Looking at My Drawing of Misty

Every once in a while, I make a drawing that feels less like an exercise and more like a little snapshot of where I am creatively at that moment. This drawing of Misty is one of those pieces.

It is a close-up portrait, focusing almost entirely on her face and, most importantly, her eye. The composition is deliberately cropped, giving the drawing an almost larger-than-life feeling. Rather than showing the entire character, I wanted the viewer to get pulled directly into her expression.

And that eye is definitely the star of the piece.

👁️ Those Eyes

The first thing that jumps out is Misty's enormous green eye.

The bright mint-green iris contrasts beautifully against the warm orange hair and the pale skin. I especially like the highlights in the eye. The large white reflection gives it a glossy, almost animated quality and makes the eye feel alive.

The heavy black eyelashes and bold upper eyelid also give the character a very expressive, stylized appearance. There's something exaggerated about it, but that's part of the charm. This isn't trying to be a realistic portrait. It's leaning into cartoon and anime-inspired proportions, where the eyes are allowed to dominate the face.

If anything, the eye tells us more about Misty than the rest of the drawing does.

🧡 That Big Orange Hair

The orange hair is the other major visual element.

It's wonderfully oversized.

The hair takes up much of the canvas, and I think that works particularly well with this particular composition. The sweeping locks create a sense of movement even though the character herself isn't doing anything.

I also like the loose black outlines. They're not perfectly uniform, and that's a strength here. They give the drawing a hand-drawn, sketchbook quality rather than making it feel overly polished or sterile.

The purple/blue hair tie at the top is a nice little detail, too. Against all that orange, it gives the viewer a small contrasting accent to discover.

✏️ The Style

One of the most interesting things about this drawing is the combination of clean cartoon forms and rough sketch lines.

There are areas where the outlines are very confident and bold, while other areas have multiple exploratory strokes. You can see the drawing process in the finished piece.

I actually think that's something worth preserving.

It's easy when critiquing artwork to assume that everything should be cleaned up, every line should be perfect, and every sketch mark should disappear. But the loose marks here contribute to the personality of the piece.

The drawing feels like a drawing, rather than an attempt to imitate a perfectly rendered digital illustration.

And for a blog called Onion Pixels, that feels pretty appropriate.

🎨 What I Think Works Best

There are three things that stand out to me.

1. The color contrast.

Orange hair, green eye, pale skin, and small purple accents make a surprisingly effective palette. The green eye especially benefits from being surrounded by warmer colors.

2. The expression.

Even though we're only seeing part of Misty's face, she has a definite personality. The huge eye and tiny pink lips give her a cute, slightly whimsical expression.

3. The composition.

The extreme close-up is probably my favorite decision in the drawing. Having Misty's hair extend beyond the edges makes the character feel much larger than the actual page. It also prevents the image from feeling like a static headshot.

🔍 A Little Constructive Critique

Of course, there are things I'd look at improving if I were to revisit this drawing.

The biggest area would be facial structure and consistency.

Because the eye is so large and detailed, it becomes the visual anchor, but the surrounding facial features are comparatively simplified. That's perfectly valid stylistically, but a little more attention to the underlying shape of the face could make the proportions feel more intentional.

I'd also experiment with the line weight. Some of the hair outlines are extremely bold while other lines around the face are much lighter. There are moments where the heavy outlines compete slightly with the eye rather than directing the viewer toward it.

The hair could also benefit from a little more variation in shading. There's already some lovely soft coloring and highlights, but adding a few stronger shadow shapes would give the orange hair more volume and make those individual locks easier to distinguish.

And finally, I'd consider giving the background a little more thought. The white space works because it keeps attention on Misty, but even a very subtle background element—without distracting from the character—could potentially make the composition feel more complete.

💚 The Part I'd Keep

If I had to pick one thing from this drawing that I absolutely wouldn't change, though, it would be the eye.

It has personality.

It's oversized, colorful, shiny, and unapologetically cartoonish. It immediately tells you what kind of drawing you're looking at.

And I think that's an important lesson from making art: sometimes the little imperfections and exaggerations are exactly what make a character feel like your version of them.

This isn't trying to be a perfectly rendered Misty.

It's my Misty.

And that's what makes the drawing worth putting on Onion Pixels.

🧅 Final Thoughts

I'm pretty happy with how this one came together.

It has a loose, expressive quality that I enjoy, while still having enough color and detail to make the finished piece pop. The orange hair dominates the composition, but that brilliant green eye gives the viewer somewhere to land.

There's definitely room to push the anatomy, shading, and line work further, and that's part of the fun. Every drawing is another opportunity to figure out what works, what doesn't, and what I want to try next.

For me, Onion Pixels isn't just about showing finished artwork. It's about the process of making it.

Sometimes the best way to improve is simply to draw something, look at it afterward, and ask:

"Okay... what did I learn from this one?"

With Misty, I learned that big eyes, big hair, and bold colors can go a surprisingly long way. 👁️🧡💚

— Onion Pixels