Ok so I'm really bad... I got so bored of resting that despite my concussion I decided to draw a new picture while my boyfriend is at work because I had this awesome idea! This is gonna be the first in a series of drawings of Nymph's, because they are kewl.

This is a Lempade or a Nymph of the Underworld. Lampades were a gift to Hecate (Titan goddess of Witchcraft) from Zues. They carry torches and accompany Hecate on her twilight hauntings/journeys. They were said to carry torches which had the power to drive someone to madness.

My version of one is more cutesy than I had intended, but then I find that quite endearing as Nymphs are seen as quite playful. I also decided to interpret the torch into the flame you see attached to the ribbon. I think I've been watching too much D GrayMan and wanted to give the flame anthropomorphic (human like) like qualities like Lero the super cool umbrella! It also looks cooler like that than a bog standard flame torch.

And after TMC's comment's on my last piece Barren Land about the messy line art. I decided to download Alias' Sketchbook software and trace my pencil line art to clean it up. I've not coloured it yet but I'm hoping it's alot cleaner and makes it look more professional.

Ok I'm gonna stop typing because it's making me waaaaay too dizzy. Crits and comments are welcome!

I think I've already made it apparent that it wasn't a bad thing I just personally found it odd because I'm used to reading webcomics and seeing art with solid lines. It's just a style thing really. If the background had more brush strokes or looked more like it was painted naturally then perhaps the fragmented pencil lines would have fit better, but since the background was just so proetty I expected the lines to be as well. And yes I just made that word up now, professional + pretty = proetty.

If you wanted to you could have also traced your lines with an ink pen (I use a fine point Sharpie) and then scan it once it dries. Or if you happen to have a Wacom Tablet (something every remotely serious graphic artists needs) simply trace the drawing with that directly into PS or something.

The drawing looks great, I like the fire, her clothing and hell its just a damn good drawing in general, I'm jealous. I'm real into "mythology" and various artistical renditions of the Greek, Egyptian and Norwegian tales. Really the only citique I have is that the lines are still a bit fragmented and still not quite uniform, but it does look better; I hate to sound nitpicky. Can't wait to see the colored version, though.

How much did it cost for you to download Alias' Sketchbook, Vesp? I kinda wanna learn a little more about it, even though once I finish this reply I will probably do some reasearch of my own.

Thanks for the comments and don't worry I don't see the pencil line art comment as a bad one. I just agree that it doesn't fit with the rest of the painting and the only way to fix that is to have digital line art.

I would normally use good old fashioned pen (or pen and ink) to do the line art for my images, but I've always found the prosess to be (hmmm how can I put this...) a gamble. Simply because if you make a mistake it can be a pain to clean it up. I also never really got the definition on the lines that I wanted.

The tracing technique is what I tried here with my rather rubbish tablet (I want a Wacom!). I was going to go down the routed of vectoring the lines which I have done before and gives good results, but using the brush tool is very painstaking. So I decided tracing the line art would give me some practice at drawing on the comp' which is something I want to develop more in my drawing techniques.

I'm not sure I can see those fragmented lines on the pink version though O_o;; You'll have to point them out to me. I'm glad you like the drawing and it's link to Greek Mythology. I've not started colouring it yet, I'm contemplating whether to use Photoshop or Painter for that step, as it would be nice to learn another piece of illustration software.

As for sketchbook, I only have the 15 day demo at the moment which you can get off of Alias' website. It's a very good piece of software for sketching/drawing, I found I got better results for the line art from this than I did in Photoshop.

meh.. get it with the Torrent system. Free.. yes.. legal.. NO.
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The Wacom RUULES
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the art. O_o.
this rocks on so many levels.
it is beond my current skills, so I cant do anything byt envy you untill YOU turn green ^^

Thoguh. the black one, she seems happier there.
I think it has soemthing with the eyebrows to do.
not 100% shure though.

The art is not good. it is way past the borders of what is called Good.

^^

I wish I had a Wacom so much. I only have a rubbishy not very good sub brand of tablet at the moment which if I'm honest is falling apart and very lagged. I want an A4 one though and they cost soooo much, blah.

Anyways! Thank you so so much for the comments, you're making me blush! If I'm honest when I started drawing this I wasn't sure how well it was going to come out. I've been massively out of practice recently and I had really bad concussion when I drew it. I think the secret was to use a reference for the pose. That made it like a gazillion times easier so if you get the chance use a reference picture!

I'm glad you notice the happiness difference between the two versions as well. I made a conscious effort in the traced one to make her less happy, I figured that seeing as she was a nymph of the underworld she would be a little less happy!.

Thank you again, and if you ever need some constructive criticism on your art then you know where to come!