seniormentors

Riemea
Mentoring for Digital Art - Drawing and Painting
Hey there, I'm Kathi! I've been a DA member for about 8 years now. I'm mainly a digital artist, but have been getting into traditional art, crafts and literature over the past few years, too. My strong suit is drawing/painting portraits, and I've experimented with many art styles over the years. You can draw from my experience with drawing/painting portraits and different painting techniques, but I'd also be happy to help you with using references. As for programmes, I mostly use Photoshop CC.
   




I can help with:
drawing/painting portraits
different painting techniques and styles
using references
I have the following software available:
Photoshop CCPhotoshop Elements 9
  


I prefer to commun

LA-Draws
Anthro / Illustration / Figure Drawing 
Short bio
Hello!  My dA name is LA, formerly known as RipfangDragon.  I currently live in NYC.  I graduated from college with a degree in Fine Arts (focus in printmaking, graphic design, and illustration) in 2012 and have been part of the dA community for about 15 years.  Art has always been a huge part of my life, but I've always found it hard to make a living off of it.  So instead of pursuing it full-time, I do illustrations on the side part-time and like giving back to passionate creators on their own artistic journeys.  My day job keeps me plenty busy, but I want to take the time to share creativity with you!  Some fun things to know about me is that I am almost six feet tall, my day job is managing the NYC I.T. department in a huge, global advertising agency, my only son is a cat named 

RavensQuill
Areas of Mentoring: Fiction-Supernatural Horror; Editing and Grammar including current AP journalism rules; Interview set up and questions; Adobe Photoshop for mobile and online; and FilmoraGo app and studio.
About Me
Welcome! 
I'm Alicia, also known as RavensQuill I'm from and currently located in Oregon, although my soul belongs to the wandering folk. Blame it on my Gypsy blood. I have been a part of DA for over 12 years now on this account. I started out writing chapter fiction and somewhat angsty poetry. Since then, I have branched out into other forms of media including photography, film and shorter works of fiction and non-fiction.
From 2015 to 2018, while in college, I was the editor-in-chief of our college media group and honed my skills in editing, photography, factual writing and Associated Press (AP) guidelines. I have interviewed a number of prominent community leaders, campus ad

Hi everyone! I did this tutorial for the group seniormentors Today I want to show you how I create hair. There are different types of it, can be short, long, with curls, without them, etc, etc. Some examples: On this tutorial I want to show you "my way" to create it step by step.I use a graphic tablet and the software used is Photoshop. PART 1: Straight Hair BASE COLOR A- Put the darkest color first, it will be the base of your hair, don’t worry if you do not do it perfectly, because practically it will almost not be seen. A B C- Create a layer mask on the new color layer and and erase very softly the edges, you will do it in the next layers as well to your taste. C D E F G - Do the same step than "C" as many times as you wish but each time you will need to reduce the brush until step “G”.  Look at the 4 images below and being an observer. G (FINAL RESULT) As you can see i added each color in a different layer and I reduce each timethe brush I used, I use a circular difuse 1, for the thin hair I use 2.  TIP You can chose a lighter color at the end of result and place fine hairs like “G”, also I chose the dark color and I put it some fine strands. You can paint in a new layer in overlay mode,add a clipping mask only on the hair layers I use halftones of the range of brown colors that I used before and I try with this colors: PLAYING WITH COLORS IS ALWAYS REALLY FUN!  PART 2: Wavy Hair As you can see i added each color in a different layer, (in case I make a mistake) and I reducemy brush everytime I use. I chose a soft rounded one and the thin hair a hard rounded one. A - BASE COLOR Put the darkest color first, it will be the base of your hair, don’t worry if you do notdo it perfectly, because practically it won’t be seen that much. A B - Remember, we start with the darkest color and continue with a lighter shade of the colors you chose at the beginning. B C - Added some fine hairs. C D - I have duplicate the fine hairs, one of this layer has a filter  guassian blur,preferable from the behind or as you wish. D E F G  - I have painted more fine hairs with lighter color with a hair brush with this shape:  E F G H - I have painted in a multiply mode, you can low the oppacity if you wish, you will see more depth on the hair that’s is your goal. H Useful brush, you can paint lot of fine hairs. J - Select all hair layers in a group and make a copy of it, you will have 2 groups like the image below. K - Unite both groups to your liking. K L - Create some fine hair with a lighter color L M - In overlay mode pick the color on the image and paint slowly and at this point youcan start to add more details like glitter, more fine hairs, change colors as you can see below: M IP If you want your hair with more depth, you can apply a guassian blur effect in some fine hairs or the base color as well. PLAYING WITH COLORS IS ALWAYS REALLY FUN!  PART 3: Conclusions, advices, common mistakes If you are constant and make practice you'll be able to make a really very beautiful and realistic hair, you just need to be a little patient and want to learn, that's all,  no need magic for it, don't forget. You can do whatever you want, change color, extend it, cut it, change its shape, etc, etc. Look at these examples: Common MistakesI'd like to show you some common mistakes I did in my own deviations. I confess It took me time learn how to do it correctly or at least in a better way. I repeat what I told you at the beginning, this is my way of creating hair, it does not mean that it is perfect. It is a matter of practicing, observing and intent, test and error. Look at these examples below. EXAMPLE 1 When I created this image I'd not graphic tablet, so, my only way was the hair brushes.With hair brushes also can make mistake, like me on this image.I should have changed the size and shape of some of the strands of hair. It shows where the real hair is and where the brushes are, because they are all the same,only the colors change, some areas should also have faded a little and surely with lessquantity of brushes it would have been perhaps more real.I particularly like this manip, I would like to redo her hair, what do you think?In the zoomed image her hair looks sloppy and the hair shadow is missing. EXAMPLE 2 Look at the roots of her hair, in the highlights, they should be fadedso they don't look so rude and sloppy. It looks really bad. At that time a friend,from deviantart here, had lent me her tablet to be able to paint, it was something new for me,I remember that when I made it I was very proud, but honestly, it was badly done. EXAMPLE 3 I think this is the worst of the tree examples, here i haven't a graphic tabletand I use brushes, just look at the image in zoon, it's really a mess.Here I just have no words haha. I should have used a brush that goes in the samedirection as the hair, I should have faded the edges. I can't believe I did that  The good thing about seeing what I did years ago is that I see how much I've progressedand that makes me happy because I can keep improving.I have never come across a tutorial that teaches me 100% how to create hair,it has been a long way of observing, testing and making mistakes. I am quite self-taughtand that has helped me a lot.  BONUS: HOW TO CREATE HAIR VIDEO I want to thank to my awesome friend DaJiF for putting her english voice on my video tutorial :iconaawplz:

https://youtu.be/4D3NVdq6ovI

I hope you find it useful this tutorial, if you have any doubts write me here on the comments or send me a note....

It's been awhile since I've written anything exclusively for ArtistsHospital! Well over a year in fact. As a followup to my "Common Misconceptions" series* (links at the bottom of this journal) I decided to begin a new series titled "Things To Know." These blogs will cover topics that are not commonly addressed in tutorials or articles existing here on dA. The goal is to help you out by answering questions you've had but couldn't find answers to. That being said, I decided to begin this series with a doozy of a topic: race. Yes, it's the hottest topic on the table right now according to the media, but this topic has always been a topic of contempt (in the United States, that is). There have been no "good ole days when everyone got along" sadly, and because of this there is enduring misunderstanding revolving around what even constitutes as racist imagery. 
Let's be perfectly frank: the history of representation and depiction of non-white characters in visual and per

Artist's Toolbox Week
Hello everyone,
today I'll be discussing the art of drawing horses and what tools can be quite useful for this task.
I think it's fair to say that those who do not regularly draw horses find them daunting to draw and often make remarks about horses being one of the most difficult subjects to draw.
For those of us who draw them often this is a silly notion, but there is no doubt that we also once struggled with different parts of horse anatomy.
In theory drawing horses is just like drawing anything else - find and define shapes, map out your sketch, refine etc. until you have a drawing you can be proud of.
The reality however is that horse anatomy tends to have strange angles and small quirks that you generally wont notice without looking more closely. Did you know that horse pupils are actually oval and not round?
Okay, so I think we all understand that drawing horses is not as easy as it appears they might be, so let's take some time and discuss different tools t

So I have been thinking of doing a few articles apart from feature articles to link some useful resources for artists and this is the first one of these. 
Creating a concept about a civilization, a person or even a fantasy environment requires some solid background knowledge and learning about past civilizations' art helps in that regards. "'Should I create abstract patterns on the arches and pillars? Would placing a crosses around a minar look out of place?" "No way I do what I want!!" Surely, a lot of us have gone through those decisive moments. 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) has several free fully illustrated books about several references. Below are some of MET's Civilization artbooks which are fully illustrated and full of information. But don't hesitate to research more through your own libraries and art galleries! Click the titles or the links in asterisk to go to the following sites or the links below the imag

Colour Scheme Tools
So I have been thinking of doing a few articles apart from feature articles to link some useful resources for artists and this is the first one of these. While this is a mini one, it's helped me a lot on several occassions.
Sometimes it gets confusing to decide which colours to choose. "'Should I go with a turquoise and a gold for the face? What about the room? I was going for a chic cool modern palette which is minimalistic!" Surely, a lot of us have gone through those decisive moments. Below are some colour scheme tools that would help you with your colour scheme choices. Click the titles or the links in asterisk to go to the following sites. 

COLOURlovers


A big resource community for colour palettes*, user named