HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Hi guys, so I was meant to post this on April 16th - my birthday, but a lot of unforeseen circumstances just kept rolling in. To mention a few, my Cellphone developed a faulty charging port and a bad battery. So it was pretty had to charge and then when it does, my phone doesn't last up to an hour before it goes off. So I just had to break down my write up, save drafts of wherever I stop before it goes off until I finally completed it today.

I'd like to wish myself a Happy Birthday once again. A lot has really happened in the past year, and I'm so glad to be celebrating another April 16th. Before going into this Digital Artwork I created as a gift to myself, which I intend to get it printed out and Framed, I'd gladly love to share with you how my day went.

I really did have a great day with lots of messages, and calls from loved ones and well-wishers. I felt so much love. I was at home until around few minutes past 1pm, when two of my friends pulled up to take me out for some relaxation. We also got a large-sized Pizza and Coldstone icecream when we got hungry. It was really a beautiful day, and one which I won't forget cos of how much love I was shown that day. I'm so so lucky and grateful to have amazing people in my life. It's really a huge blessing.

So. to give you a breakdown of my process with the work and sharing how my day went, I'd share the finished work first.

check out my Line Art below

I usually make use of a pen pressure sensitive brush, so it gives that smooth curve and thickness whenever I want it. Helps me to better highlight some parts of the body.

After the Line Art, next was to apply my base colour. This took me a lot of time to come up with, as I was so indecisive and selective of the specific colour to actually match my skin. At the end, I got it.

I moved to picking about two shades darker than my base colour so I can begin bringing out the shadows, skinfolds, and various areas of the body less exposure to light.

After that step, I add more darker shades to depict areas lesser exposed to light - this also helps to give the face structure

in the next step, I went with more darker shades of the colour. Definitely took a lot more time to figure out where it should be placed so it could accurately wrap around the skin. I also coloured the eyes and hair, moving more steps in making it realistic.

Picking the lighter shades of my base colour, I add lighting to the face for more exposed parts to light.

Last steps was to add a gradient background layer and my artist signature.

I hope you had a good read!😄