Ask the Artist: amindaya

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Ask the Artist: amindaya
Interviewer:
Interviewee:	amindaya (Amie)
Date(s):	September 27, 2011
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	Fan Art, Supernatural
External Links:	interview is here, Archived version
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amindaya (Amie) was interviewed in 2011 for Supernatural Roundtable.

Some Excerpts

I’m not one of those people who draw to express their emotions, or can usually draw from imagination. I need references for almost everything. I like drawing things for other people. I use to do more traditional work, but then I bought a tablet two years ago and that’s mostly what I use. I use a Wacom Intuos 4 and Photoshop Elements 7. I love the undo button! :D

I love skin. If you check out that tutorial, it will explain it a lot better than I can, but the way I go about it is just use lots of varied colors. Purple near the eyes, green for the forehead, blue for the jaw (purple sometimes, if there is stubble, and obviously I wouldn’t do this if I were drawing a female) and brownish-red to purple for shadows. And then I go over that with a more neutral color so that I don’t have a purple and green face. Then I use either a really pale blue or a pale orange for highlights, depending on the skin color. For tan skin like Jared’s I usually use orange, for Jensen’s usually blue. Then I go over all of that very lightly on the edges with a super super bright pink or red or orange. Very lightly, though! Just to get a bit of color in the cheeks or make it look more glowing. For Jensen’s freckles, I use a light pink-brown.

Hair. First, I color it all one dark color, then go in and add highlights that get progressively lighter. I firmly believe that Jensen is a brunette, yet many of the strands are yellow or white. I also make sure his brown has a red tint to it. Jared starts out with a black base, and I use dark brown, and the lightest highlights for him are a pale pink.

HANDS! I love hands. Hands are the best things. But the hardest. The thing about hands is you have to commit to them. Give them the same level of detail as the face, otherwise they just get all lonely. There are a multitude of colors in the hands, but the main ones I use are pale blue, a purple, and a bright pink. I draw the lines of the knuckles in light brown, and then go over with a highlight blue to give them some depth, then I dust the knuckles and the edge of the palm (if it’s visible) with pink. And the tips of the fingers! Sometimes I go a little overboard with this. For hands, the shadows between the fingers will be darker than those of the face, but it’s important to draw color from the face and then use a darker purple for the shadows, otherwise, the skin tones won’t match. The most important thing to remember: fingers have joints! They have wrinkles. They have veins on the back of the hands. That level of detail deserves as much attention as the face.

Shirts and other clothes. I also use different colors in the shirt, because sometimes cloth reflects other colors. Just using the same color shadows makes it look very flat. I really hate drawing the folds of cloth, especially at the elbow. Then sometimes you’ll want to pull the color from the shirt and add that into the neck or as a slight shadow on the side of the arm, because sometimes, especially if you’re wearing a red shirt, you’ll notice that the color is reflected onto the skin. I love suits and dress shirts, because then I can make the cloth a bit shimmery. But pinstripes are tedious to draw. For jeans texture, I color it all a dark blue and then go over that with the “rolled rag” textured brush, on a lower opacity and a lighter color.

And last, I add in the background. If there is a background. I dislike drawing backgrounds.