Wagh!

For shaaaame! I have not updated since May! In my defense, some of my projects have been NDA or not-yet-published, can't post them for a bit. But still! I have been drawing! I promise. I have come forth from my freelance batcave to post my painting of Ser Barristan the Bold from Game of Thrones (awesome books + show!) that I did for funsies. Done all in photoshop, start to finish.



Doing this piece and a few others made me realize that I never really knew how to finish or polish anything for the longest time. He's definitely not 100% finished but it's a lot less messy than a lot of past digital stuff. I did 20 illustrations for a young adult fantasy novel this past month and a half, and I think soldiering through all that painting has helped me learn to render a little better.
Anyhow, for anyone who wants a little glimpse into the process for this guy, here's a breakdown of my four major increments:



Also, here's some stuff I was working on for a personal project, just developing the look of it a bit. I feel like my rendering has already gotten a bit less crappy since painting this guy 2-3 months ago, I was super terrified to break from completely lineart-based stuff. I'm so used to separating shapes with lineart and not value relationships.



Oh and also? Critiques from friends are the best! They will only make your art better. The best thing I learned at AAU was to always accept critique freely. You don't always have to follow it, but you never know when they'll suggest an improvement that you wish you'd thought of. :3
[edit] Whoops! I hope I don't sound like I'm fishing for critique/comment on that last part, hahah. I mean that the critiques I get voluntarily/arbitrarily from friends/peers/my boyfriend are always valuable, even if sometimes you're like, grumble grumble more work grumble grumble. I thought I'd give them a shout out. :)

Man with furry ears

I thought this guy was a nice stylistic departure from my normal stuff. The only part that stinks is that I can't seem to duplicate it at all on any other characters. Isn't that always how it goes? You get an awesome fluke drawing and then never reproduce it? :p Ah well, did it once, I can do it again! Right? :)
This guy was probably 5-10 hours sketch + colors, I think he might be the first completed painting I've done on my cintiq.

chars.28-30

Finishing out my Very Belated Month (year? D:) of Characters with these three celtic characters. Invented a little narrative in my head about a tribe of irish celts reacting to the spread of christianity, that's why there's a priesty guy. Might be fun to do something with these characters sometime! They were a few hours in photoshop each.

In other news, I've been trying out one of my coworkers' Cintiq lately, he's selling it, and I'm really leaning towards buying it. I thought it was one of those totally superfluous toys - I'm really not a fan of gadgets and phones and iWhatevers, but I can spend an entire evening working on the Cintiq and it doesn't bother my wrists, which have been acting up lately. Since my wrists are basically my career I think it's a good investment. Working on a Cintiq forces you to draw from the shoulder, and lately I've been able to do a lot more freelance work because there's no strain. I guess that makes me a believer! The one I'm using is an older model coming at a good price, I'd recommend folks check out gently used Cintiqs on ebay, you don't have to have the newest model to reap the benefits.

Char.027

Gehhh. Almost to 30! Here's a semi-finished guy I was working on. Supposed to be kind of a fancy villain, likes his fancy shoeses. Still messing with rendering, I'm not super fast at it. I've always done more linear/graphic stuff than rendering. First time for everything! Few hours in photoshop.

Char.026

Whoops! It's been like a month since posting. Busy busy busy! This guy's not really an original character but it's a take on King Midas that I was doofing around with at work last week. Few hours in p-shop.
Been trying to build up some freelance work/clients now that storyboarding is over. Been contributing some concepts to a neat iphone game project my friends are doing, feels good! Too bad I can't tell you about it. 8D

Char.025

The lady counterpart. More sure of herself. Her face and gesture didn't come out as independent/strong-willed as I was hoping, but the costume was fun. I don't like it as much as the last one. But she has nice gloveses. :B 3 hrs photoshop, approximately.

Char.024

Character 24. Sort of a revamped character from a steampunky western comic idea, extension from character 22. The idea is that he's a very educated doctor who ends up stuck on a frontier planet. I still can't decide whether i want to go a more linear route with my work, or stick to rendered/painted, but I'm happy with how this turned out. I think slapping a watercolor texture over the color adds some interest, and the pose was way fun to work out.

Char.023

Char 23. Flying valkyrie bird lady. I was inspired by some of the final fantasy tactics costume designs. I was actually looking at photo reference of a girl sleeping on a bed in this weird pose, and it looked like she was swimming or flying. :) Maybe 5 hours in photoshop.

Char.022

Character 22! This guy is kind of a firefly inspired space cowboy. I suppose he lives in some cold system that requires him to wear heavy furs, I drew them to add some interesting texture. He's a scruffy down-on-his-luck Han Solo type. :p Sketch took about 30 mins, scanned and spent about an hour laying some rough colors down.