[Taylor514ce]

In this particular case, I didn't work from a photo. It was a "high-contrast day", for sure. I sketched her in graphite, just quick shapes, shadows and lines. Then later at home, I used india ink pen over the sketch, erasing the pencil lines or covering them in ink. That's the point at which things become a bit "stylized", for lack of a better word.

Some of the drawings I've done from photos, and simply display them on-screen while I sketch. I do try to find or create photos with the proper lighting, side-lighting or angled from the front to "wash" the subject in a lot of light and create shadows.

These are subjective, in choosing how deeply to draw the negative space. Photos aren't binary, white and black. Lots of intermediate shades and colors. Which of those do I draw, or not? Sometimes I've "messed up" and so had to commit to an aggressive amount of black, and ended up with the pics that Zelda likes the best, all black with just a little white here and there.

In the case of boot-girl, I did "pose" her a bit, asking her to tuck her heel in, put a hand on her hat, etc.