If you follow this blog, you’ve probably figured out that I enjoy imaginary animals. Particularly those of the ‘stitched together’ variety.

But you may never have heard of this one: A lamassu (or alad, or shedu or aladlammu) is a guardian deity from the area we now call Iraq. Different cultures depict them with slightly different iconography and with slightly different purpose, but perhaps the best known version is the one of the Assyrians, who put huge carvings of them at the entrances of their cities.

It is a silly little picture that takes itself entirely too seriously, but I was so pleased with the wings and background that I thought it was worth sharing. Unfortunately I couldn’t manage to get the head/neck attachment right. I think if the beard were not a requirement I could work something out with the primary muscles of the neck, but with them obscured there’s just not much I can do about it.

I’ve already done two color studies of this character, but while Sylvannas in her Undead Queen persona turned out really well, the younger Ranger General Sylvannas was, um, bad. (For one thing, I misread my reference picture and made her hair blue. In my defense I was playing a blue-haired elf at the time, so it didn’t seem weird at all.) So when I needed a subject for my adventures in painting faster and with less useless detail, I thought I might give her another chance.

Continue reading →

Zeetha!

I’ve mentioned Girl Genius before, so I’ll just point in that direction and say read it. Zeetha is an awesome character but while I like her, I’m not totally invested in her, which is probably why I felt comfortable taking her quite tight character design and flubbing it as part of my learning process.

This is the ‘go faster and be looser’ part of that process. Again. The process is a cyclical sort of thing. On the bright side, there has been some clear progress. This one took about three hours total, and there were no outlines at any point in the coloring process.

Now, I implied there was news.  I’ve been spreading my branchy little dendrites over the internet.

Ever wanted to buy any of my drawings? I am now a member of a little artist’s association called Paper Ribbons, where you can buy both already made pieces and commission things based on a style choice and a short statement. Paper Ribbons is aiming to make art buying make a little more accessible. Pricing is based on size, so it takes some of the uncertainty out of trying to assess artistic value. (They make it my job, rather than yours.) My Paper Ribbons page.

If you’re more into my jewelry, I also now have a facebook page. Mostly because two people in one week gasped in horror when they wanted to ‘friend’ me and found out that I didn’t have one of those buttons. (They don’t actually issue them at birth. Surprisingly.)

And there’s always my etsy, which has been updating lately. Which reminds me, I’ve got some new pieces I need to take pictures of. Boo pictures. Hooray updates!

Nope, doesn’t have the same ring. Ah well. Have some fall leaves anyway.

Source photo taken long ago and far away by Thomas Mayfield.

D’aw. Baby space turtle.

This young A’tuin sponsored by personal new beginnings. I won’t bore you with the details, (the specifics of other people’s revelations are rarely as fascinating as they seem to the person experiencing them) but I felt like celebrating/sharing with you anyway.

If you have no idea why there is a sea turtle with elephants on its back balancing what appears to be a platter of world-pie on their heads or why the whole shebang seems to be in outer space… Honestly I’m a bit surprised you read my blog. Everyone has a different opinion which book to start with the in the Diskworld Series, but this would probably be a good place to begin.

Welcome to the final Other Guy! (Other Guys? Others? Hell with it.)

I was really, really looking forward to this one, and not just because it’s the last. A color palette I like, a species I like (with spots!) and I get to play with glow-y effects? Oh hell yeah.

The water doesn’t so much look like water, but there’s a limit to what you can do when it’s supposed to look flat, muddy, and purple. The little green mushrooms could use more definition (aka darker shadows… again. I swear, I’ll learn one of these days.) and the balloon-tree thingies in the far background have neither treelike or ballonlike qualities. I am however happy with the misty effect. Given that the balloon-trees came out a bit weak, I sort of wish I’d made the mist more impenetrable.

But this is one of those times where the figure came out much better than the background. I gave him deep enough shadows, the skin color variation all makes sense, and his little whiskers are pretty freaking adorable. I had to re-do his toes and hands about three times. They aren’t great, but they don’t stand out as bad anymore, which I’ll take.

And I’m happy to report that on the very last illustration in this series I grokked a new technique. I can reliably make things glow. Now all I have to do is resist the urge to come up with excuses to use my new skill for no reason.

…

Radioactive special! All commissions with a glowing element 10% off!

Now then, were where we?

Ah yes. Quillboar.

I tried something a little different here to try to save myself time on the background, and pretty much robo-failed. It took longer than it would have to just draw it from scratch, and it wound up looking like I ran a simple filter over a screenshot. Dammit.

Strangely enough, the thing I was most worried about turned out just fine. I’m talking about the quills of course. With simple color change along the length of the quill I was able to take care of the ‘depth’ problem without spending lots of time drawing the shade and shadows of each individual spike.

And once again my subtlety rises up to bite me. The difference between the well-lit portions and the dark bits on the figures is about half what it should be. The shadows just aren’t deep enough. I could justify it by saying they’re in a poorly lit space, but in the interest of learning I really shouldn’t. Justifying after the fact is not the same as doing it on purpose in the first place.

Sorry for the radio silence everyone, but I have a totally legit excuse: I moved!

And not just a little move, oh no. This was one of them ‘buy an air mattress because the truck with your stuff on it may not get there for a week’ kind of moves. So I am now officially in the Boston area. I’ve been told means I need to start caring about sports teams. Or at least learn to say ‘Bruins’ in a heavy tone and slowly shake my head at appropriate intervals.

But that shit’s not why you come here! I hear you clamoring for your pretties, even through the intertubes.

Holy Backgrounds Batman!

I may have gotten a little carried away here. I was worried about the background being the weakest part of the drawing, so I did it first. By the time I was doing finishing touches on the Furbolg I was to the ‘stinky thing go away’ stage, and neglected the details a bit.

The cobblestones turned out way better than expected, with minimum pain. I used the stained glass filter on my roughly colored path to chop it into ‘stones’, and then squished it to add perspective and a bulge in the middle, as cobblestone seems to do that over time. Then I colored highlights and shadows on individual stones, using the filtered copy layer as a guide. Then I deleted the filter layer, leaving only my highlights and shadows layer and the rough background underneath. BAM.

I’m also pleased with the mushroom clusters, they provide a lot of the feeling of undergrowth without a lot of time investment. (I’ll admit to a little copy/paste/flip horizontal/scale) Plus the glowing spots did pretty much exactly what I wanted them to.

I like the fuzzyness on the Furbolg, but some of my color choices are a bit wonky. His skin tone is too yellow, and the teeth-jewelry looks plastic rather than weathered. I also like how I made the band of his loincloth disappear under his fur, even if I forgot to extend the effect around his belly which leaves that part looking strangely flat.

It’s one of those ‘this part’s good, but it’s not good enough to overcome that part, which is BAD’ kind of pictures. It’s a learning experience. *twitch*

Despite them being, well, nasty little creatures, I enjoy Kobolds. They have simple priorities, and all the little things about their character design are consistent with the singleminded pursuit of those priorities. The backpack for holding various shiny objects they might find, (which is overfull, don’t want to spend time going back to the surface until you just can’t carry any more) badly patched clothes, the barely functional pickaxe, and the candle on the head, necessary for underground work when you can’t possibly occupy a hand (vital for grabbing loot) with carrying a torch.

As usual, I started with the figure. But I ran into a problem when I tried to make a background. I tried several different mineshaft settings, but nothing seemed to really be working. I wanted it to be dim, both because pre-industrial mines are dim, and also to keep the figure at the forefront. But then I tried to put normal shadows on the figure, and everything started to look very confused.

As usual, the solution is simplicity. Murder your darlings. (Of couse, as you may have noticed, in explaining this principle I managed to show you the full, unshadowed figure anyway.)

I’m also trying to figure out how glowing works. I’ve got a good handle on coloring with a directional lightsource, but the flame itself looks…solid. It would be fine if it were a lantern, but it’s a shame that one of the natural focal points of the drawing came out a little awkward.

Harpies. Why did it have to be harpies.

World of Warcraft harpies are considered humanoids, (meaning you can’t skin them for profit. A comforting definition, no?) but otherwise they seem to be only marginally above animals: they lay eggs in nests, don’t keep houses as such, and don’t talk. And yet they wear metal bikinis. The resolution of this is left as an exercise for the reader.

I really, really like how this came out. Conceptually I was worried about the feathers, as detail work has a tendency to trip me up. But I managed not to focus too much on edges while giving a good amount of color variation. The placement of the feathers on the wing is only loosely related to reality, but I’m okay with that.

And this is a big step up in the background department. I wasn’t sure how to integrate a character study with a full background, (and if I’m honest, I wasn’t totally sure I could do a full background) so I simplified matters by using a limited and out of focus background with a border.

And yes, I’m doing the orange/blue thing. So sue me, but goddamn it, that contrast works.