Go, dog!

Here's something to get you in the spirit for Christmas time, and maybe even wish you all wonderful holidays in advance. :)

This was painted for our promo Christmas cards over at Artil Studio - I hope everyone who received one liked his or her postcard!
I went for a children's book style with this one, trying to avoid lines and using a watercolor base with colored pencils for the shading. I had so much fun painting this! The initial sketch was quite a challenge though, and underwent quite a few changes in composition and style until both I and Marc were satisfied with it.
I'd say the result turned out very cute, in the end!

And here's what I drew for the back of the postcard:

Over at our Facebook page you can see what the final postcards looked like all niecely printed.

So anyway, enjoy! ^^

Qilin process (1)

While I did the illustration for my aunt's wedding, I decided to take pictures of the process to show you a step by step of my watercolor paintings. In case anyone's interested. Maybe it's helpful to someone in one way or another. :)

First things first, here's the rough sketch for the illustration. There are a few things I tweaked digitally after scanning the piece, like the Qilin's legs, which were a little too long.

After the sketch looks good enough, I print it with very high contrast so I can trace it onto watercolor paper. I trace very lightly first, and rather roughly, and after that go over the whole thing again, defining and detailing everything.

Finished pencil artwork.

Before doing anything with the watercolors yet, I do a very rough color test digitally. That way when I'm actually mixing the watercolors, I can just pick the color on the digital color key and mix accordingly - otherwise it happens that my eyes deceive me, because colors are perceived differently depending on the other colors surrounding it. It usually looks quite differentl in the end anyway (you might notice the final painting is a lot more blue-ish), but at least it gives me a starting point.

Just like the base colors, a quick digital shading test, so I know more or less where the lighting will be and all that.

Okay, these are the steps I do before any actual watercoloring - next post will cover that, it's too much for a single post! =D


Process part 2
Finished piece

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.

Kim

This is a character I might use as the main character of a story some day. I've named her Kim for the time being. There's still a lot of things about this story that I have to work out, but I liked the sketch and thought I'd share it with you. :)
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Studies

I've been doing some studies these days in order to improve my skills.

I don't usually draw backgrounds just for fun (I do when I draw comics because I have to ^^" ), and I'm also not very good at digital color (I normally just do rather simple coloring with PS), so this was an exercise for both.
Here's the original stock photo I tried to copy: http://fallowpenstock.deviantart.com...gh-2-280868710

It took wayyy to long to be a study, but I'll gain speed with practice.
Oh, and I'd be grateful for any useful tips about improving PS coloring, I have little to no clue about technique!

There were these nice sunset colors out of the window, so I quickly pulled out my colored pencils and tried to get it down. It didn't turn out too great, but it might give you an idea.
Then I drew my cup of tea while I waited for it to cool down.

And this is my workplace. Yes, it's a mess right now. T'was fun to draw, but now my eyes are so strained I can't focus them properly. I guess I over-did it. XD

Mainly I'm trying to do some stuff without the pencil sketch underneath, to force myself to see properly what I want to draw, since I won't be able to erase it. My eyes are not too happy, but I suppose they'll get used to it.

And that's it for now! I want to try and make at least one study per week, even when I work. Let's see if I can keep up with it.

Tasmanian Devil studies

Okay, I don't usually upload rough sketches like these, but some friends on Facebook wanted to see them, so here they are.
The thing is, in my own comic project I want there to be a tasmanian devil character, so I need to practice to draw those little buggers.

The first one (top left) is basically copied from a photo, then there are those really quick sketches to get down the way the devils move, drawn while watching some Youtube videos. They're really meant to be very rough, it's just all about the movement.

Then I tried to break down their face into something easier to draw without reference (top right), a failed attempt to draw one without reference that looks more like a racoon (the one just below the copied one)... And then i started getting the hang of 'em a little more. The angry one at the bottom turned out quite nice, and both on the other paper are pretty good, too.
Understanding the tasmanian devil's skull (its jaws, precisely) was key here.

Since my tazzies always seem to look A LOT like Stitch (I swear it's not on purpose, they just turn out like that!), I tried the last one with visible pupils instead of all black eyes, but it doesn't really look right. It makes it look like a dog. Which it's not.

Anyway. Lots of text probably nobody will read. But if there's anyone interested in this kind of stuff and actually read it - thank you! ^^"


Related posts:

Kevin

Un bocetillo de nuestro perro Kevin. Tenía la foto por ahí en el ordenador, y lo dibujé como pequeño ejercicio. En fin, nada especial, pero me gusta. :)

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A sketch of our dog Kevin. I had the photo somewhere on my harddrive, and sketched it as a little exercise. So, nothing special, but I still like it. :)

Portada del tomo 2

Bueno, aquí veis la evolución de lo que será la portada del tomo 2 de Kairi. Siguiendo la idea inicial de hacer las portadas en serie en plan shooting de fotos (mismo escenario, misma gama de colores...), primero hice a Kairi sola en el mismo escenario de la primera portada, sólo que esta vez visto desde dentro.

Pero al editor no le convenció esta versión y me pidió que Kairi estuviera sonriendo y que pusiera a Shin. Bueno, esto cambia un poco la idea original, en la que las portadas no incluían a Shin, pero la verdad es que creo que así es mejor porque me da más juego. :)

Shin sí que está serio porque si no quedaba muy el plan foto de parejita feliz. XDD

Y eso. :)

Aún sé pintar, por lo que parece! :D

Por lo menos me gusta el resultado. :3 Bueno, los edificios a través de la ventana quedan un poco raros, pero no quería cargar con mucho detalle. ^^"

Enfin, tengo que seguir currando, que se supone que he de acabar el tomo 2 hasta el 15 de septiembre! Y me quedan unas 20 páginas, así que... a darse prisa! @0@

Una entrada para mantener vivo el blog

Eso, os subo unas cuantas páginas que tengo hasta ahora del capítulo 4, voy por la mitad más o menos. :)

Pero está claro que antes del 23, que es cuando me voy a Alemania hasta el 6 de enero, no terminaré el capítulo... quedará poco, espero, pero sí quedará algo.
Pero qué se le va a hacer, para Navidad me merezco unas vacaciones yo tambien. ;)

Y ahora antes hará que comprar y preparar regalos y hacer galletas! Para mí la época de adviento (el tiempo antes de Navidad ^.- ) no vale nada sin hacer galletas de navidad! :D
Creo que eso es algo muy alemán de mí... XD

Enfin, aquí están las páginas. ^^