I had a few goals this month for learning to draw. I wanted to practice figures in movement, and I wanted to get more comfortably free with my shading and highlights — sort of deliberately messy? There’s probably an art term for it. I don’t know. I just know that my shading and highlighting lines always felt too uptight, and I wanted to loosen that up.
So of course, being me, that translated into doing my favorite MXTX couples as their thematically-appropriate dance styles.
I started with the following reference photos: Rumba for Hua Cheng and Xie Lian, Waltz for Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, Tango for Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu, and Paso Doble for Mobei-Jun and Shang Qinghua.
I went through the whole process of doing frames, rounded boxes, rough sketches, and final-ish lineart (you’ll notice some tweaks between the final-ish lineart and the final product, especially because I could NOT get Shen Qingqiu’s face right. Ugh).
After I had the lineart, I laid down the flat colors and made some lineart adjustments. I also added a lot more clothing decor than I’ve done before.
And then, finally, shading where I tried to be a lot looser and more impressionistic with my shading — and NOT to just blend everything into non-existence. I still need to get more confident with extreme contrasts.
So… yeah. That’s where I’m at.
Alyc Helms 