Okay, here is my Magda drawing for my Women of Star Trek series. Magda is played by Susan Denberg, a former Playboy Playmate! Definitely the hottest of Mudd’s Women.

This drawing has been digitally enhanced in order to give it a softer feel and to add some extra punch! The original drawing was okay, but every time I looked at it, it just feels it needs to be darker, especially the dark leather padding on Captain Kirk’s chair. So with some quick Photoshop enhancements, I was able to create a more compelling drawing.

My Magda drawing is in the Subscribers Area at full resolution, which is at 3650 x 4128 pixels. Please do sign up for my Newsletter to have access to that area. There are other cool stuffs in there too. But this drawing at full resolution is the latest addition. The sign up is on the right.

How I enhanced it in Photoshop
I took it into Photoshop and duplicated the drawing layer and set the blending to Multiply. Then I applied a slight Gaussian Blur for a softer effect. Then I turned down that layer opacity to about 60% so that it is not too dark. And finally, I painted a mask to bring back the details of the sketch layer. The Photoshop layer looked like this.

Here is the original drawing without any Photoshop enhancements. The chair is definitely too light. It would have taken a lot of time to darken that with pencils. And it wouldn’t be a lot of fun either. Another reason why I love Photoshop!

At last, it’s done! I FINALLY finished my Magda drawing for my Women of Star Trek series. I have been putting off this drawing as I’m caught up doing my eBay stuff and setting up this blog. So this drawing really dragged on. Yesterday, I made a commitment and chained myself to the drawing table and finished the last 30% of this drawing in a couple of hours. And now I feel GREAT! That explains my funny smile in the photo. It is a great relief to finish things.

Now that it’s done, this Magda drawing came out better than I had expected. Initially I didn’t think her pose on Captain Kirk’s chair would be too dynamic or interesting. But ultimately, the dark chair helped to pop her right out. Overall, I’m happy with this one. I will post this Magda drawing up once I get it sprayed and scanned it.

It looks like my next Women of Star Trek drawing will be of Mea 3, Barbara Babcock, from the Star Trek Original Series “A Taste of Armageddon” episode. She looks very elegant in that episode. Some ideas and images has been simmering in my head for awhile now for Mea 3. Can’t wait to get that one going!

Okay, now she really IS pretty. I thought the previous drawing of the face was pretty, so I posted it up immediately after finishing. Then I realized all the mistakes on her features. Mainly the eyes were too far apart and her cheek area was too elongated. Serves me right to post a drawing up immediately. You always need to step away from your art and see it with a fresh eye after some time has passed. Somehow this escaped me. The mistakes on the features were so immediately glaring with a fresh eye that I had to fix it. And what better ways to fix things than with Photoshop!

Here is the final painting below. It’s a black and white painting. The fully painted area is mostly on the right side of her face. I left it this way because I figure you would like to see the progression or stages of my painting. I always enjoy seeing that in other artist’s work, because it tells a story of their workflow and their thought process. I might finish off the whole face later on, but as it is now, I think she looks very pretty already.

I just love the lips on her, very SEDUCTIVE! It really was what attracted me to draw her in the first place.

The reference image for this drawing was taken from my favorite ‘go to’ reference book for sexy female faces and bodies, the Pirelli Calendar, the Complete Works. I can’t tell you how much this book has helped me during the times when I just needed something to draw. The photography is beautiful and thought provoking, so it keeps my mind from being dull. As an artist, you know how it is. Sometimes you want something to draw but don’t know what. So you look through magazines and books but can’t find anything worthwhile. Then you end up spending a little too much time looking for references that you have lost that ‘initial drive’ to draw. I hate that feeling! This and a few other books I have solves that problem for me.

Below is the video for my painting process on this pretty face. It is another speed painting video, played at 500% normal speed. I’ll just call it warp 5. You can see how easy it is in Photoshop to fix certain things.

A quick sketch of a woman’s face. Click on the image to see it in high res. You have to see it at full screen! It looks a lot better for some reason when it fills the screen. I think it is the texture of the paper and also the way it is cropped. I will definitely paint this one up in Photoshop.

Click and let this fill your screen!

I looked around and found a cool little free software that allows me to do video screen captures. So I did another quick Photoshop painting of the Joker in low resolution. Just to continue what I was talking about in the previous post. The image here is where I stopped. I will probably spend more time of it later on and finish it up as it is looking a little promising.

Here is the video, played 4x faster. Oh, I also have a new Videos section where you can see my other videos. You gotta love WordPress, they make things easy to setup. Anyhow, hope you like it, more to come… thanks, -Wei