SciFi & Fantasy Artwork by Arielle A. Keener *QueenMidnight*

Helloooo, just thought I would drop by your gallery as you did mine Your art is really cute, not too complex( I dont mean that in a bad way) but you always portray the scene well. I like the guardian angel one as it has meaning to me (wish I had wings). Keep up the good work and hope to see more soon. As the guy said about pencils, ok drawing pencils can be good, great even but a simple HB pencil can give the same results. It depends on the type of picture you want. For crisp, clean lines go for a mechanical pencil or for depth go for a nice dark pencil like a 6B. Its up to you how you want your drawings to look. Ok I will shut up now Have fun drawing!

Arielle A. Keener *QueenMidnight* replies: "Thanks =^-^="

Not too many pictures here. You are not one of those people that just posts like 5 pictures and then never posts again are you? huh?huh? Anyway... some shading would be good. I think that would be really cool and it's easy to do it in so many different ways.

Arielle A. Keener *QueenMidnight* replies: "Dont worry Im still working on many more."

Thanks for yer nice comment! your pics aren't too bad either

Arielle A. Keener *QueenMidnight* replies: "Thanks I try. =^-^="

YEAH!!! I've found a Mercedes Lackey lover!! Anyone I talk to doesn't know her, and now I've found you! Which book is your favorite? I can't wait for her next Valdemar novel. At the moment I'm re-reading the Mage Storms Triligy and I can't get enough of them. I have read ALL of Tamora Pierce's books (except the new 'Trickster's Queen') and I'm hoping to get all of Mercedes Lackey's books. I can't find ANY recent booklists on the Internet, do you know any?

Arielle A. Keener *QueenMidnight* replies: "I do know some Mercedes Lackey booklists but seeing as I don't know who you are I guess I cant give them to you."

Hi.........hi.....ok what I mean is: lot's of potenitial here you've probably drawn better pics by now. Cause it always takes so long in the madurator line. You shoud put more color up here (Which you probably already have). Cause color makes everything perdy.

Arielle A. Keener *QueenMidnight* replies: "Yea Im sure along with many other artists in Elfwood I am very busy, but I am trying my best to fix up my drawings. Thanks =^-^="

YAY! Another treehugger in Elfwood!! *high five* (=

Arielle A. Keener *QueenMidnight* replies: "Woot! Yay treehuggers!"

Hi!

You mentioned in a reply to a comment that you were trying to work on shading. As a fellow artist, will you allow me to make a suggestion? My advice to you is to work on your anatomy first, then worry about shading---because shading will come naturally when you work on drawing the human body. Muscles, elbows, collarbones, noses, knees, hands, feet, lips and eyebrows all require shading, and will probably teach you a lot more about shading than just varying shades of gray or color on a character's clothing.=)

My first suggestion is to not draw things straight out of your head UNTIL you have a firm grasp on anatomy. Instead, find a picture of a person; it can be a photograph of a friend, a model from a fashion magazine, or simply a picture from a clothing catalogue. Then work on copying that picture as well as you possibly can. Draw EXACTLY WHAT YOU SEE, not what you know is there! If you're drawing a woman in profile, you may know she has two eyes, but only draw the one you can see. Once you can do this, start creating your own work, paying careful attention to proportions. Did you know an adult human's head is about 1/8 of their entire hight? Thus, your characters ought to be eight "heads" high. You will be amazed at the difference this can make in your artwork, so definitely give it a try!

My second suggestion is that, if you prefer a manga or anime style over realism, do exactly the same thing I mentioned above with manga drawings as your models.

My third point is back on the subject of shading. Something that will also help you with your shading is picking a clear light source in your artwork and shading your characters accordingly. If the character is facing you, and a strong light is shining on left side of the character's face, then the right side will be in shadow, perhaps with a few highlights such as cheekbones or lips. From what I've seen of your shading thus far, it's very uniform, with everything more or less the same shade. Instead, I suggest you try assuming (just for practice purposes) that your character is in a dimly lit room. Suddenly, someone flips a switch and a bright light hits your character full in the face. That light snaps off, and another switches on, lighting the character from the front, but also a bit to the right, so some of the character's face is in shadow. That light turns off, and another light even further to the right switches, on, etc. Imagine this light rotating 360 degrees around the character, and try drawing the character's face with each light. You don't have to do 360 drawings, =D but do about 8-12 sketches. This is a very good exercise for anatomy as well.

Good luck! Hope to see more of your work soon!

-Marley

Arielle A. Keener *QueenMidnight* replies: "Thanks for the advice! I am taking it and will hopefully have a few more pictures up soon."

Do you like Twilight???? I LOVE TWILIGHT!!! some one needs to draw some fan art of her stuff... well... just saying if you haven't read twilight you HAVE TO! You prolly already know that it's by Stephenie Meyer. Nice art by the way keep it up! ;-P

Arielle A. Keener *QueenMidnight* replies: "Lol, I love Twilight! I cannot wait to read the second book in the series. I would love to draw pictures of the characters but I've been really busy. I haven't even found time to upload finished pictures and half done pictures that I've drawn in the past year."

Wow, you have kept yourself busy. How is school going for you? Love, Shirley (your Dad´s cousin)

Arielle A. Keener *QueenMidnight* replies: "I am good. School is going great but sophomore year is a lot harder than freshman year of college was. I didn't expect anything less though."

Cool pics.