The Closest Thing to a Rockstar

I visited Las Vegas recently and it was quite the experience! Between the glamor, stifling desert heat and moral turpitude I found myself thinking the Tryvnah would be right at home. I wanted to take a shot at drawing his full figure, so I took one of my earlier thumb sketches of him and fleshed it out.

Promise Me

 When they see my drawings people often think Spark and Vahaadi are a couple.  They are not; but they are very intimate friends. This image depicts the meta versions of Spark and Vahaadi (non Loose Canon, essentially) from a scenario that Evie and I have been working on. It's less of a roleplay and more of an exploratory collaborative prose. Evie wrote about Spark kissing Vahaadi's wrist and I thought that was such a tender moment I wanted to illustrate it.  They've both just been through a traumatizing experience--notably more traumatizing for Spark than it was for Vahaadi, because he's endured it before--leaving Vahaadi drugged and injured and Spark picking up the pieces of her shattered self-created reality. 

The thick outline sketch style is one I picked up from Saibraeus.

This is way harder than it looks

 Emulation source: Mebukijika

01.02.2013 Realism

So obviously I really need practice. o.< Realism referenced from here.

Let the Good Guys Win

Mmm, do you smell that? It's a fresh year!  Time for New Year Resolutions! Following some advice I heard relating to Luke 2:52 ("And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.") I like to make four goals each year focusing on these respective areas: knowledge, health, spirituality and social.  This year the line up is:

1. Draw for 45 minutes every day: 15 min gesture study, and 30 min. practices of various types.

For my gesture studies I'll be using posemaniacs.com's slick 30-second drawing tool.  Right now I set the tool to give me 60 sec, (so I do 15 gestures) but hopefully by the end of the year my speed will have improved and I'll be able to finish the poses in 30 seconds apiece.
My 30 min. practices will be a variation on the 30minspeedpaint challenge.  Everyday I will draw (or roll a die or something) to pick from one of seven categories: realism, fanart, emulation, animal, scenery, finishing, and free draw.  For thirty minutes, I'll draw something according to the chosen category.  For all but the last two, I'll use references. "Realism" will be photos of people, body parts, or props I want to focus on.  "Fanart" will be studies of characters I like, and "Emulation" will be style studies based on other artists. Animals and scenery are pretty straightforward, I'll be using both photos and drawings for this category.  "Finishing" will give me time to polish any pieces I've already started but want to continue refining, either from these practices or old work of mine that I want to finish or redo. Free draw is just whatever I want! I'll be getting my resources from one-stop-stock and my favorites folders on dA.

2. Record everything I eat on a daily basis on supertracker.

This is mostly a ploy to keep my weight under control. Just being aware of what I eat and in what quantities will hopefully help me cut back on bored grazing or recognize deficiencies.  Also, I sporadically get stomachaches, so it will be nice if I can possibly find out what's causing them. Also also, I've started experimenting a lot more with cooking from scratch, and recording my exploits and recipes here!

3. Temple attendance once a month.

I had better temple attendance when I lived in Orlando, shameful. >.> Now I live DOWN THE STREET from one and can't make time to go? Unacceptable.

4. 100% visiting teaching.  

If you're not familiar with the LDS faith, visiting teaching is a program (of sorts) to strengthen and "tend the flock" for the women of the Church.  We check in on each other and do service and things like that.  My track record for visiting teaching is not good. I tend to not enjoy church-mandated socializing. BUT it's good for me, and for others, and I know it. SO IMMA GONNA DO IT, AND IMMA GONNA LIKE IT.

Some miscellaneous "goals" include maintaining all-As as I complete the bulk of my college coursework, getting my website/portfolio/online presence all organized and getting one year older. If I don't manage that last one...welllll, it was fun while it lasted.

And now! To make good on my first resolution, here's my first set of gestures for 01/01/2013!

I probably won't end up posting my daily practices consistently, but maybe I will.  I guess it will depend on how much time I end up having this semester.

And I'll count this as my first 30 min practice (although this took WAYYYYYYYYYYY longer than 30 min) in the free draw category.

Best "Wishes" from Vahaadi and Krissy!

Resources:
Firework PS Set 2 by FrostBo
And these two tutorials:
Photoshop trick 04 by Orpheelin
Digital Painting Walkthrough by altalamatox

This was inspired by the song "Let the Good Guys Win" by the Irish Rovers.

May I get what I want
Not what I deserve
May the coming year not throw a single curve
May I hurt nobody
May I tell no lies
If I can't go on give me strength to try

Bring the old year out
Bring the new year in
Bring us all good luck
Let the good guys win (x2)

May the one you love
Be the one you get
May you get some place you haven't been to yet
And may your friends around you
Never do you wrong
May your eyes be clear
And may your heart be strong

Bring the old year out
Bring the new year in
Bring us all good luck
Let the good guys win (x2)

May the times to come
Be the best you've had
May peace rule the world
Let it make us glad

When you see something wrong
Try and make it right
Pull your shadowed world
Into the bright sunlight

Bring the old year out
Bring the new year in
Bring us all good luck
Let the good guys win (x2)

Let the good guys win
Let the good guys win
Let the good guys win

In with the New

Some recent Christmas present projects. :)

First, for Mom,

Menolly (from Anne McCaffrey's Dragonsong trilogy) is her favorite character, so I decided to make her a bookmark featuring Menolly and her fire lizard Beauty.  I was a little unsure about the quality since I tried for a touch more realism than my usual style and went for really saturated colors, but Mom really loved it! She not only printed it as a bookmark, but she asked me to adjust the resolution so she could print it big.  She framed it and hung it over her desk! <3

Resources:
Texture 12 by JadedReality

For my brother Drew, who loves both World of Warcraft and The Legend of Zelda: the Windwaker,

His WoW gnome, Windwaker style!  This was lots of fun to draw, I really like drawing WoW characters even though their armor is always stupid-complicated.  I always have to end up simplifying it.

The fonts I used to mimic the Zelda logo can be found here: zeldauniverse.net

"I'm Adorable!"

Apparently all the cool kids are making Sugar Rush (a la Wreck-it-Ralph) versions of themselves, so here's mine!  I'm CaramelAnn! *strikes a painfully sweet cutesy pose*

Traditional

Concept illustration of what Took would look like dressed in the traditional garb of his home country instead of the sorcerer/inventor duds he usually sports.  This is for an RP with Evie.

Texture used:
Texture 302 by Sirius-s

After finishing the sketch and having a TERRIBLE time drawing his hands, I did a hand study for him based on a more cartoon-y, American style.  I need to break away from the SailorMoon-look his hands usually end up having.  The trick, I've found, is keeping his wrist tiny but drawing his palm and fingers wide and squared-off.  The result is hands that are spindly but still masculine, rather than delicate.

All the Broken Pieces

 A recent nightmare has inspired a new development in my story project.  I'm not sure if it will stick, but I like it...I wrote up a passage I shared with Evie, and she told her it made me think of Ellie Goulding's "Salt Skin."  I listened to the song on repeat and put this together in about an hour and a half.  The whole experience has been really cleansing. 

Brushes used:

Thanksgiving III by SilentMYSTIQUE

Solid Ink Splatter by dennytang

 

You're as sharp as a knife
and you fit like a glove
That is no way to live
that is no way to love
Full of fear in your skin
and the weakness in giving in

You're stabbed in the back but you feel no pain
Push the heaviest doors
that you can't open
Yeah they tied me up
and my body lies still, again

You're as bright as the sun
and as bold as the moon
I don't know when you'll break
but it's gonna be soon
If my will caves in, I'll be in the same
boat as you

I've got the salt skin
Running to where he is
Never going to get there
Even with the strength
He's stealing salt skin
Telling me I'm winning wars they created
just to understand...
"the meaning"

Hands on strings and my mouth open
Find the perfect words
that I've not spoken
And I won't tell the truth
unless you want me to
For all of the times that I lost my head
When it rolled to the floor
and I found it again
But when it came back
No, I didn't know my own name

I've got the salt skin
Running to where he is
Never going to get there
Even with the strength
He's stealing salt skin
Telling me I'm winning wars they created
just to understand...
"the meaning"

I've got the salt skin
Running to where he is
Never going to get there
Even with the strength
He's stealing salt skin
Telling me I'm winning wars they created
just to understand...

I've got the salt skin
Running to where he is
Never going to give in
Even with the strength
He's stealing salt skin
Telling me I'm winning wars they created
just to understand...
"the meaning" 

"Salt Skin" by Ellie Goulding

Star Gazing

Experiment with background and coloring.  I have so much to learn.

You Would Not Believe Your Eyes

For a long time I've had this vague idea for this race called the Sylphs for my fantasy story project.  I envision them as faerie-like, delicate, winged beings that are kind of the societal wild cards of their world.  As air-elementals, I thought it might be interesting if they were highly amorphous illusionists, and thus capable of generating their appearance according to their whims.  But where would I begin in designing characters that could look like whatever they wanted?

As an exercise and challenge for myself I created a thread on GaiaOnline a long while back soliciting for lists of images and text that I could draw from to see how the concept would play out.  Specifically, I asked contributors for five different images representing, in turn, a color scheme, a place, an object, a character and a calling (like a role or occupation).  I also asked for words of some kind.  These are the parameters/explanations I posted of each:

• For “color," use an image that shows colors you’d like me to emulate. This can be a picture of something from nature, a character with a cool color scheme, an article of clothing, a single crayon, or even just a blob of colors you scribbled up in MS Paint.
  
• “Place” needs to somehow show a setting. It can be an environment like a forest or desert, a building like a castle or a beach house, or something even more broad like a map with a certain region circled or highlighted. Remember, they don't have to be real places, so something like a snapshot from WoW or zOMG! will work just as well.
  
• The "Object" is probably the most versatile essence. For this, you'd just send me a picture of a thing. Something, anything. A weapon, a toy, an article of clothing, a piece of jewelry, something from nature, even living things like animals or plants. If the specific object you have in mind isn't the main feature of the image you use, make sure you circle or highlight it somehow so I know what you want.
  
• "Character" is pretty straightforward. You'd simply post an image of a person, real or fictional. These can range from photos of real people to movie/comic/anime/video game characters to personal OCs and avatars from anywhere. You can also use one of your other pets if you'd like your Sylph to emulate them. Keep in mind that the "character" you choose doesn't have to be human--anthros, fantasy characters, robots, animals, plants--anything that could be considered a character counts.
  
• "Calling" images should in some way depict a job, class, occupation, etc. Though Sylphs usually live only on the outer fringes of society and generally don't have to deal with such "mortal" things as figuring out how to put food on their plates, many will emulate some kind of lifestyle that will effect the way they look. "Callings" can be stereotypical fantasy classes like warriors, rogues, and clerics; more mainstream, "practical" roles like medics, farmers, or caretakers; mysterious occupations like hypnotists or tarot readers; or even something futuristic like a mecha pilot or a computer hacker!
  
• The essence of "words" is a little more vague, but the general idea is to provide a phrase that evokes an image or tone that you would like me to apply to the design of your sylph. This can be just one word like "windswept," or "hemlock," a small description like "wandering mourner" or "lake of fire," lyrics from a poem or song, or even a short excerpt from a story.

The combinations I found most interesting/appealing, I illustrated, working from a basic physique for all of them and personalizing them according to the influences of the pictures and words.

This is the first one I did, more than two years ago.  This one was for my sister LC, and since it was the first, it was the only one I had the patience to render tidily.   So many anatomy and rendering hiccups with this one. @_@  I also accidentally saved it too small.

(These are all hyperlinked, so if the links are broken I apologize.  Some of the images I haven't been able to find again.)
Color -  A blue and green feather
Place - A pond
Object - A music box
Character -  A surreal image of a woman walking through rain of fire
Calling - An Elven archer
Words - "Fireflies" by Owl City
"You would not believe your eyes
If ten million fireflies
Lit up the world as I fell asleep"

Then this project was shoved to the back burner for a long time and I only just recently finished the others that I liked.  These are much sketchier, but my grasp of anatomy improved drastically in the interim.

You can see the other four here:  
Let Them Dwell in Bliss
 Patines of Bright Gold
We Wear the Mask That Grins and Lies 
The Moon in the Well 

Let Them Dwell in Bliss

A continuation of the Sylph project.  This is for Ciannait Eilis.

Color - Green eye
Place - Otherworld
Object - Wand
Character - Green witch
Calling - Red mage
Words - "I have undertaken a labor, a labor out of love for the world and to comfort noble hearts: those that I hold dear, and the world to which my heart goes out. Not the common world do I mean, of those who (as I have heard) cannot bear grief and desire but to bathe in bliss. (May God then let them dwell in bliss!) Their world and manner of life my tale does not regard: its life and mine lie apart. Another world do I hold in mind, which bears together in one heart its bitter sweetness and its dear grief, its heart's delight and its pain of longing, dear life and sorrowful death, dear death and sorrowful life. In this world let me have my world, to be damned with it, or to be saved." ~ Gotthfried von Strassburg. (author of Tristan und Isolt)

Patines of Bright Gold

A continuation of the Sylph project. This is for Aki Ana:

Color - Purple and gold mask
Place - Eastern-styled mountain temple
Object - Spyglass
Character - Elderly anthropomorphic kudo man, dressed in robes
Calling - Explorer
Words -   “Look, how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings ...
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.”
-Shakespeare

We Wear the Mask that Grins and Lies

A continuation of the Sylph project.  This is for psychotic_Gal.

Color - Mermaid eye
Place - A narrow street in Normandy France
Object - Glass and wire pendant
Character - Model
Calling - Enchantress
Words - "We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties."
''We Wear the Mask'' Paul Laurence Dunbar

The Moon in the Well

A continuation of the Sylph project.  This is for rimedragona.

Color - Red moon
Place - Gypsum sand desert
Object - Turquoise necklace
Character - Clive from "Wild Arms"
Calling - Cowboy
Words - "yesterday's downpour —
the moon in the well
within reach"
Carla Sari

Brace for Impact

I'm so excited that I'm done with the art projects for AC that I decided I'd start another one because I am a glutton for punishment. OTL

I'm also posting the lineart because it turned out nice and tidy with the line-weighting.  AC, you're welcome to do what you like with it. :)

Princess Camilla of Zart

At the tender age of one, Princess Camilla of Zart had a run-in with an enchanted cauldron of plenty, resulting in six duplicates. Since there was no way to tell which was the original, the king and queen kept and raised all of the girls. Each was assigned a color and a new name to reduce confusion, and in time the seven girls each developed radically different personalities. All was well and good until the issue of succession came into play...

I was commissioned by AC to design each of the girls based on her suggestions.  These girls went through NUMEROUS revisions as I struggled to strike the balance between individuality (hair styles, poses, accessories, expressions) and consistency (face shape, proportions, dimensions), on top of differences in interpretation with AC, and--of course--my learning curve. I also experimented with several different drawing styles and compositions before settling on what you see here.

Without further ado

Royal Princess Holly. Her color is red and her motif is holly berries and leaves, which I incorporated into her diadem.  AC first described her as being the most 'normal' of the girls, which I interpreted as being the classic demeanor of a princess and (in my mind) likely the favorite for the throne.  Because I wanted to focus on her demure, regal air, she often came across looking a lot older than her sisters in her multiple revisions, like she might have been their mother rather than one of the brood, especially since her diadem was originally a crown. Letting down her hair helped significantly.

Timid Princess Dawn.  Her color is orange and her motif is a sun-in-glory, which I incorporated into her pendant. Dawn became cripplingly shy after an unfortunate experience with an impatient tutor. I had the opposite problem with Dawn as opposed to Holly--she ended up looking too young.  Dawn went through the most revisions of all the girls, but they were worth it.  This is my favorite piece of the set.

Frail Princess Saffron.  Her color is gold and her motif is a crocus, which I incorporated into her veil.  Princess Saffron is an attention monger and a drama queen. She spends most of her life feigning illness so that she can shirk her duties and have constant pampering. The trade-off is that she actually IS quite weak and delicate since she's always slugging abed.  She was one of my favorites to draw, and I think her design was one of the first that I was inspired for.  Originally she just had a cluster of crocuses in her hair, but AC asked for something else so I tried this.  Nothing says drama like a veil.  I didn't expect gold lineart to look very good, but it turned out surprisingly well, methinks.

 Feisty Princess Ivy.  Her color is green and her motif is an ivy vine, which I incorporated into her tiara. In my interpretation, she's a bit of a thug, but she always means well.  She's Dawn's self-appointed guard dog and can frequently be found in scuffles with their bully of a sister, Sky. I envision her to be the type to sneak out of the castle in disguise so that she can get some action in the kingdom's street fights (which are illegal, of course, but Ivy's not about to rat out her source of entertainment.)  I had a lot of trouble getting Ivy's pose right.  Still not sure if I nailed the anatomy, but I'm satisfied. Ivy was another of the earliest I had figured out design-wise.

Ardent Princess Sky.  Her color is blue and her motif is a stylized cirrus cloud, which I incorporated into her headband. My understanding of her when she was first described to me was that she was very careworn and nurturing, but somewhere along the process of her development she did a face-heel-turn and became a stuck-up, parsimonious snip, and I had to change the drawing of her accordingly.  Sky was my favorite (at least in terms of art) until I finished Dawn.  I still find her one of the most aesthetically pleasing of the group. I want her headband.

Tough Princess Eve.  Eve's color is indigo and her motif is a crescent moon, which I incorporated into her earring.  She's the strong, silent type.  I like what I've seen of her interactions with Holly, as the two apparently work as a pair--Holly is the ambassador, and Eve is the tactician, general, and bodyguard. Eve and I? We tight. She gave me the least problems when it came to design and art.  Once I got the angle of her face figured out, drawing her was a walk in the park; not like her brat sisters, sheesh.  I should draw myself giving her bro-knuckles or something because she's so chill, f'reals.

Apathetic Princess Violet.  Her color is purple and her motif is a violet flower, which she is wearing as an accessory in her hair.  While Ivy might have been sneaking out of the castle for street-fights, Violet was sneaking out for street drugs.  I don't know how she managed to get away with being stoned all the time, but evidently her parents and servants either didn't care or couldn't see past their own noses.  The angle on this one was tricky.

Ebony the Rogue. Her color is black and her motif is a stylized ebony branch, which I incorporated into her tattoo. Rumors have been circulating of an 8th Princess Camilla, kidnapped by a bandit just after the Cauldron incident. Wild and ferocious, the ebony-dyed highway robber is said to be amassing a band of rogues to take over the kingdom and claim her right to the throne as the true and original Princess Camilla...

Ebony was actually an accidental creation of mine, born when my first pic of Eve looked a little too femme fatale.  I came up with her story on the spot as a playful suggestion, and with my permission, AC took it and ran with it.  Ebony's concept has since changed drastically; In AC's canon incarnation, Ebony is Violet's street-walking alter ego, which I alluded to with Ebony's purple bandana.  Alas, I'm still kind of attached to the idea of a rogue 8th Camilla.

In the process of making these princesses, I played with a number of styles and ideas.  First they started off as 3/4 sketches, then I decided I wanted to try my hand at art nouveau, then I got the crazy idea to make each look like a stained glass window, as evidenced by my earlier WIP.   Unfortunately, I could NOT, for the life of me, figure out how to render the glass in a way that was neither too complicated nor cheap-looking.  As I stared at Photoshop in frustration for about the millionth time last night, I thought of a tutorial I'd seen somewhere to give sketches a soft, glowing finish, and I experimented with it on the lineart for the girls.  I probably overdid it on the gaussian blur, but I really like the effect. Coloring the lineart of each of the girls afforded a convenient way to incorporate their assigned colors whilst making for an effect I find visually appealing, and it's definitely a style I'll play with again. Here are the girls without flat colors. 

And here's a dump of some of the versions I did that are worth showing:

I still like these.  These are the first versions of Dawn, Ivy, and the Eve-imposter that inspired the creation of Ebony.  I decided against doing shots like these of all the princesses because I was intimidated by the difficulty of getting all of their proportions to match and designing/drawing clothes for all of them.  I had a hard enough time with just their faces and accessories.

I thought about posting all of the versions I went through of Dawn, but I decided I don't want to relive that nightmare. *deletes them all* DX

Fashion Meme

Sometime last year I started working on Zilleniose's Fashion Meme because Evie tagged me. I got really bored of drawing myself though (and I have no sense of fashion anyway) so I just stopped.  I'm posting what I did finish here just to get it off of my computer.  Most of the poses were referenced or straight-up traced and the coloring is slap-dash because I'm really lazy about this sort of thing.

If you're wondering what in the world is going on with my hair in the formal pic, this is what it looked like (I drew the fascinator on the wrong side >.>)

Here There Be Dragons

This is a pretty old sketch (maybe as early as 2004? - EDIT: 2007 ish) that I decided to finally finish today.  It was a GaiaOnline freebie for AC.  The character is a fantasy variation on the crazy old cat lady stock character; the crazy young dragon collector. :3  The blue dragon is my creation, and the jealous green baby is a Gwee from GaiaOnline.

Cartography brushes by StarRaven
The style of the blue dragon was heavily influenced by the work of Jessica Peffer - "NeonDragon"

Alchemy

I'm slowly sifting through the files I have sitting around on the aging comp and I found this.  I used it making an open source program called Alchemy.  I recall it being a little surreal to work with, but fresh and interesting. It kind of reminds me of those Rorschach inkblot tests, and I even considered using this as part of my personal logo/signature, but opted out.