Killing Time

Some stress relief art. I have been going crazy lately from work related things. I've also been struggling with some personal frustrations, but I don't feel like this is the place to elaborate on them. Just say that I find myself needing to do something, but I can't do anything, so I sit down and try to draw a random picture - and tonight it worked!

I would like some honest opinions about something, please. While drawing this, I tried to make the chest and torso area a little bigger than I usually would. I really enjoy drawing the musculature of male physiques, but I tend to draw them in a very thin, wiry way because whenever I try to draw something with a big chest (think "barrel chested"), to me it looks like a person on steroids. So I would like to hear any opinions on the chest size in this image. Does it look a little small to you? Kind of big? Does it look okay? Any reasons you'd like to share why? I'm fine with this figure, as the character is somewhat more of a lean character, but he's also supposed to have a warrior's build to him. So I dunno.....the floor is open to debate.

Oh by the way, meet Krieg, everyone. He shows up in my next writing project, which I'll be working on after I finish Nethbane. I won't say much about him beyond that, but I enjoy his character so you may see him popping up again.

Meaning...

I wanted to do some writing when I got home from work, but it's been a mighty crappy day with no great prospects, so I decided to draw one of the ideas that's been in my head. There's a story behind this picture, but I'll save that for when I get the completed image up.

At least I hope I get it up. Every time I've tried to draw this figure, I get partway and then fizzle out. Every time.

Fun with markers

I purchased a few new markers to play with and needed something to color, so I drew myself a couple of dinosaurs. I don't think I did too badly for not using any visual references, though that Hadrosaur ended up being more cutesy than the red guy.

As fun as these were, I found out that not one, but TWO of the tips of my new markers are pretty dry. The gray one I got seems to be pretty good, though. Maybe at some point in the future I'll get some more of that brand, methinks.

Amanagir Sketches

So I was naughty in church yesterday and took to sketching a few things on the back of my program.......don't judge me.

This is some play at head views of Amanagir, which are the lizard men from my series. The one exception is the guy at the top, who's actually a Neth (newt person) They were done in ballpoint pen, since I don't every have more than a pen and a red pencil in my scripture case.

Celure vs Sahamel

SPOILER ALERT! Look away before you ruin the experience! Your eyes will melt and your pants will catch on fire!! ....... Oh well, I tried.

I got it done! Ha HA, you nasty picture, how you like THEM apples??? Ohhh it has been a long and difficult battle to get this image completed. I'll probably come back and touch it up when I have more time tomorrow, but for now it's getting put up for your viewing pleasure. I needed a victory tonight.

This is a scene from Taloner: Reima, one of the short stories I have written and self-published (shameless promotion! Yay!) I really, really enjoyed writing this scene, which is a magic-heavy duel between a priestess and a sorceress, and ever since writing that book I've had this image in my head. I would love to use it as some kind of cover image if I ever release a special edition of some of the Taloner books. (Yep, there will be more of them.....I told you this was rife with spoilers)

So I had a lot of stuff on this that wanted to fight me from the get-go. First off, I don't know how many times I've had to rehash the positioning of the figures here. I also couldn't tell you how much time was spent working with that fire dragon to get it into a shape/spot that I felt was at least workable, and not an eyesore (I really hope it isn't still an eyesore) Another thing I had a problem with was that I am still learning how to draw humans well enough that I don't make a laughing stock of my art. That elf's face was incredibly challenging for me to get right, but I think this is the best result that the (far too many) hours have yielded, and I'm pretty happy with it.

I used my method of erasing out portions of a solid black layer on this to get most of the shadows. I wanted it to have a more dramatic look with the dark against the colors, and I love this method because it's like forcing your brain to work in reverse when coloring.

For example - When not using the blackdrop layer method for shadows, I begin the coloring stage by putting down chunks of a medium-toned flat color. After this I proceed to go in and color darker or lighter portions along that flat color in order to give the original tone some variation. With the blackdrop layer approach, I do the flat colors, then the highlights or lighter tones, then drop the black over everything and go in to erase the spots I don't want to be so shadowed, such as the highlighted portions and a little of the original flat color. I hope you understand what I just said. It makes sense in my head, at least. Sigh........