Dark Hope - The Beginning

Today I started a new drawing, back at my normal size paper. I am about 4 hours into the drawing by now and it's going to take quite some time to complete. I have to admit I love working on it. It's based on the beautiful photo of Lisa: [link] I saw her photo some time back when she was entering my previous Butterfly Contest and fell in love with it. Something about the mood and the cropping of the photo. I am glad I started the drawing.

I am working with a completely new base skin colour, I've been very tired of my old flesh colour from Faber Castell as it had a too pinkish tone, and when scanned it got even worse. I think this new skin tone colour is very natural and I love it so far.

My main goal with the drawing is to convey the emotion and get a new kind of realism with colour pencils. It's never been easy for me to achieve that with this medium though I love working with it.

Thanks for for the pretty reference, I hope I will do you justice.