Weekly (whatever) study: Horse

 Horse study I did yesterday, made with Copic markers and based on this photo.

I had never done something like this before, so I'm quite proud of the result. Done directly with markers, no pencil sketch whatsoever. I do enjoy painting so much more with traditional medium than digitally. ^^"

Btw, today's my birthday! Yaaay! =D

New project: Artil studio

I don't know if "project" is the right word for this, but anyway: Marc Rueda and I are starting a new website / studio together! =D
It's still in the making, but you can already check it out, if you want:

We'll see how it goes, but we've already made some new contacts with whom we hope work will arise at one time or another. :)

Northern Hunter

No weekly study this time. ;)
Instead I participated at the weekly character design challenge over at ConceptArt.org, which got me inspired to do something out of my comfort zone, and now I have a very different drawing to add to my portfolio.

The guidelines were:

"Northern Hunter
Design a hunter character from the frozen North of a fantasy world.

• Can be any gender
• Must be fantasy
• Must be dressed appropriately for their job and to survive the conditions.
• Will use weapons they can easily fix/create ammo for (Guns are allowed, but think about how they might make more bullets)
• They have to fight off other predators as well as taking down their prey so it is likely that they will carry scars and battle wounds."

So here's my character sheet and the final illustration, as well as a couple of WIPs. With the final painting I tried to go for something a bit rougher than my usual watercolors, I think it fits the piece better. Hope you like it!

Weekly Study: Backgrounds (3) and turtles

More studies. The first one is from a view overlooking the town we live now, not very accurate, but anyway.

And then there are some turtle sketches, because my turtles, Lilo and Stitch, have been living with me for a couple of weeks now, and they're fun to draw. And yes, one of them (that would be Stitch) has a dented shell, she's been like that since she was a baby.

Weekly Study: Speedpainting (1)

Yeah right, "speed" painting. This took probably about 3 hours. But I have very little practice in painting with Photoshop, so I guess that's an excuse. I hope I'll get faster over time.

But this was also a very challenging piece. Lots of different things and complex lighting (which is why I found the reference photo interesting in the first place) with reflected light and whatnot. I love how it turned out, considering I'm so unexperienced with this kind of painting.
The reference photo was my own, taken a couple of weeks ago in our living room. :)

This tutorial on DeviantArt was a big help, especially the tip about not zooming in onto the picture while you paint. Okay, I did zoom in at the end of the process for a couple of things, but all in all I painted on a very small thumbnail.
Oh, and I finally discovered a PS brush I really like. It looks kinda like pastel chalk, or something like that. Really sweet.


PD: Yup, I know I didn't upload my "weekly study" last week. I did make some sketches, which I'll upload next time, but I've been too lazy to scan them. :P