second assignment from illustration masterclass

Here is the final sketch for my next illustration. The assignment was about a young girl who was sold into slavery as a child and is a trained assassin on a planet that mixes middle eastern feeling buildings with space influences. She is supposed to be wary, smart and skilled in the martial arts. She has to have long wavy black hair and a slender build. She is supposed to have facial scars where she cut herself to hide her own beauty. I dont' know if I will paint that in, if it turns out o.k, I will want this to go in a general portfolio and I don't think I want to get labelled as a combat artist. That's a whole different genre.

I tried a method we learned in a lecture called 'frankensteining'. Its when you take a few hundred model reference photos (yes, I used Genevieve) and take pieces from one photo and put them together with pieces from another. It gets really tricky combining pieces of humans together. I'm not skilled enough in photoshop to do it YET, but I am determined to master that tool this year. This blasted sketch took me a week to do because of all the trickiness involved with the frankensteining. I would get it looking fine, then a family member would come critique it and say "oh, her head is 'way too large" or "her left eye is all wonky" or " what's wrong with her hand?" arg. I think its as good as its going to get right now, so on with the paint.

I will post my first finished assignment from the class this week. I have to color correct some small details and get it high resolution scanned for the magazine contest, then it will be ready to post.