For my first art project, I decided to work on a computer program called Gimp. Gimp is a digital drawing and photo manipulation program. Using my drawing tablet, I painted a picture of a person's face in my Gimp program.

The final image is based off of an original character I created for use in stories. The character's name is Oraicia Cooper, and I've used her in many short stories and online Role-Playing communities. I figured it was about time I drew a picture of her. This project was fairly challenging for me. I haven't had a lot of practice with Gimp, and drawing faces is definitely not one of my artistic strengths.

To create this painting, I first did a rough copy in my sketchbook. When I was satisfied with the rough copy, I tore out the page and taped it onto my tablet. This allowed me to trace the lines from the paper into Gimp, so that I had a rough idea of the shape of the face. After that, I followed a tutorial I found on gimptalk.com, which explained how to paint a portrait in Gimp. One of the biggest challenges was applying the tutorial's instructions to my own drawing. The tutorial gave details for a face-on view, and my drawing is a 3/4 view.

Overall, I'm very surprised with how well the drawing turned out, especially compared to some of my previous attempts at portraits. If I had to pick something from my drawing I think I could have put more effort into, it would be either the nose or the hair. The hair was a little bit rushed, and didn't turn out quite proper. It's slightly darker than I wanted, and there isn't any distinct light and shadows. The shading on the nose is also a little bit off. Some parts have very little shadow, which makes it look a little bit strange. I was very pleased with how the eyes turned out, considering I've never really practiced drawing eyes before.

If I'd had more time to work on this picture, I may have attempted a background. A dark forest would have looked nice in this image.