I need to do more traditional pieces

I started to hate what I was doing, then turned a corner when I moved from nib and ink to black rollerball gel pen.

Quick pic

Inkery Part Deux

More ink done, pleased with some areas and not so pleased with others. Need to pop some areas out with some white acrylic but that'll be a finishing touch job. Getting it done faster than I though, which is nice.

Inkery

Started inking and I love how the trees turned out, there is a big booboo in the lower middle section but i'll fix that with something. Annoyingly it's almost dead centre and about 1/3 of the way up. ARG!

Early start

Did a bit more this morning, gonna fade the lines then clean it up and hopefully start inking tonight.

Got bits to do for other stuff plus my job (my voice still isn't back but meh).

Shh it's a secret!

Mum and Dad's Christmas present shh!

50x50cm again, this time in ink!

Can I do it in 4 days AND working at my other job? Here's trying!

Here he is!

Complete and I am so proud of this piece. Hope Carma, and her uncle, love him :)

Getting close to completion!

This'll be done tonight definitely!

Commish and poorly

Ugh, my throat is hellish. I can't speak and when I try to I sound like a cross between Watto and Marge Simpson.

Inbetween sleeping i've been working on the commission for short periods, my head is thumping so can't concentrate for too long. Here's today's efforts.

Commish Part 2

I can hardly speak, had a long day at work and had a good stab at the commission tonight. Hope I get my voice back tomorrow, even just a bit.

Commish

Working on a portrait of a dog for someone at work. Eventhough I feel like hell I am still up and working on it, with an early start tomorrow.

Here is tonight's progess!

(Yes I do know I jump around the image quite a lot, it's how I roll)

Fire Dragon Complete!

This took ages, but the result is amazing. Sea Dragon however is still my fav, but working with reds, yellows and oranges for me was a challenge but I am really pleased with the finished piece!

Nearly there!

Ugh this is one epic dragon! Not getting long stretches to work on it is really affecting my productivity!

It's getting there now, just got a few tweaks to do; the horns, Bob's arm, a bit of shield heating up from below, the rock on the bottom right hand corner then SHAZAM! done :)

This is getting finished tomorrow if it kills me

...and it probably will since i'll be at work for most of the afternoon and evening.

There are some things I love about this painting, some things I like and some things that i'm not sure about.

Bob (shield dude) has a good pose and he will be what shall be rather challenging with 2+ lightsources and a cast shadow from Bernie (the dragon).

Maybe i've just got 'i've been staring at this too long' syndrome. I don't think it sucks by any stretch but some things need work. The addition of the blue into Bernie's mouth fire was a good move, will try and get more accents of blue in, especially from the flame hitting the shield.

Think for painting Bob i'll switch the dragon layers off (don't worry it's not my normal epic layering; just the body, the head and I think a little caustics).

Crits welcomed, if not encouraged :D

Why do I have this fascination with really dark images, with soft lighting in square comps lately?

It's very hot in here!

Mr Burny Dragon is going very well, turned a corner with this. Decided to update me blog now since i'm on a late un at me other job tonight.

Will hopefully get a lot of this done when I get home, but prob won't get onto the PC til 10pm, then tomorrow i'm not in work so i'll tackle that tree dragon. Would be nice to get those two done by the weekend - might be pushing it. But as Master Yoda says "Do or do not, there is no try."

What?! This isn't what you were working on?!

correct! ...it's a tree dragon!

It's been sitting there on my hard drive waiting for tweaks and just thought - post it.

Any crits welcome, it's not my fav one and any tips on painting foliage would be greatly appreciated. :)

Going to work on more details, can't believe I posted something so unfinished #epicfacepalm

Well that was a waste of time

Windows 7 and I have gone our seperate ways, nevermind we'll always have Paris.

Back on Vista64 and updating teh drivers and whatnot. It's a pain but less of a pain than 7 was. Some people have had great experiences with it but it just didn't work out for me. Alas. I could have reformatted with 7 but then with no guarantee it'd be ok the 2nd time I thought reverting would be a better option; so far so good!

Anyhoo I am now covered in glitter threading baubels onto strings while pressing next> next> finish> restart> install> etc... with work tomorrow.

Nevermind, there is always tomorrow evening when the bloke is out at his Christmas doo (without me! sniffsniff)

I'll catch you tomorrow night, hopefully a happier gal :)

Post Number 30!

Been working on the fire dragon today. Happy with the background and the dragon's head is getting there. Will have to look at some ref of the Balrog to see how i'm going to handle this. Only realised it looked a bit Balroggy after about 2hrs. Nevermind, it'll be cooler though!

FRAMED

In a good way ;)

Epic cat is complete

Now from the drawing board to the ironing board!

epic cat is epic

...and almost complete! Need to do a bit of work on the ear and the muzzle, add a few whiskers, trim it down and frame :)

This is going well!

Sat in my pjs and dressing gown working on this for the last couple of hours listening to Alanis Morrisette, Queen and Radiohead (I am SO 90s!)

Will definitely have his furry fizzog finished by the end of the day :)

Oliver... more of

Well I wasn't really tired so I pushed on. 1.34am on a Saturday night/Sunday morning, I am teh hardcore!

FIRE! Doo doo doo!

After a faux pas with a candle and a blanket I managed to get a bit done on the portrait of Oliver.

Want to spend the whole day on it tomorrow.

EPIC CAT

Something drove me to do a huge drawing of my sister's cat for her Christmas, and Han if your reading this now; congratulations you ruined the surprise!

Got further than I thought I would today considering work, fun working on a huge traditional piece (50x50cm)

Thanks to Andy Hep for the tip off about the good art shop on the Bridges :)

Progress shots so far :) I have work tomorrow so although I would like to work on it for hours i'd better get some shuteye!

...if these phone drivers ever install...

Drawing, or lack thereof.

This week has not been good (in a drawing sense).

I haven't done any artwork since Saturday, a fact which has annoyed me quite a lot.

Had an uber tech prob with my pc, windows7 and wacom compatability which meant most of Sunday and all of Monday was spent backing up, formatting, reinstalling and messing about with wacom drivers.

Tuesday I was working and due to inlaws staying I was mostly tidying and crashing after a hard day and little sleep.

Yesterday was Andrew's brother's Graduation, congrats Robin for getting your Batchelors in Software Engineering. His folks and half brother and girlfriend were down and a good time was had by all. Shame for Andrew who had to go to work this morning (haha).

So now my day is free and I will be popping down to the art shop for some bits for my sister's christmas present; portrait of Oliver (aka Snoogles/little shit) her 14lb blue-point ragdoll cat.

It'll be a lot of work but not done a big traditional piece in a long time so really looking forward to it!

Technical difficulties

Due to some unforseen technical difficulties I will be unable to update my sketchblog or indeed do any work on my PC for the next day or so. Nothing to panic about, just some software issues, should be resolved by an upgrade tomorrow.

...or so I thought

Well, after looking forward to getting stuck I was immediately taken down a peg or two. Was painting away thinking "this looks great!", had a break, went back to it and just felt woe.

So, no update today cause it just sucked. Going to spend the weekend on the fire dragon again, redrawing and colouring.

Think a big problem for me is line art, my lines are always really hairy and it takes me forever to get it clean. I know it is worth doing, and anyone with any tips would be greatly appreciated. I do have a lightbox and that helps with cleaning up but still...

A weekend of drawing lies ahead of me, which is no bad thing.

If at first you don't succeed...

take a break, get a coffee, start again, read a few mags on the subject and persevere.

The sky sucked on the sky dragon, the sky just looked totally wrong. It was too nice, too serene. Right now it looks so badass and it's going to look so incredible with a semi translucent electrified dragon.

It's good, I'm happy. Gonna be so happy working on it tomorrow.

YEAH!!! EPIC WIN!

Finally I am getting somewhere!

Right, decided my method henceforth shall be; lines: traditional; colour: digital.

Cracked out the lightbox that Andrew built for me for Valentine's day a few years ago back at uni (aww) and worked over some mad comp lines.

This proves that eventhough I feel like crap I can still get stuff done so frankly there are no excuses!

Feeling confident again, which is nice!