This month I participated in the art challenge "Summer Sweethearts"! This challenge was NOT created by me, I only participated in it! If you would like to see the accounts hosting this challenge, click on any of the images below and scroll to the last image in the post - they are all listed there! Anyways, this challenge was to create 11 (though I made 12..) characters based on prompts of summertime snacks! I am happy to say I finished this challenge!! In this post I will be discussing my thoughts on each individual piece, my process for making them, and a future project I hope to explore with them! (All of these drawings were made in Procreate on the Apple iPad 10 + Apple Pencil. If you would like to learn about the brushes I use, head to my instagram and check out the "Q|A" story highlight.)
Here they all are together:
Interested in seeing the process video for me creating these girls? It's all up on my youtube! Check them out below:
PART 1 VID: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMPzWZFHgPc
PART 2 VID: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd03AB_mORE
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Anyways, let's get into discussing each of these girls! If you would like to see close up pics, just click on each below to be taken to the original instagram post, where I show a variety of different close up shots of each piece!
DATE POSTED: July 7th
The first prompt was Candy Apple! Since this was the first one I made, I was the least sure of the direction I wanted to go in. This one leans a little more into the less realistic side than the rest of the pieces, and the background pattern is a tad different to how I do them in the future pieces. So she feels a little out of the set in a way and that is why she is probably my least favorite of the 12. But I do still really like the piece, especially how her hands turned out! During this challenge I decided to draw a lot of complicated hand positions, so for a lot of these I actually lightly traced over pictures of real hands in the right positions to get it right. I do really like the color scheme I chose for this one. Basically, I knew I wanted the apple itself to be green since the candy on the apple itself is typically red. I thought it would be more interesting to incorporate green so it wasn't all reds and pinks. Her shirt is also that pale yellow color of the inside of a green apple and the pattern is meant to resemble seeds. I gave her heart shaped earrings that are reminiscent of the shape of an apple, and two toned hair to match the snack itself. Overall I do like the artwork but I wish that the background matched better with the rest. I also think I went a little too unrealistic with the color choices, as for the rest of the pieces I stick a little closer to reality and bring in some colors you wouldn't find in the snack. The rest of the characters are just inspired by the snack, while this one is just entirely based around it if that makes sense. Oh well, onto the next one!
DATE POSTED: July 8th
The second prompt in this series was Carrot Cake! This is definitely one of my favorites, i just really like the color scheme and I also did a lot of things I usually struggle with. This character has braids, complex hands, AND a hat, all things I can find really difficult. I really think I have been getting better with braids lately though! I wanted this character to feel a bit more realistic than the previous one, so I decided to give her a natural hair color that still fit with the prompt. I also looked up outfit references on pinterest, and continued to for the rest of the prompts actually. Even though I pretty much knew what I wanted to do right away, looking up references did help me decide on what sort of shirt would usually be paired with an overall skirt like this. I intended for this character's skin to be a tad darker than I feel like it seems after I added the green highlighting. I really wanted to focus on all of these characters looking different from each other. I am also pretty pleased with how I drew the cake slice here. I don't draw food often so I wanted to be sure and include the prompt food in each piece. Even though a slice of cake doesn't seem hard, I actually had to play around with the perspective and layers a bit to get it to look right.
DATE POSTED: July 9th
The third prompt was popcorn! I was pretty stumped at first. Popcorn is really only white and shades of yellow, and I just didn't think that was enough color variation for the piece. So this is the first piece where I decided I could stray farther from the prompt food's colors. I decided to incorporate red like a classic red and white striped popcorn bucket, and also cyan because it just needed a pop of something! Once I chose to use the popcorn bucket for inspiration, I thought the whole character could have a sort of vintage or rockabilly aesthetic, since those buckets themselves are old fashioned. When looking up outfits to fit that aesthetic, I saw a pair of houndstooth pants and thought the pattern could sort of resemble little popcorns! It's a stretch for sure, and i'm not sure it reads at all, but it was INSPIRED by popcorn, so I still feel good about it. If I regret anything about this piece, I think it focuses a little too strongly on the red color instead of whites and yellow like popcorn. But I do think it looks nice and I really like the color scheme! I enjoy this one, but it does feel a tad generic compared to some others to me.
DATE POSTED: July 10th
Here is a personal favorite of mine, probably my second fave!! As I was posting these this month, I was holding daily polls to determine my followers favorite of the pieces. This one was winning for quite a while! Her prompt was Chocolate Covered Strawberry. She probably has my favorite outfit of all the girls! Especially the earrings, I think those turned out really cute! I also just really like her facial features. I have wanted to draw a character in striped pants like this for a while, but every time I have tried it turns out too clownish. I think it finally turned out cute here! I also really like her hair, I drew the same hairstyle for the most recent inktober (2019) but I really wanted to draw it again in a piece I overall liked a bit more. I think by drawing her I realized for my style I really enjoy drawing very circular eyes. I don't have too much to say about this one, I just really enjoy how it turned out! I haven't mentioned it yet, but I have been using slightly colored lineart in these pieces. I tend to not like colored lineart in my own art and prefer the more cartoony look of thick black lineart, but instead of fully coloring it, I just chose a color slightly off black and closer to a chosen color in the piece. I do think it really helps for that super cohesive look!
DATE POSTED: July 11th
Day 5's prompt was Pretzel, and this is the one I was originally most undecided on what I was going to do with it. It took me some time to figure out how to be inspired by this snack, it is really mostly just shades of brown. I decided to take the inspiration pretty loosely. I gave her shirt sleeves a ribbon that ties at the bottom to be sort of reminiscent to the way a pretzel is woven. I also gave her buns in her hair sort of similar to the shape of a pretzel. I hope it has enough inspiration from the snack but I wasn't too sure what else to do! I do think either way she turned out pretty cute! I gave her the nose shape I always draw on my original character Siobhan, I really enjoy drawing
a nose like this because I think it makes the face a tad more interesting. I struggled with the hands A LOT on this one, which is why you can see the second hand just sort of disappears. I wish I had taken the time to show her hand a bit more, but I don't think it turned out too bad. I also think her color scheme turned out a little more dull than I had hoped. She's not my favorite of the series, but I don't think she's too bad. I actually had a few people say she was their favorite!
DATE POSTED: July 13th
Here was the follower favorite!! Her prompt was Orange Juice and I had a lot of fun working on this one! I decided to give her a bathing suit since she had a drink and could take it to the beach with her. I am really proud of a lot of aspects in this piece, I have never drawn glasses in that position on top of the head before and it was a challenge but I think I got it right in the end. I also gave her a bag which I can find really difficult. I decided to give this character vitiligo which I think ended up looking pretty accurate! If anything, I can see now the background pattern is a little messy. I wish I could go back and fix it!! But overall I really like this one!!
DATE POSTED: July 14th
Here is day 7, blueberry muffin! This is another one of my least favorites. One reason is because I forgot to add the lighting I usually do. I think it makes her look a bit flat, but oh well, I fixed it after I posted it and I will be sure to include the fixed version in the future project I discussed above. I do like how her outfit turned out, but I think just using blues and purples made it a bit boring and I wish I had included a contrasting color like yellow to the piece to make it pop better. I really wanted one of the characters to wear overalls so I decided she would be a good fit since I could give them paint splatters to resemble the berries! I also think her hand turned out a little off but hopefully it just sort of blends in and doesn't stand out too much. I do like her hair, I used the muffin color as her natural hair color and then had her dye the tips purple. It wasn't even my intention, but it sort of reminds me of how blueberries can stain a muffin. Again, I think she just turned out a bit dull and I wish she was more vibrant and fun. I think adding a contrast color could have really helped the piece.
DATE POSTED: July 15th
Day 8 was pumpkin pie! I was a little stumped at first since I tend to associate pumpkin pie with fall or winter, not summer. But I think in the end I was able to come up with a somewhat summery design! I kept pretty strictly to the pie colors in this art, a lot like the blueberry muffin one, but I think this one turned out better because I made the background a complimentary color. It makes her stand out more while the blueberry muffin just blends in. I could not get the hand in the back to look right, so I decided to give her an oven mitt. I hope it doesn't seem like too much of a cop out!! I also used a procreate brush to make the pattern on her skirt. That isn't something I love to do too often as it feels more fun to create the pattern myself, I really enjoy doing that and I like the more handmade feel. But I was running low on time and I do really like this brush, it is called "Paper Daisy" and is in the organic brush section. I layered the brush on a few different opacities to create the pattern. I am also really proud of the hat!! I struggle with drawing brimmed hats so much, but I finally think I drew one that looks good!!
DATE POSTED: July 16th
For day 9, the prompt was Honey Cinnamon Roll! I decided to lean in heavy to the honey part of the prompt and make her shirt look like honey dripping! I love the way honey gets so dark when concentrated, I thought the look of the pale yellow fading into the dark orange would look really nice! I haven't mentioned yet that you can color in the lineart of all of these pieces for FREE! All you have to do is click on the "Free Lineart" button at the top of my blog on Desktop, or go to the menu screen and then click "Free Lineart" on Mobile. I bring this up because unfortunately, to make the coloring look best I did not line any details in the cinnamon roll, so if you use this coloring page, the circle she is holding is just blank. But I guess you could turn it into just about any snack in that case! I also enjoyed making the bun in her hair swirl to the center like a cinnamon roll! I like this one quite a bit but I think she turned out to have the least likes overall. Oh well!
DATE POSTED: July 17th
This one is actually my personal favorite!! Day 10's prompt was Lemon Pie, and I loved getting to use yellows and blues in this piece as they are my favorite color combination! I really like this one because I think the pattern on the dress turned out so well, I love the colors, Lemon or Lime pie is actually my favorite kind of dessert, and I think the shine on her glasses turned out so well!! This is actually the only character who ended up having glasses. I'm not too sure what to say, I just love how this piece turned out in every way! I also took a lot more time making sure the pattern of the background looked less messy in this one. She didn't beat out Orange Juice over on my instagram, but she is my favorite nonetheless! If you chose Orange Juice as your fave over on my insta, i'd love to know down below what made her stand out so much to you!!
DATE POSTED: July 18th
Here was the last girl for the official Summer Sweethearts challenge, Cherry Cheesecake! I had a lot of fun with the colors and hair texture in this one! As I mentioned above, the actual challenge was only 11 days long, but I decided to add a 12 character of my own. So this was the last character with a prompt from the challenge. I felt I had done so many characters holding slices of cakes and pies, I wanted to shake it up a bit. So I gave her a frozen cheesecake instead! I took this prompt pretty literally and included lots of cherries into her design, cherries are just one of those fruits you might actually find on real clothing because they're just cute! I also made her winking because I always find that hard to get right. I really wanted to try doing some complicated things in this series! I think it looks okay!! My favorite part of this piece is definitely the hair, i love the curly texture and also the smooth gradient! A tip for brown gradients: instead of just directly mixing the dark brown with the blond, I put a strip of a lighter brown between them to make the mix turn out more saturated and smooth. You can see me do this in the part 2 video linked above!
DATE POSTED: July 19th
Here is the final drawing of the series, this time based on a prompt I came up with myself, Watermelon Slushy! Slushies are one of my favorite snacks and so summery, so I thought it'd be perfect to include one! I hadn't given any girls short hair yet so I thought she'd look really cute with a pixie cut. I also made her in a swim suit as well, so there are two characters in swimwear in the series. I really like how the cup turned out specifically, and also I think the swimsuit turned out super cute! I hope you guys like this one to, especially since I came up with the prompt myself! I actually drew a character in a watermelon themed swimsuit this May, but I was using a limited color palette in that art chosen randomly, so the colors weren't quite perfect, and I also had to fit a vintage prompt in that art, so I wanted to make something a little more modern and that used an actual watermelon's colors. At first I thought I would make the inner tube green like the outside of a watermelon, but after coloring the rest of the character, I decided I was mainly using pink and would want a green background, but I thought the green would overtake the piece if I used it on the tube as well, so I just made it a basic pink. I like to try and choose a "main" color in a piece and than a secondary one as well as opposed to having equal amounts of both colors, I find it just turns out looking a little more thought through.
Now, onto the project I mentioned above! I added a 12th character to this series because I hope to turn these girls into a series of monthly stickers! I need to look into it more, but it seems that I can sell entire sticker sheets through redbubble and have them cut the stickers on their end. So my current plan is to take each character and make them a sheet of other monthly themed stickers, such as banners, trackers, and more, to use for a journal, calendar, bullet journal, etc! I am pretty excited about this project, but like I said I need to look into it more to be sure it will work before I make any promises. Just know it's something I am working on and hoping to start releasing at some point this year! In the meantime, if you're interested in coloring in lineart from me, I am currently in the process of creating my first tiny coloring pack! It will be a cheap pack of coloring pages for digital download and will included very detailed lineart from me of NEVER BEFORE SEEN artwork! This first pack will be themed to a Magical Forest, and will include at least 4 pages of artwork themed around fairies, forest creatures, and mushrooms! I am so excited to release this pack of coloring pages on my Etsy Shop and am planning to do so next month, so keep an eye out for it!
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Which of these 12 girls was YOUR favorite?? Let me know down below! And if you read all the way to the bottom, leave a comment letting me know what your favorite dessert is! I hope to have a new post out soon showing off another sketchbook!
I hope you enjoyed this post! If you want to see more from me, subscribe down below! And to view my artwork, follow me on my instagram @raineydaydoodles, and check out all my accounts at https://linktr.ee/raineydaydoodles
Watermelon Slush is my fave! You know how I feel about the short hair so that pretty much grabbed me from the get go. I'd say Orange Juice is a CLOSE runner up for me!