My dollar note

Okay, this isn't the first time I'm drawing a dollar note. I'm very fond of the 'bird' series and the 'ship' series of the singapore dollar, not the current 'president face' series. It's a joy to be able to draw the $5 dollar note again.

I started off with the front side. I had to mark out the dimensions and layout of the note first before adding in the details. Here, I've finished two of the hardest part of the front side - the Majulah Singapura logo on the upper right hand corner and the bird on the left. It's very hard because the details on these two logos and extremely hard to replicate by sketching. I really really hate the logo - the lion and tiger had so much details in it that I can never make it as nice as I would like it to be. Besides, in these details, there's no room for error as I can't erase the errors without erasing other details too - it's just too small a space to erase.


Another closer look at the two hardest part of the front side.


The rest is more easily done. I just had to fill in the details. In my mind's eye, I had to 'translate' the coloured parts into black and white, and yet put in enough contrast so that each components stand out and not become blurred as one. Below is the completed front side.


That took 1.5 to 2 hours already. More on the front side shown below. Well, let's move on to the back side.


Again, I sketched out the layout of the back side before filling in the details. I hate the little oval shaped thingy with the $5 on the bottom right hand corner. It's very hard to get the shape correct and even after that, I've to squeeze in two letter $ and 5, which are surrounded by black shading. Hard to show the contrast.


This is my favourite part of the $5 dollar note - the picture at the back. It shows Sentosa with the cable car tower and cable cars with plenty of trees and a dock like area - very fun to draw. My hand starts to ache from the strain.


Alright, completed the main picture of the back side. The bushes/trees are the most straining on my hands. I've to endure the pain while I painstakingly draw out the details in circular motion to recreate the leafy foliage of the bushes/trees. I love the water backdrop with the mountains. Oh and the cable cars :)


Here's a clearer shot of the completed main picture of the back side. Now I'm only left with the word SINGAPORE and $5 - easy stuff.


Finally, after another 1.5 to 2 hours, I've done the back side completely. Don't ask me, there's no watermark. I'm not doing counterfeit money!


I cut out the dollar note after that. Here's the final picture of how the front and the back looks like. Tsk tsk, there's something wrong with the cropping of the front side...seems like I didn't frame the drawing properly. It looks a little too squeezy on the bottom right side. Aiya, too late already...


The back side looks pretty well done though. Alright, mission accomplished!


Total time taken: 4 hrs! That's about the average time I needed - 2 hours for each side :) For those who wanted to take a closer look at the pictures, look at my flicker account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25065597@N06/

Okay, to be fair, the pictures are taken from my hp, so the quality is sucky at best. Should have used my digital camera..next time? :)