finished some work and started some new images.

If you want to see the drawing progress 'live', follow this link: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gi...15520785159041.
Under the Photo tab there are some samples.

You might want to visit my website as well to find out what all this Thangka stuff is: http://www.digitalthangka.com/

**gwpriester** · 15 February 2011, 12:41 PM

Very enchanting. You created these using Designer Pro?

**Fred vanderZee** · 15 February 2011, 12:52 PM

Yes, I did. All done 'from scratch', starting with a grid. I do have a drawing teacher, who hits me in the head when I make a mistake

More on the process and the traditional drawing process (like grids, dimensions and colouring) and the Buddhist background of this images can be found on my website.

**gwpriester** · 15 February 2011, 01:05 PM

Yes, but lest we think that your sole purpose for posting here is to drive traffic to your website

, and since you use Xara Designer Pro 6, why not share some of your techniques on this website?

That is the reason it is here. To ask, to show, and to learn.

**Fred vanderZee** · 15 February 2011, 01:22 PM

Ah ok. Well, most of my drawing techniques are quite straight forward. Just drawing lines and building up colours with shading, transparancy, feathering and such.
It's just a lot of detail (and time of course)

Is there something specific you want to know? Apart form the Buddhist background stuff?

I am really not trying to drive traffic to my site. Just wanted to show some of the more unusual stuff that is done with Xara...

**gwpriester** · 15 February 2011, 06:07 PM

Agreed. But if you want to show some of your more unusual stuff, then why not show it here?

But I would be most curious to see how you work with grids.

**edm3** · 15 February 2011, 06:13 PM

Yeah, that's some impressive stuff. I too would be interested in understanding how you use grids in preparing such images.
Thanks for sharing, by the way!

**Fred vanderZee** · 16 February 2011, 08:43 AM

That's all on my website and facebook group

hence the links. Guess I have to grant you both your wish.

I have added pictures form the drawing process of White Tara, a Buddhist bodhisattva (never mind the terms - google is your friend

) This is the full colour picture of which the gold-on-red version is an offspring from.

Picture 00 is the grid that is the basis of all thangka drawings. Every figure has its own grid, that defines its proportions. Mine are based on the tibetan unit 'sor'. I defined that as 0.5 cm. The grid is based on multiple units (like '4 units high', '20 units wide' or '1/3 of a unit'. You also can see lines drawn from crossing lines on the grid.
The face has its own grid, defining the place and size of the eys, nose, mouth, chin line etc.

Pictures 01 and 02 is the line drawing of the figure. Note that you always start with a line drawing the figure, clothing, aura's and lotus throne, landscape. Colouring back-traces that road: starting with the landscape and ending with the eyes of the figure.

In the pictures 03 to 05 clothing, jewelry, garments and aura´s are added; in the pictures 06 and 07 additional landscape elements. I roughly sketched the crane (see detail) by hand - on my tablet of course

; I then placed it at the right position, enlarged it a bit and then drew it correctly.

Picture 09 is a first colour impression. You can also see Amitabha at the top - a picture I did earlier. If I want to impress people I show them the detail in that one - 25,000 zoom factor FTW

Picture 10 shows a detail of the lake I am working on right now. As you can see the waves have evolved somewhat from an earlier version.

Work on this version is still in progress (still missing a lot of terrain detail and colouring of the Tara) as is the gold-on-red version: this still lacks clouds and details in the aura.