The angel: part 2

Still working on this one! Haven't been able to do much with it because of time over the last couple of weeks, but here's my progress as of today.

I thought it might be interesting to put this up at the size that I work at. So be warned if you click the thumbnail, it IS quite large. The canvas size I am using for this one is 2800 pixels across. At this point, I am working on highlighting and smoothing out the hair, after which I'll start filling in more of the base color for the armor. Normally, when I set up my layers, I use separate layers for a basic color, usually a mid-tone, and then I'll do another layer on top of it for the lighting and shadows. This is because when I get to light and shadow, I select the area according to the base color, then switch to the detail layer and lighten or darken that area. Make sense?

Right now, I actually have the layer that has the wing color hidden, just because I'll worry about that more after I've gotten a bunch of the figure's gear and body done. I won't work on the details of the face and skin until then, either. And at some point, I really need to do that background.......

You dirty --

If I ever meet Cupid, I'm gonna punch him in the mouth .......... or .... something.

Just venting a bit. I've been feeling pretty upset about certain aspects of Life lately. Can you guess what they are?

Like really upset.

Featherbrained

A few weeks ago, I got bit by the urge to start making things with feathers - jewelry, specifically. Thus far, I've made several pairs of earrings, though I do have some other crafting projects in the works. The middle picture is of a pair I made for myself!







I've gotten a little carried away with all of this stuff. I think this last picture speaks for itself:



In my defense, one of those totes belongs to my mom.....the smallest one. All the rest of the mess is mine, and the feathers I have consist both of some that have been purchased and some that I've picked up while out adventuring. I have a couple of the latter that I'm still trying to identify a species on. At first I thought they might be hawk, but now I'm leaning more toward turkey vulture. Exciting stuff for a nut like me!

What I see

Want to know something? Some of my scariest dreams involve sea creatures. This is the best I could do of a part of what I saw in a dream last night. These are mostly prehistoric sea things, so far as I can tell. I would paint up some pictures of the more detailed things, if I could do them justice.

Last night, I saw things like biomechanical octopi that could use short bursts of magnetic forcefields to grab prey. Other times, I have seen some of the scariest, darkest waters you can imagine with creatures to match them. I'll see fish, eels, and monsters who are slimy and deformed. They'll be impossibly huge with glowing points or bristle with teeth, fins, and spines. And often times, I'll feel as if they're sucking me toward them and I have to vacate the area very quickly.

I'm not sure why I have fish in my nightmares. I was never scarred by sea creatures as a child. I never watched the movie Jaws, and I never had a tragic incident with pet fish. But it never fails that if I see murky water choked with algae or shadows in a dream, I feel very inspired to run.

Angel rough thumb

Wow sorry guys, this one is pretty rough, even for a thumbnail. I just don't have the energy to do any more tonight.

I'd like to try a couple of different things style wise as I work on this, one of them being to make it look more like concept art. I've been looking at some stuff lately for video games, all of which reminds me of some of the art I'd seen Alan Lee do for the LotR movies. It's going to be a job, but I think I can pull it off.

Gradients are our friends :)