Hitting the "will I ruin it by going on?" moment....

Here's the image in question where I earlier posted "The question is... I am coming to the point where my brain is loosing it's grip on the image (which I have been at for days), and I am starting to get worried about ruining it by keep going... but, but, BUT I can see some glaring mistakes... Should I go on? I need a cup of something to think about that...."

I feel like I have learned tons of this image so far, when it comes to light and colour. I managed to get some rather nice photos while the winter sun (that barely peeks up during winter here) was making the world pretty last week. So yes, I am my own model again, hehe.

I think I will indeed have a cup of rum and coffee now, paint something else, and look at it again tomorrow and fix the most glaring ones that hits me then, then leave it. :) 

Futuristic once-human oracle WIP

So, this time the CGHUB 2D Drawing Jam caught my attention, futuristic once-human oracle in a future with races/species close in looks to what we'd imagine demons and angels today.


Took the one to the upper right, worked some more on it, and then started detailing. Still mirroring, gonna step away from that at a later stage. Progress so far:

Did some thumbs to get me going, it was the one to the upper right I took, worked some more on it, and then started detailing.

And this is what ended up being the final in the last anatomicae:

Skeleton Dance work

The Anatomicae challenge right now is Skeleton Dance, and I wanted to have a go at it, since if there's one thing I really should do it's doing proper anatomy studies, I don't think I've ever actually sat down and drawn a full skeleton, just knowing how they basically work in a body without any  more than generic knowledge.

I got so stuck though, I couldn't manage to find a setting and environment to put them in, and they looked kind of alone there all by themselves. But since I really want to have a final to submit.... After giving it several tries, I ended up going against my usual realistic approach.

Here's the sketch work:

Speed Environments

I don't do all that much enviros, so I decided to do some speed ones. I thought I kind of should. :)

Enjoy. :)

Self Portrait Day 2012

So, Nov 1st is always Self Portrait Day. So I had to do one, just like most of my artsy friends. ;)

Anyways, when I woke up today, I didn't feel too great, but after coffee, tea with honey, shower, make up and whatever else I could find, I started to look somewhat human.

So here's the end result:

There's deception though. Because this is basically what I looked like this morning....:

Dad Wizard

So this one comes with a story.

The other day, our daughter sat and waved a wand around, pretending to do magic. I asked her if she was a wizard. Her answer? "Nope, I am dad."

So here he is, my husband. :)

Demon Daughter?

Well, I was setting out to make a demon. According to my husband she currently looks more like a daughter of Pan. :P

Still in progress. Changed the position of the ear a few times. The clothes have changed both in what kind of clothes they are and colour, so that's why it looks so disjointed there at the moment, can't bounce the light properly before I manage to settle on a colour. Also, I think I have been through three or four sets of horns, I think this is the best one so far, even though my plan was to have several small ones with ridges over her forehead. She looked too Klingon. :P

C&C welcome, of course. :)

Progress already!

Aaaand to show how much things can move forwards when you both get out of a drawing rot (not managing to do anything at all properly) AND getting good advice and a kick in the butt... :) (See last post in blog...)

All kinds of critic and comments will of course, as usual, be happily recieved. :)

Good news and a lesson!

Alright, the good news first! I won the llama challenge! With a ton of votes! Thank you everyone! I didn't really think I'd win a challenge here in any near future so that was a surprise alright! :D

So, for today, I don't have much to show you, BUT I have learned a lesson today!

Okay, here goes. I had an image in my head for the current 2D jam challenge (Hellhounds) but then I started to think about some stuff I've been trying to learn recently, like focal points. So I made this image, asking what looked best when it came to focal points:

Now, my initial idea was the top one, but I manage to confuse myself in the focal points thing, and when I thought about them, I did the second one. Just from looking at them, the second one seems better, does it not?

Then somebody "harassed" (said in the nicest possible way) me into making thumbnails. It has to be said that thumbnails and me hasn't come along too nicely. I have a tendency to over work them, because I want them to show that I am at least partially able to draw, you know? And also, I tend to either make a mash out of them all or just commit way too much into one of them (usually the first one...), and go from there. I go too early into detail, and I know it. But there's this way of doing things that's hard to unlearn, you know?

And then I made this thumbnail. It has to be said, it's a HUGE thing for me, as earlier I've used as much as 30 minutes to get a thumbnail right, but this time I used about 30 secs on each.

And I got feedback right away on that the flow on the first one was much better than on the second one because of how the bodies were placed/positioned. Even though it looked like the focal points on the first one was better on the second.

If you have any opinions on this, I'd love it, even though they might contradict what I have already gotten on feedback! :)

And as a bonus thingy since the other images weren't that worked into, this is what is going to be a magazine cover in Finland, I might add some details to it yet. :)
 

Llama photo study for Anatomicae - Finished

I never had the time to do the twist I was hoping for, but I did manage to put together the photo study - and I am pretty pleased with it. The main goal for the Anatomicae challenge over at  CGHUB this time was the fur, and I've never done fur like that. :)

More Llama!

Further progress on the Anatomicae piece.

I am hoping to get the time to make a twist to this so it's just not being a photo study, but we'll see if I have time. :)

At the moment you can clearly see that I have focused more on certain parts... like, you know.. the sweet behind... Haha!

Tree of Life, Magazine cover and Llamas....

Yeah, a bit of this and a bit of that today...

First off, joined the CGHUB 2D Drawing Jam that's currently in poll, the Tree of Life. Not one to draw a lot of trees, it was a nice challenge. I was a bit of a loss on what to do for it first, and just went with the flow - starting with the colours first, thinking about how my mother in law (Bronwynn) loves the autumn colours on trees. Came out nice, doing well in the poll. :)

Next up is what is going to become a magazine cover. This was one of the ideas that was not used for the Finnish book that came out earlier this year, now it's going on a Finnish magazine instead. Needs some more work, and I'd be happy to get input on it.

And also, here is a llama. I like llamas. It's CGHUB Anatomicae that has one going on llamas right now. So far it's basically a photostudy (which is allowed), started to play with ideas on how to make it a bit more interesting, but I think that might have to wait for a later post.. ;)

 

Click on images to make them bigger, if you want to take a closer looks. :)

Photostudy - Rain; How to deal with drawing my kid

This might be a lot to read compared to my earlier posts, but I kind of want to get this off my chest, and if I am lucky it might help others. Don't worry, there's an image at the end - you can skip the text if you want. ;)

Alright, first of all. I have a kid, she's currently three, and her name is Rain. From she was born, I have been trying to draw her, make studies and sketches - both because I wanted to capture the moments as well as getting better at drawing. I ran into a problem. I couldn't do it. First I just thought it was the hormones running utterly wild, as I would end up just staring at her with tears in my eyes being extremely happy and feeling all LOVE. As you might know, it's kind of hard to draw when your eyes are misty.

Then, as she got older, I would still get that silly "oh my goodness, is that perfect little person there actually my child", "I am the happiest person in the world" and "did I help her getting into this world?" moments whenever I sat down to study her- but I ran into another problem as well. I see her every day, I love her, I spend a lot of my time looking into her face and watching her run around... And I could NOT get sketches that I felt represented how she looks, how her face acts - in other words, I would not recognize her in my sketches, and I ended up being utterly disgusted by my tries.

When using other family members as reference I've never ran into this problem, usually because I haven't been trying to make portraits of them but rather used them as base for some kind of character in my mind. Which means whatever changes in the faces happen is just good, interesting and happy accidents. Actually, I am most of the time even TRYING to change features in their faces using several references to make up new persons.

So. When I started this picture, my main goal in this was to get down light and colours.. Then I decided to up the ante and do one of Rain, tackling two things at once. I had to tell myself several times, that this one I could use as much time on as I wanted - also, I could focus on main goal, trying to push the fact that it is my daughter a little back.

After a few tries on the face, I was starting to get utter disgusted with my incapability of rendering her likeness again, and I made a decision to paint over some rough lines of her face from the photo and then go from there. And suddenly I could go forward.  Some of you might this was cheating, but to be honestly, I could not care less. I am my own client on this image, I have not put any restraints on my freelance me, and in the end the important here was that I learned something about colour and light. And I did.

There was some great surprises during this one, like how dark colours her face actually had to have to make it right. And how light colours I needed to get the proper "edge" between the shadow and light areas. And I learned tons from it. And the most important part, this is the first picture I have done where I'm trying to portrait my kid and actually showing it to anyone. If a two minute rough paintover managed to help me do that, it was worth it, when I think about how many hours I've actually used on this one. (Yes, I am still very slow, and I know it.)

I hope you enjoy the picture, because I am very proud of it. Not only because I managed to nail some colours and light that was hard for me and that I managed to paint my kid, but also because I am showing off my little Rain. I think she is adorable. :) I might try to fix more on it later, but for now it is finished. :)

Maria - Singer

So, last week I went to a concert where Maria, a wonderful singer and former coworker, moved my heart - and made me awe a bit when it came to light and shadows. :)

After having some stress pouring out of from listening, I decided I wanted to try to capture some of the way that light changed everything on stage, in my own way.

And here's the result, not your usual Sorknes stuff. :)

Sentinel Shield for Anatomicae

I totally forgot posting the stuff I did for the current Anatomicae in CGHUB challenge here, ops! Pasting in the stuff I wrote about how I got the design idea, then just adding random images from the process... :P

Thought process: I wanted something organic. So I started with flowers and such. Didn't really work out, but I decided I like thistle as a possible thing on the coat of arms. Don't really wanna wade through a field of them. Checked them out here: http://www.fleurdelis.com/meanings.htm and it says "defiance and surliness". Workable.

Then I thought I might go to the animals kingdom instead for ideas, and the one animal I would never try to pass is rhinoceros. I have seen them in the wild, and I was totally awed by them. Checked out the same site, and it says "ferocious when aroused". Works.

So then I thought to try to use the rhino for the design instead of the coat of arms. Also thinking about vine for the coat of arms (in addition to thistle) since it says "Strong and lasting friendship; Peace and plenty; luck and strength" - it fits with the ideas in the back of my mind.

Did some random pencils, thought process: basically none. I just thought "sea" and went from there, but I knew I wanted something asymmetric since the ones I did earlier was symmetric.

Then I kept working on the rhino-thistle one.:)

Posted the final now. 

The Feijla

Getting to celebrate the last part of my birthday doing my favourite hobby, drawing. :) 

Here's another one that I made mainly from the ideas in my head with the alternative universe and all... One of The Feijla, a kind of cabal/ring of longer living humans/beings.

Again I have used one of my family members as a reference, my dear old grandpa, but it was a difficult reference to use, so I did a lot of weird things with it, heh.

Another Friday, The Umbrella

Seems like Friday evening and night is my big drawing nights.

Here's the effort of today:

The Paretji

I think I actually managed to hit something tonight, it's so nice when you feel like you're not just running the same old hamster wheel.

The ones that happens to know how my father looks like will of course at once recognize one of the refs, as he has a magnificent beard. Nobody but his grandkids is allowed to put anything in it though. ;)

I made this as one of the characters in my never ending stories in my head, The Paretji, a kind of governor priest. Yeah, I have a full alternative universe in my head, I wish I was an author. ;) 

Also, I was reminded this week by people that I hadn't put the images of the book that I got in the post after I made the cover art! So here's the images of the book, and no, I did not put marker in the book to point out my name, that red smiley face is all photoshop. ;)
Kind of sad that the photo is so bad, I'll have to get a better one later, I was so amazed when seeing the cover - it looks ten times better in print than it does on my monitor!

Random sketches

This is the one I did tonight... It started out as a photoref to learn facial features, then I had a couple of beers, went nuts on the hair (photoref had really short), then on the face, then I added some butterflies and stuff.. Yeah.

These two I did earlier just for fun...

And now...

... for something totally different! Hehe!

Final Light Bringer/ Morning Star

Here it is, the final version, deadline has arrived. :)

Started on Light Bringer/ Morning Star

Yes, with Light Bringer/ Morning Star, I mean Lucifer, hehe. Not the Satan version. 

Hopefully I'll manage to get this one done before deadline. I was going for the Light Bringer/ Morning Star version, I've asked if that's ok brief wise, and waiting for the answer.

At one point he started to look like Gandalf the Grey instead, and then I was gonna whiten him up - which just turned into Gandalf the White... So I'm now going for a dark version where he has icon light around him. :)

Finished Grim Reaper

So, this is the Grim Reaper all done unless someone sees any glaring mistakes I've made, deadline in 12 hours or so. :)

You can click the image for a lager version. 

More Grim Reaper/ Death

Still working on it. :)

Have some trouble with the arms, but since my model is like 4-5 hours away, I have to figure them out on my own, hehe. I think I might've found a background that will work though, problem now being that I have to make it fit with the rest of the image, as I drew the character in another background and you can clearly see the split between the two...

Grim Reaper - Work in progress

Doing this for the 2D Drawing Jam at CGHUB, at least that's why I started it. :)

I started with a background, but I have reworked and deleted that like five times now, so it still looks a bit weird. Been trough a couple of designs on the scythe as well, I think I might go with one with runes, haven't decided yet on that... Basing it slightly on the Hellenic version of death, Thanatos, often depicted as a young man instead of a skeleton.

My brother volunteered as a model. :) 

I have no idea what I am doing...

.... but it sure has a lot of make up.

Final for this one

Righto, I've ran out of time to do anything more on it, so this is how it's going into the poll.