My longest illustration

Russian version

I drew this character for a year and a half. I had a 61 version of the image, in which I experimented with the color, volume and overall appeal of the picture. It would seem that it could be easier than drawing a woman with animal ears? But in this work I was faced with difficulties that sooooo tightened the whole process. These were questions with the color of her skin and with expression on the character's face.

At first I used a palette in which brown color played the main role, and dark red – very beautiful and warm – was a soft sub-ton. It was a very cool combination, which looked great in the program and on all sites for illustrators, where the display of pictures is adapted to absolutely any complexity of the palette. BUT.

It was a very bad color idea for Facebook and Instagram. Because social networks such as Facebook and Instagram are not originally designed for graphic images, they are created for communication  – texts and photos. And, accordingly, instead of transferring such a complex double color in good quality, they converted the picture into a horrible bloody mess.

I grabbed my heart, realized that it would be a long way and started to look for a right design.

I wanted to find a skin tone that would look good in all media, and would remain within the concept  –  a wild, beautiful, magical Werewolf Woman woven from the natural forces of Earth and Fire, embodying something massive and powerful, decorated with a flame in the heart.

The flame, from which I eventually pushed off, helped me to stay in the warm colors of her body. And to find out the color and the pallet that would correspond to all my wishes, because I discovered the richness of orange and yellow.

It was a long-long practice of the specifics of working with color in different social media. And, if the first difficulty arose from a technical issue, the second problem was at a much deeper level.

The face of the character – with all the emotions and microexpressions, with a message and all the feeling from it – all this lived his own, ever-changing life. It changed constantly and this created a real problem: as if you want to catch the air with your bare hands.

In the art community where my other work is located, one of the participants noted that he really likes how the character in the picture looks at him, because he sees in her eyes a REAL emotion and he likes the message that he reads from her face.

This gave me an understanding that the emotions that was on the face of the Werewolf Woman all this time, did not like me. I wanted to see in this image a force that would inspire the confidence in me, something powerful and enticing  – something that I want to see as often as possible.

Therefore, one day I completely redrawn her face. And, finally, i catched the wild wind – the expression that corresponded to my wishes and feelings of this heroine.

After all the difficulties and the work done I can say with certainty that this drawing has become very special one for me. After all, he played a huge role for the development of my style and became the basis for subsequent illustrations.

I hope I have a lot of experiments in the future that will make me smarter and more experienced.

I wish you a good day, strength and development in the sphere to which you are full of enthusiasm and love.

The author of the illustration and the text — Olga Rukina.

Olga Rukina illustration / Instagram / Facebook