Rosy Quartz and Jade

Trying more still life and realism. I'm gonna aim for one a day, though I think this one took me 2 hours today... so I don't know if they'll all look this good depending on how much time I have.

Zan WIP

Progress shot of the head of Zan. It's going to be a full body drawing once I'm done, but holy crap spending so much time on trying out new things and details...

Showing my work...

Just posting a progress shot of my latest Damien piece. If you can't zoom enough, just check the image at the link here

Random Practice

random practice and stuff. Trying to do still life and then do some hard surface stuff. GEEZ it's been a while since I painted something right in front of me XD TOMATO.

Damien WIP Progress

Still avoiding that last burst of studying for the night until I became remotely satisfied with this one... here's my update, hope you like it, enjoy!

after finals, I will definitely look into the secret to painting waves... Hm...

Damien WIP

I'm smack dab in the middle of finals right now with my brain oozing out of my ears, so stylus hit tablet and my sanity was regained. This idea came while listening to Davy Jones by Hans Zimmer super fun. I think it looks pretty cool so far for being a work in progress, and probably once more bit off more than I can chew with the water. But I'm still trying new things, trying to find a style for sure that works for me and that can grow to better realism as I learn.

With this one, I think I need to step back now at the point I'm at. I want to put in some darker values so Damien stands out more, and I'm really going to have to find some good reference pics so I can get the edge of that water looking moderately realistic!

Critiques desired!

Digi Practice: Pierce

Just needed to unwind a bit today so here's a quick piece of Pierce, the pyrolk

NANOWRIMO CHALLENGE: COMPLETED

OOFTA. WOWZA. SKADOOSH. Today is the last day of November, and I have just completed the National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO) 50,000 words in a month challenge, ending at 50,159 words! I've been writing that mysterious story I keep talking about. I had optimistically and unrealistically hoped that 50000 words would cover the entire first draft of Book 1, but unfortunately it's about half, if not less. So I still have a LONGGG way to go before I even finish the crappy rough first draft. UGH. Oh well I'm still super proud of myself, because I conquered a lot of hurdles I normally experience about writing, like judging it and overthinking what to write. This challenge made me just sit down and pound it out, and though sometimes it was like pounding out teeth, other times I stumbled onto great ideas for new scenes and character developments. GO ME. I'm thinking about taking a break from writing, though. I feel like I've suffocated the project from obligation as well as enthusiasm, so I'll give it a breather. It'd be a good time for me to get back to drawing and reading like a normal person. Well, I say normal...

Anyway! Thanks to anyone who encouraged me to bang this out! I'll probably do my own nanowrimo in another month to bang out the rest of the first book. THIS THING NEEDS TO COME OUT ALREADY. However, I'm in no hurry to pass it around for advice/critique yet. I don't think I'm ready to pounce on the editing phase. But whatever. All I'm trying to say is I'm awesome and I completed the NANOWRIMO challenge!

(congrats to anyone out there who also did, or completed the no-shave november challenge. Way to go)

Damien and Pierce WIP update

Just an update on this practice piece. As usual, any advice is welcome.

Pierce and Damien WIP

Digital WIP practicing some good ol photoshop. Scene from my story with Damien and Pierce. Damien's holding water daggers and Pierce has sort of fire in his fist. I'll be trying to make that more clear :) Background will come later, too.
....Can anyone help me draw hair?

Two Posts in One Day? Surely Not...

BUT IT'S TRUE. 'Cause I hit a hardcore drawing mood! So here's one of my friends by request as a waterbender. Sketched, then totally edited/drawn in photoshop :) I forgot how smooth a wacom stylus on a proper tablet is!

NOVEMBER!?

Ok, so most of October (meaning, all of it) was spent working on my bomb-diggity costume, a Pathfinder barbarian. It's not to the level of completion that I want it to be, but it still turned out pretty cool. The armor, most of all, was amazing.. I'll post pics of my boyfriend's and my armor here, too, just so you can see what I was doing instead of drawing @__@


AAAAAAND now it's NOVEMBER!!! So instead of costuming, I should have all the time in the world now right? HAHAWRONG, because November is NANOWRIMO, NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth!!! Remember that story I keep mentioning? Yeah, well it's time to get my butt in gear and whip out that first draft (though not out of my butt.. hopefully). I'm definitely trying to balance writing, drawing, school, and relationships, but bear with me I promise I'll post more artistic progress. Still uncomfortable about posting my writing though in the off-chance/likeliness that it'll get stolen. Anywho! Here's some of what I've done lately :)








MY ARMOR, in progress


MY ARMOR, done!

JUSTIN'S ARMOR (top, front)

JUSTIN'S ARMOR (top, back)

JUSTIN'S ARMOR, everything else

Here... Have A Sketch Dump!

Yikes... I have not posted recently/as frequently as I was in September.. Have a sketch dump!

Halloween idea #2: Jedi

Yet again Halloween is approaching quickly, my favorite holiday, and yet again, I am unprepared. A few months ago I had started making a Thor and Valkyrie (not Marvel Valkyrie, just one in general) with a corset and all and the little metal dealies, but now we've changed-- he's doing a dark paladin (Black Guard) from pathfinder/DnD, and so now I'm debating about doing a similar rogue or sorcerer thing, but my sketch looks more like a jedi. So I guess my idea #2 that might be easy to execute is a jedi XP

Lyre Progress

Woo Photoshop is saving .jpgs again!

Lyre sketch

OK, if I can figure out how to make photoshop to save .jpgs again (for some reason, it'll only do .tiffs, and Preview refuses to give me any other "save as" options, too), I want to try and paint this with my tablet, not with my ipad. Ipad's been working super duper well and I love how handy it is to take everywhere and draw directly on the file, but I really want higher res pics.

I do realize that I didn't draw a perfect circle, and I think my anatomy's off, but I want to just get to painting XP

Flesh + Value practice on iPad

Like it says, just a little more pen (rather, stylus) mileage on the ipad working on flesh color and such. The bottom image didn't turn out the way I wanted for a number of reasons, but meh still kinda cute.. Something to learn from, at least. I must've spent way too long trying to get the hands right without a reference pic >.< Also, I went and brought my tablet to the dorms, so I'll be drawing with that again here and there. Think that's it for now.

Dragon Tamer

I don't know if I prefer the colored or greyscale.. Once again, more practice. I just got the new, thinner AYL stylus for my ipad, and I love using it, but the ipad doesn't have alterable resolutions like photoshop and a tablet do... So these don't turn out as well as I'd like. However, I left my tablet at home... >.< I don't know if I want to continue trying this style right now (raw in Sketchbook with no prior sketch), or go back to my older style like with the green wight or with my other DnD/Pathfinder characters from my first post. I like the amount of detail I tend to do on the paper like that and it's quite easy for me, but I feel like there's greater realism achievable with the raw painting technique.... I've still got a lot to work on either way XP tips and critiques welcome as always.

Moved in. Pathfinder Witch

All moved into the dorms, so here's a Pathfinder half orc witch with a pseudodragon familiar to celebrate.

drawn from scratch on ipad with AYL stylus (did not use the under-sketch method this time!). I think I still need to put some deeper values in it, and spend more than 10 mins on the dragon XP oh well here enjoy

making progress, but still got a long way to go...

Packing Up

Well, it's getting back to that time of year... school starting! I'll be starting Fall Quarter next Thurs and super busy from there on out. I think I figured out a way for me to graduate two quarters early if I pile on the classes. Then I could hurry up and finally get professional art training! I will definitely try to keep drawing and painting, because when I draw constantly, improvement is there so quickly. I just have to make sure I leave time for school, of course, writing, fitness and friends. Because who needs sleep, right? Well, I should be able to take better photos now (though I won't have a scanner in the dorms), and drew this little landscape practice on the plane home. I haven't painted an actual landscape in a while, let alone digitally, so the more practice, the better.

Broke the Egg

Wooo finished the green drafter who broke his egg/halo. I'm pretty happy with it :) I do want to try to draw the more farther-gone wights, but yeeeesh, difficult. Probably will still try anyway XP Enjoy this one for now :) Same usual process-- sketched, inked, crappy photo, edited + colored on ipad (Sketchbook pro w/ AYL stylus).

(new signature--initials SLK, year under)


also, weird branch creature thingie. Just for fun. BRANCH CREATURE THING.

Green Wight Sketch

I just finished Brent Week's Black Prism! I read his Night Angel trilogy and adored it, so naturally had to pick up his latest work (or rather my boyfriend gave it to me for my birthday ^^). Super awesome, definitely not Night Angel but still Weeks. Anyway, there's this nifty "creature", or people, called color wights (of each color) that sound so cool to me, so decided to draw a green wight. I won't spoil what a wight is (though it's not really a secret. You see one in Chapter 1 and it's awesome. Just read it, it's great), but this is how I think one looks like. A green one, anyway. Trust me, there will be green once I paint it XP

I tried doing some painting-from-scratch in Sketchbook Pro on my ipad, but I'm so new to the technique that it was just frustrating to not know what I was doing wrong, so I'm temporarily back to my old sketch-and-multiply paint technique til I can figure it out. Sorry, I'm also still on vacation with no scanner, so taking crappy photos instead.

Ander done for now

Alright I think I'm done with this pic for now. Getting more frustrated than happy with it, so gonna set it down til I figure out what's wrong. Onto new things..

More progress on Ander

Ok, so working more on the Ander piece, and I finally had the guts to put in hard shadows, but made the darkness in the sky and left of the pic too soft and fuzzy... Man, I want this to turn out great but it's making me pretty frustrated now. XP more to come.

Digital Practice for the day

So I found this cool meme on DeviantArt where you draw an old drawing (that you drew before) and see how much better you can make it. I know I said I wouldn't post any old art on here, but you can see the full before-after meme HERE. I'm just going to post the "after" here. Must have taken around 3+ hours I think... I know, I know, long time, but I'm really new to the style I used (one layer kind of thing). I really had fun with his mouth and nose :3 I still have a ways to go, but it's nice to see improvement. Drawn from scratch on iPad.
Critique encouraged! ( I think I keep forgetting to say this, but click for full view. Just don't steal my stuff. Then I'd have to hunt you down and do painful legal things.)

Colored Ander WIP

Same piece, little more progress. I'm realizing that I'm definitely avoiding laying down crisp darks like shadows... So here's my progress so far. Advice or whatever on the digital painting is more than welcome. I am planning on cropping it kind of rotated, also.

Ander Sketch WIP

So here you'll hear me mention "my story" probably really frequently. Once again, I haven't decided if I trust the internet enough to post scenes or anything from it, but I might tell you pieces here and there. One piece is this character here, Ander. I do really love drawing my characters and scenes from my story since I can visualize them so vividly. Since I'm not posting any of my old works here, I can't show you, but I will say at my deviantart page there is a folder with a lot of drawings from my story.

So, yes, this is Ander and just a sketch I inked. (I keep telling myself I'll actually try some new digital painting techniques besides multiply and actually try to pain a background, but I'm scared @__@) He's a terrolk, as I call it, or a really cool dude with the magic power to move dirt. He's quite unique in that respect, since everyone else who has tried to become a terrolk go insane. Why? Well, pray that I eventually finish my novel so you can read and find out XP

Apologies, I don't have a scanner right now, so enjoy this crappy photo of the sketch. :) Also, I'm always up for critique or advice on drawing or painting techniques, anatomy, character drawing suggestions, whatevs. Try me.

Newfangled blog whatsit

So, this may or may not be a good idea, but what the hell. I'm makin a blog. I want a place to post just my newer art (no old- not looking back) and possibly some of my writing if I choose to trust the Internet that much. We'll see. Here are a few of my latest drawings. They posted a bit larger than I intended, but I'm not uploading from my normal computer, so I'll figure out how to fix that later...hm. I wish I could figure out how to make the first one's click full-view larger.

Yes, they look a lot like Dungeons and Dragons characters, essentially because they are. I play with my friends on the weekends and these are a few of our characters (though technically now it's pathfinder since we like 3.5 more than 4.0 but I digress....)

Ps I always love suggestions of things to draw. Please feel free to suggest a creature or character for me to draw, I need to practice taking requests/commissions :)