So, this is a revisit of my first Sakura piece done almost a year ago now. I really wasn’t satisfied with how it turned out as time went on, and I decided to redo it completely. Still used the same photo reference from Pepstock as my base.
Anyways, the hair is much better this time around and looks more like Sakura’s. I’m still not completely satisfied, but my technique is getting better. I had to redo it several times actually, until I went with the version that I have here now. I kept falling into the habit of trying to draw every strand each time. What I’ve ended up with here is putting in blocks of color for the lights/darks and then just adding some strands over top. It’s working for now, but I think I’ll need to refine the method.
Looking between this and the original version – I can’t believe how blotchy my shading was. How’d I let myself get away with that? Still, if there was no improvement, nothing would ever change. Plus I feel my use of colors is getting better as well. I’m not relying on darker versions of the base color for all my shading.