WIP - First Betta Digital Drawing

[kathstew]

Soooo. After seeing all you guy'ses (LOL) beautiful betta art I decided to reload my tablet onto my laptop (it was deleted when my hard drive crashed). I'm quite rusty, and forget how to use so many of the tools. Anyway, its a digi of my sister's betta Smiley, the red crowntail.
Here is my reference pic:


My rough rough ROUGH outline:


WIP1:


I'm not really liking the anal fin right now, I might redo it and curl it more. It doesn't really match my reference. :/

I don't know if I'm going to color it in or not, I'm pretty OK at drawing (I think anyway, LOL) but as soon as I color it it looks horrible.
I'll do little updates as I go along.

I set the outline behind my drawing, and set it on a very low transparency, so its barely there, so I have the basic shape of the fish, but its not completely in the way.

[RayneForhest]

I think you're off to a fabulous start!!! :)

[SillyCone]

since you are using a tablet, I hope this video help you, I recorded some time ago, when my tablet was still sane.. lol!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuBrF457HKU

[RayneForhest]

I have a wacom intuos4 wireless (medium) graphics tablet...
I looked at it ONCE! I'm so intimidated by it... I put it back in the box and havent opened it since.
I keep telling myself, I'll learn to use it AFTER I learn my camera... but its taking quite a while to learn it.

[kathstew]

Thanks guys!
Thanks Sillycone! I tried that once with a picture of my dog, it was OK. :$ LOL. I decided to restart, and try it your way. And it looks ALOT better. ^_^ I'll post an update in a bit.

RayneForhest - I have a bambook fun XD Its very easy to use. I forgot how much I liked it. And I think taking a break from using it so much has helped my skills a bit. :P

[kathstew]

OK. Here is my update:


Let me know what you think!
The body color I have on right now is just the "base" coat, I will be adding more depth and color once the base is done!

[RayneForhest]

You're progressing nicely!

[kathstew]

Thanks. I'm really happy with how its turning out so far. Especially considering its my second attempt (I got rid of the first one :P)

[SillyCone]

woot! You should be ashamed of yourself saying that you are getting better...


You are getting ALOT better!!! :D! Glad that helped you xD! I love the face and how you worked on the fins' curves :D Although the colour only makes me remember that pokemon.. ugggh :C

Buuut, that's great, keep it up and on the 10th attempt to draw a betta you will look at your first and say "I can't believe I used to draw that" I mean seriously, xD!

That's a huuuge improve from you, you should be proud! =D

Send us any progress on it! idk about others but I'm dying to see the final picture! :D

[kathstew]

Well, I think I'm done! In all, I think it turned out pretty good, but I need to work on my scales, and matching the body colors closer to the original. Here it is: