Google defines steampunk as a genre of science fiction with a setting that utilizes steam-powered machinery. Personally, I love this genre -- it looks dark and attractive -- especially in drawing. Do a quick search on steampunk in Google or in deviantART and the results will simply astound you. Steampunk-related arts always look great; at least, when I'm not the one doing it.

Steampunk Girl

Today, after a long time of no legit digital arts, I tried my hand on drawing a steampunk girl. Given my limited resources, too (I have no tablet or mouse at all; I only have my laptop's trackpad).

I will name this steampunk girl Scheherazade. This is for no special reason -- I just really love the name. (In case you don't know who the original Scheherazade is, she is the storyteller in the book One Thousand and One Nights.)

I came up with the drawing above in three steps:

1. Traditional art on paper;
2. Lineart using Paint Tool SAI; and
3. Colors using Adobe Photoshop CS6.

I was supposed to use this new program I learned about from @leoplaw -- it's called Krita. It's free and open-source, and it's lovely, but I'm still learning the ropes around that one. So yup. I'm saving Krita for next time.

The traditional drawing

On the left, you can see a quick sketch I did which would later serve as my digital drawing's base. I wasn't exactly sure what I was going for, but the anime otaku in me said, "Do anime style! You miss it!"

So yup. The otaku artist in me did the whole anime hair and eyes and stuff. I was lost about what I'd do with the details; I knew that the more detail I put, the harder the lineart and coloring for me would get. 

Around the time that I was inking the sketch, I thought, "I'll cross the bridge when I get there."

Err... oh, no, Aira. You don't say that!

A few minutes later, while doing the lineart, things got a little complicated.

The digital drawing

Did I say that things got a little complicated? I already did? Because it did.

Paint Tool SAI has this really awesome layer type aptly named Linework layers. It's basically vector-type, which allows you to use tools like curve and line (like the pen tool in Photoshop). The thing I like about this type of layer best  is that it allows the artist to apply pressure on the lineart, as if you actually used a pen tablet to draw them.

The Lineart. I thought earlier that I would do the details impromptu on SAI, but what I failed to regard was the fact that it would be really hard. It had been a long time since I last did digital lineart, so the difficulty was, for me, understandable. Sadly, I had to forego the more complicated details I had in mind -- the kind of details that would make steampunk an awesome steampunk.

The Colors. As usual, Photoshop's pen tool was my best friend on this one. I definitely enjoyed coloring Scheherazade. More about this you can actually see through the time-lapse video below.