Monday, February 25, 2013

I'm not obsessive, I'm just... focused.

It feels like that time where I should blog about a selection of recent art before the recent art reaches critical mass!

Finished this commission for Jackal. 10 hours in total, Paint Tool SAI per usual for my digital paintings. Really enjoyed working on this one.

I made a set of Magic: the Gathering themed avatars for myself and my boyfriend, and I wound up saving step-by-step work in progress files of the painting process to be all educational for some people on the internets. So I might as well walk through them in brief here, too! First I sketch, usually over the course of multiple layers. This sketch was two layers - a rough figuring it out layer and the above less rough "okay let's clarify what the firth is happening here" layer. Also since this particular piece was meant to be connecting icons/avatars, I visually divided the canvas in half by toning one side, in order to compose them both together and separately.

Then I slap down flat colors in a layer beneath the sketch. In SAI, I use the pen tool and the watercolor tool for this.

Next I map out the shadows and, in this case because magical hijinks are ensuing, the glowing using layer styles. I work on luminosity layers for highlights/glowing and multiply layers for shading. This is just a nice, quick way to define light sources and begin to pull overlapping color into them.

True painting begins. I tend to first attack my subjects with larger, textured brushes - "bristle" for fur, "xcross_arrow" for landscape and mechnical stuff, "fuzistatic" for certain cloths, and so forth. Or just a large, lower opacity watercolor brush.

Ta-da! Our fuzzy alter egos cosplaying as Jace Beleren and Chandra Nalaar complete. The remainder of painting involves smaller and smaller brush sizes and more particular brush strokes. The longer I work on a piece the more texture and detail I can work into it. Occasionally I attack the canvas with more overlay or luminosity layers to get a sense for blending larger areas of color, then compulsively paint over them some more.

 Anyway! More commissions. Here's a quick color a fellow ordered for his tentacle bird lady on Valentine's Day.

And an 11 hour painting of a chakat checking the oil dipstick on a truck. I am incidentally getting better at handling cars/trucks/spaceships, thanks to people commissioning them lately.

Also hey whoa sometimes I work in traditional media too. Not often because paints, palettes and drawing boards are less portable than simply working on my 12" tablet pc, but if someone asks I will gladly acquiesce them. This is acrylic and prismacolor pencil on 13"x10" matte board.

Cheeky D&D blink dog/gnoll pin up commission in progress. Acrylic on 16"x12" matte board.

Personal doodle, acrylic on bristol vellum.

Back to the digital world... today I hosted a for fun stream in which a friend of mine ran a Dresden Files trivia contest and I dished out art prizes to the winners. This is a 3 hour speedpaint for the first place winner; they requested Demonreach in the crystal caverns beneath the island.

This is a 2 hour speedpaint for the second place winner, of their DFRPG character Gilitine. Apparently I was destined to paint all the hooded/cloaked figures with no real faces today.

Lastly, speaking of the Dresden Files, I decided this is finished. Most intense heavy inking practice ever. I might poke it more later if I decide to put it in my portfolio proper.

Sleep beckons. Enjoy the arts, anyone who happens to view this blog!

4 comments:

  1. Great pictures Anya! I can tell you really are getting better and better!

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  2. I love seeing the in-progress pics leading to the final product. Those have always been intriguing to me.

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