Latest Digital Portrait

Some practice in Photoshop since it has been a while

Watercolor sketchbook

I've been staring at my empty watercolor sketchbook for a while, and I finally decided to fill it up. There wasn't really a theme, just drew whatever I felt and got some practice with watercolors.

Gift for Uncle

Here's a drawing that I did for my uncle who is the inspiration for a lot of my nerdy/geeky loves since childhood.

Sketch Covers I recently sold

Scarlet Witch Pin-up

Self portrait

A gift for a little friend

Illustration for work

For work

Drow Cosplay

So I know this isn't completely art related, but I thought I would share a little bit of what I've been up to. Since I've finally had some time on my hands I decided to work harder at my cosplay. For my latest costume I wanted to dress up as a drow. I've been especially inspired by the fantasy books that I read back in high school, specifically the books that featured Drizzt Do'urden.

I made my armor pieces using craft foam that I rubbed with shoe polish and then painted with varnish.

 

The piece I'm most proud of is my scimitar. I hadn't really made any kind of weapon before so this was a complete experiment. Which thankfully turned out pretty nice. I started with cardboard cutouts, then covered them with paper-mache, and finally paper clay to make the entire thing a little smoother. The paper clay added a bit of heft, and let's just say my forearm got quite the work out at ECCC and Fan Expo. I also used fabric paint to create the raised spiders on each side of the scimitar.

And the final result put together

Me and my wood elf companion.

Photo by cbc4c.org

Another of my kind

Winter is coming

Just to make my Game of Thrones booze a little more fun I designed these labels :)

Valentines Day

A Valentines Gift to my wonderful husband <3

Born on a Monday

This is a T-shirt I designed for my husband, Joseph. We found out a while back that he was born on a Monday. Same as Solomon Grundy ;)

What I've been up to lately

So in October I got job. Yay! I've been working for a bingo games manufacturer designing graphics for their print games. Below are just a few of the graphics I've gotten to create.

 

Below are some graphics and illustrations I've created for friends recently

 

A gift for my grandma :)

Mermaid

Portrait study

A small thank you

A thank you gif I recently created ^_^

Just for Fun

Joseph (my husband) and I in 8-bit

Pepper

So for fun (and for a chance to do work for myself) I joined in on a sketch challenge recently. The topic was Iron Man, so I decided that I would draw Pepper Pots in her own suit.

I was recently asked about some of my steps, so I thought that with this illustration I would take better note of how I come to the finished product. Mind you I'm no expert and I'm still experimenting, learning, and basically trying to find the best methods.

So for my first step I usually look at other artists to get inspired, not hard to do since I do that almost always. Then I try on my own to doodle and come up with some poses and ideas. Then to improve on those rough sketches I look at references. Below are some really rough sketches, and some of the references that I looked at. As you can see I ended up combining two poses.

 

 

stock image credits: shutterstock.com, faestock.deviantart.com

For the next step I took my final pose and started drawing over it just to get some better lines to work with. I also started focusing more on the characters face, I also decided early own that I wanted Pepper to look like her movie character played by Gweneth Paltrow. 

 

After a while of drawing I decided that Pepper looked annoyingly stiff, so I pushed her upper body forward a little.

Then always referring back to more reference, I keep drawing. (I also try to take breaks where I step away from the computer and the drawing. After a while of staring at the same drawing I tend not to see my mistakes anymore).

Next I take my cleaned up lines and put them to the top most layer, turn down the opacity, and turn the layer to multiply. Under that layer I start filling in the parts with color, and trying to make sure I keep all the parts separate, for example a different layer for the head, body, hair, etc.

Next I just start working out the details in different areas. In no particular order, just wherever I feel like focusing on. In this instance I started with the face and hair. I just keep going adding more detail as I go along, and always trying to keep everything on its own layer.

Finally, I try to polish the illustration and make adjustments where needed. I adjust things like the hue and saturation, the curves, add an unsharp mask, and use the liquify tool to fix or distort where needed—then PRESTO, it's done.