Portrait for composer Shiori Usui

My dear friend, a composer Shiori Usui http://shioriusui.wordpress.com/asked me to do a portrait of herself for her website.I would like to show some of the artworks I did for this.

1.Sketches

I started off with few pencil sketches, involving movements and expressions of the musical instruments.This is something I always try to present, movement, but with a compositional way rather relying on strong, dynamic lines.

We agreed upon the sketch No.1.

2.Inking

The next step is inking.This is the most delicate stage and I always try to involve some organic elements.In this case it was pencil shades in the hair.Shading is a tricky technique as it could easily either become too dark and black or too light and delicate.It's hard to find the right balance.

3.Addition

Shiori uses so many different types of instruments.I was asked to involve some of these.But hardest thing was to draw them in recognizable ways with precision and simplicity.And the last visual addition was watercolor washes. It was another attempt to give the picture more of an organic feel.

4.Artwork

I don't talk about how I put all this together in Photoshop( that's too complicated). I particularly liked this small picture because it kind of showed me where I want to go with my illustration style.The watercolour wash is really nice thing to do and it fits in well with my drawing which emphasizes movement.

5.Spin-Offs

I did try another composition and these are the variation I produced for it. For the next picture I will do, these will remind me of the other approaches and treatments I could have gone for.The Important thing is to keep the experiments consistent.