Charcoal Arwen
This is another charcoal pencil drawing from my Lord of the Rings fandom. I drew this in December 2001, before Fellowship of the Rings hit the theatre. Its partner is my Galadriel drawing elsewhere on this blog — they were drawn from the same calendar.
I used a paper with a good grain for this but I just didn’t have the skill with blending yet. Honestly, Galadriel and Arwen were probably the first two non-art-class portraits I did. Yes, I was a freshman in college, but I was a late bloomer. :/
As I was saying, this isn’t very good, and I know that because I just unearthed the original. It seems like way back when I scanned Arwen, I fiddled with the contrast, resulting in the above picture. It’s a huge improvement, so much so that I am embarassed to show the original. :\
Here’s an approximation of the picture I used as a model. This may not be exactly it, given that the photo doesn’t have shine on the right side of the hair. I probably wouldn’t have added it if it wasn’t there — I don’t like to make extra work for myself. :p I clearly see my faults now: chin too pronounced, wrong slant to the eyebrows, misguided nose shading (I did it without understanding it), nose too long, overly defined hair part, ear is slightly the wrong scale, plane of the face is tilted incorrectly, upper lip not full enough. Yes, I’m critical, but who’s going to be critical for me, eh?
