For anybody starting to do something creative like drawing or painting or even growing weed you need to understand this.
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But Mom said I was special… 
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And you are buddy. 
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I have been getting a creative itch lately and the daughter must have picked up on it. She wants to buy a new guitar case, this is her old one Which was painted with a tattoo style Japanese Geisha scene, a couple of years ago, still not quite finished I wanted to do more detail of the face and hair and paint a dragon behind her.
Now she wants to take this lid off the case and paint something to hang on her wall at the place in Kelowna she will now be living at. She said do what you want but not too dark, skulls, demons, that sort of thing or weed pics lol.
I have been looking at a pic I wanted to paint for a while now and the lid of the guitar case is perfect for it. Here’s the reference.
The lid is too big to print off a pic to use as a stencil so I have drawn it out in pencil this time, 80 minutes with shaky hands lol instead of 30 seconds on the printer.
I have 19 days before she leaves, this will be tight, but we have to ship some stuff out to her later so if its no where near what I consider done, it may have to go out later.
I painted out the old artwork painting the top white, Then sketched out the dragon fly, had to use a bit of artistic licence on its tail, making it longer and bent to fill that area better I may stick a butterfly down the empty end if I get time.
closer up.
Now its drawn out, time to erase it. The paint goes on so fine its hard to cover pencil marks. So erasing it a little, and after the background goes on, I should just be able to see my outlines, and be able to cover them without difficulty, he says hopefully.
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Man painting over that mural would kill me haha. That looks like quite a challenging image you’ve picked to replace it!
@rob0781 your daughters stuff is really nice, she’s already better at 10 than I’ll ever be lol. My artistic skills are more like yours. If you want a good laugh some time try drawing a bicycle from memory.
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Yeah I like to challenge myself, and as no one is paying money for it, I can experiment and not worry so much, if its not quite right lol. I like the the soft and hard edges of the focus and colors of the dragon fly. Getting the water drops right, are what will either make it look great or crap lol but worth a try.
Yeah I am getting better at letting go, I have photos so its not like its disappearing forever. That was about 20 hours work.
Not so bad as this one, which nearly made me cry lol, 43 hours into this one.
Only to paint over it 2 years later with this pic.
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They’re both nice but that veterans one is amazing. It has a very ethereal look to it. Is that the fairing from your motorcycle? Is that even what that part is called lol
I think the wings of that bug should be quite a challenge too! Like how the hell do you ‘paint’ clear?
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It’s called a batwing fairing. It was for a customer, I have painted 7 pieces for him now.
Painting clear is all shadow highlights and lines, the brain fills in all the gaps to make it realistic. I will use a very reduced transparent white and grey, just enough to blur whatever’s underneath it.
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OK got my back ground in yesterday as well as roughed in the black.
I am going to start filling in the flowers next.
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Wow just wow Brother
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Cheers Stiggy
A bit more done.
Went all over the background with a grey green to darken it up as the water droplets will be hard to shadow on the inside of them this way I only need a highlight and a base shadow on the bottom of them. Roughed in my sharp focus flowers and water droplets.As well as bits of the eye.
Added the out of focus flowers, just need to come back on them with a fine detail paint brush to create some hard edges on the detail areas.Knocked back the white water droplets with some purple and will go back over them to create more depth, as well as add them to the flower edges.
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Bit more done this week.
Got my background flowers roughed in. Started some base colours on the dragonfly.
More base colour on the Dragonfly
Started adding more details now, getting more depth, starting to enjoy it now. The flowers underneath it, look crap, going to have to work more on those once I am happy with the dragonfly.
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I can hear that sucker buzzing
Looks Great
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Are you doing any wings
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Yeah they will be the last thing painted, as they are transparent.
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OK makes sense, will they be collapsed or part way open
Love the D Flies, we have them near our Koi pond
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They will be open, trying to keep it as close to the reference picture as possible.
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Got ya, had to go back to see. Will Look Very Cool
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More done
Filling in more body details, pretty much there for the head and body, re defined the leg hairs and added highlights which can just be seen, tightened up the mouth and nose detail.
Roughed in the wings
Close up
Added some colour to the the wings, the bottom right wing is not gelling well, its mostly a blur in the photo but doesn’t transfer well with my skills, so I will apply some artistic license to it. Added some dark grey green ove the plant stems to fade them out more, may have to hit them again, added more details and colour to the flower stems underneath the dragonfly. Just have to do the wing attachment areas and water droplets next.
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Dammn @Shadey! Brother is bringing all kinds of skills to the table, dropping them like a hot mike and just kinda shrugging like “what, that impress you guys or something? Huh…”
This is amazing man, I have all kinds of crazy skills in my bag of tricks, but drawing and painting like this is something I have never been able to do. Paint your house? Sure, no problem. This madness?!?!? My lord man it’s truly jaw dropping to say the least!!!
Full confession though? I have absolutely no idea what’s going on with your grow at the moment!! Everytime I try to catch up on that thread I get sucked in here and I just got done. Ok, guess I’d better go scope yer garden out a little. 
Seriously though, crazy respect buddy!
It’s all beautiful!
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