Sweeter Than Wine

[iagman]

Original line drawing done in TurboCad. That graphic
was then manually traced and edited in Xara.

[wizard509]

Looks good iagman

[Rik]

I wonder what she's thinking about?!
Great artwork.

[Boy]

She reminds me a bit of a younger Dolly Parton. I like your style, sweet indeed.

[iagman]

Thanks for the comments.
For anyone interested, this BW drawing is how I began many illustrations.
It was drawn using TurboCad. The reason for choosing CAD is the speed and
accuracy of line placements. Instead of snapping to only guide lines or objects,
one can snap to a myriad of locations such as middle of lines, end of lines, center
of circles/elapses, line intersections, and on it goes. You can cut, snip, stretch,
bend, and modify lines and shapes to your heart's content.
If you look closely at the above graphic, you will see a light blue grid with darker
blue lines every 10 squares. This duplicates the graph paper I once used. If drawing
to scale, each small square = 1-inch. If this were to be reproduces as a painting,
the canvas would measure 40”x 44”.

Don't be concerned about CAD prices; download the free version of
DoubleCAD XT. It is made by IMSI, the makers of TurboCAD and is very
similar to my version minus a few tools you likely won't miss.

[Ric_NYC]

Very nice!

Art Nouveau-esque(?)

[Tabian]

It looks to me quite an easy project to create in Xara alone. My first thought was that it would make a great leaded glass for a door way or window, perhaps in a nail bar or beauty salon.
Nice looking job iagman, she is sweet...

[gray]

Super illustration, iagman.

[Tabian]

Just a question, is that Dolly Parton ?

[iagman]

Whenever I want to model people, I usually turn to three programs,
DAZ Studio, FaceGen, and Hand Studio. You can't beat the modeling fee and
they are always patient and uncomplaining.
The above graphics show two Xara illustrations using DAZ and FaceGen.
FaceGen models the head only. There are many parameters that can be set
to alter the face to nearly any shape you need, male and female, young or old,
thin or heavy. FaceGen gives you the basic facial pose but the rest you must
use your imagination to complete. For hair styles it is limited so I usually
pose the face using the default short hair.
DAZ is normally used for full body poses. The two poses above were for the
“Baptism of Jesus” illustration. It shows Christ and John the Baptist in poses
that were formed by moving DAZ's body parts into poses that seemed appropriate to me. This
can take a lot more time than FaceGen.
Once I get a suitable pose, I make a screenshot and paste it into TurboCad. In that program
all major lines are traced. They likely need to be edited also. Alterations include things such as
tilting the head for a more satisfactory look, adjusting eyes until they give the proper mood,
tinkering with the mouth, adding hair and clothing, and sketching in foregrounds, backgrounds,
and borders.
When the line drawing is finished, it is taken into Xara for coloring and shading. This
step, by its very creative nature, will change the original vision I had for the project. I
try to go with the flow and not be locked into any previous ideas. Sometimes unexpected
mistakes are my best work. Eyes often change color and hair, my nemesis, has evolved into
strands that vary in size depending on the subject. For men you can shade in whiskers, paint
a lady's lipstick any shade that suits you, and the same with clothing. Experimentation is key;
keep playing until the Eureka moment happens.
One last thought about DAZ; it will model hands also even down to the finger joints being
movable.
The last posing software I use is Hand Studio. This program has preset hand poses and does not
give the flexibility of DAZ. But, if you need a quick pose, it can save you lots of time.