Girl dancing

This was mostly some more experimenting with lights. I have had the idea to paint something like this in my head for several days now, but I thought it deserved more than my watercoloring skills. So for that reason, I used the tablet :)

(I know it seems like I use the tablet a lot, but I get the best results with it.)

I'm still really looking forward to using oils, though. I'm determined that tablet and oil are fairly similar, but I don't really know for sure. It seems like they would be.

I also took many screen shots to show it as a WIP so people can understand how these things come about. This is done with a few different colors, the smudge and blur tools, and the burn and dodge tools. Most of it is taken step by step after every different thing I did, though I didn't bother to show the creation of the background, mainly because I was just making lines and colors to fill blank space.

My only complaint is that I didn't really get the expression I wanted out of her... but she doesn't look bad, regardless. Also (not that it matters), she's sort of slow dancing and waving her arm back and forth hula style. NOT fast crazy dancing or anything. She was supposed to look peaceful, which is why the expression was important!

click to see it as a WIP

(it is originally a larger image, but everywhere resizes if it's too big... I am currently searching for someplace to host the original size.)

Something is off with that raised arm and the missing shoulder... but it's done, I'm not going to mess with it!!!