Night Child Mandalay | Posted: Nov. 10, 2016, 5:42 p.m.

Media: Photoshop Elements 7.0 and Paint Tool Sai

Time: ~7 hours

Like many other novice artists, I am guilty of repeatedly drawing the same characters, poses, etc.

During the summer, I like to draw other artists' characters in order to practice drawing different poses, clothes, designs, backgrounds, etc.

I usually post samples of my artwork on a DeviantArt forum, and if an artist likes my style, they request that I draw one of their original characters. This piece is one of those requests.

I tried a different digital art technique with this piece -- I drew a grey silhouette of the pose on the bottom layer and then just built off of it. My usual technique is to draw a rough sketch; create lineart; and then layer on top of the lineart, removing the outlines of the figure in the process.

I liked the technique of filling up a silhouette, and I imagine I'll use this technique again.

This piece also helped me realize that I desperately need to work on drawing clothes and seeing where wrinkles in clothes naturally fall.

This was one of my first attempts at digitally painting a background. I think the clouds ended up looking too stylized.