Watercolor practice crit plz

Watercolor practice. Slowly I’m getting more comfortable with the medium.

This is Aki, ’s OC.
Line work done by [link] Sadly I ruined most of the beautiful details on the jacket
I also wanted to do a different interpretation but I figured since it was an actual OC not a random dwg, id better make the effort to stick to the character out of respect. I did however take a bit of artistic license with the wings, and also there wasn’t much I could reference from so i…winged it… *hur hur*. In saying that I may do a digital or another traditional in the style I want, not sure.

½ days work.

<sub>Things I learned:
~ Wet in dry technique
~ Color composition and blending
~ spattering
~ I need to learn how to create metal effects
~ I need to figure out how to do feathers
~ I need to pace myself with watercolor and not rush it like I can with oils. Strange saying that, because I find with fast drying mediums you need to work quickly, yet with watercolor if i rush it I’m likely to mess it up. Also letting watercolor dry often brings out the color more so you know if you need to add more shading or wot not.
~ Need to find tape that won’t let in bleed :/

Materials I used:
~ 185gsm Canson hot pressed paper. Great for printing line work onto.
~ Pelikan watercolors
~ Reeves watercolors
~ Faber-Castell watercolor pencils
~ 9 round tip watercolor brush, 3 round tip watercolor brush, 5/8 chisel tip watercolor brush and 8 round tip hogs hair brush.
~ White gel pen

Useful links for watercolor basics:
~ [link] love love love emperpep’s work…I fave it like crazy
~ [link]
~ [link] Part of a awesome team of comic book artist here on DA who like to give tutorials
~ [link] General techniques page, pretty good
~ Also there are heaps more great watercolorist on DA plus general googling turns up heaps.</sub>