I recently got around to finishing this painting that I started a while back, of Katilyn, my Paladin. I decided to try doing some things a bit differently than I normally do with this painting. I wanted to try using a more painterly style with more visible brush strokes than I have in my previous paintings, and this was also my first attempt at starting the painting in grayscale and adding the colors in at the end. Both of those techniques are things I think I still need more practice at, but overall I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. The colors do look a bit muted, but I think it works for this particular piece. I think I want to try doing something with bolder colors next, though.

The painting was done entirely in Photoshop. I primarily used the Acrylics 175 brush from Kyle's Megapack, and a basic soft round brush for the glow effects.

[Squarespace's text editor seems to be a bit broken at the moment, so here's the URL to Kyle's brushes until I can add a text link: https://www.kylebrush.com/ Kyle makes really nice Photoshop brushes and I highly recommend them]

Annemunition digital pencil sketches and burgers

September 20, 2016ArtworkAelussaComment

It just occurred to me that I hadn't updated this page with this fan art of the Twitch streamer AnneMunition I drew a month or so ago. I was experimenting with some new drawing techniques, and I'm really happy with how the digital pencil sketches turned out. The hybrid cross-hatch shading technique was a lot of fun to do, and the results came out better than I expected, especially for a first attempt.

The second image was a bit of goofy fun, though it's an in-joke most people probably won't get if they don't watch Anne's stream.

My Rogue painting, finally finished!

March 31, 2016ArtworkAelussaComment

Aelussa, my WoW Rogue, in Assassination Armor and Deathblow X11 Goggles. Painted in Photoshop.

I might still add a background to this, but TBH, at this point I’m ready to move on to something else, because this took way too long to create. I’m really happy with how it turned out, though!

Backlog of art updates

March 11, 2016ArtworkAelussaComment

Oh hey, so this blog is a thing, huh? Whoops.

If you've been following me on Twitter, you've probably seen that I've posted several sketches and work-in-progress updates to my big Rogue painting that haven't been posted here. Let's rectify that.

First up, some charcoal sketches. Practicing drawing eyes, the Night Elf from the WarCraft 3 box art, and Johanna from Heroes of the Storm (aka the lady Crusader from Diablo 3).

Next, a pencil sketch of a harpy for @FallingStardusk and a birthday sketch for @Faebelina.

Practicing line art in Photoshop with a drawing of Lara Croft from Rise of the Tomb Raider, a graphite/charcoal pencil sketch of Slipstream Tracer from Overwatch, and a pencil line art drawing of a fashionable lady. For the Tracer drawing, I used graphite (which is reflective) for the glasses and earrings, and charcoal (which isn't reflective) for the rest, which gives it a pretty neat effect.

Finally, some progress updates on my Night Elf Rogue painting.

There, all caught up. I'll try to remember to post updates here more often so I'm not dumping a ton of images into one post again.

What a difference two months makes

January 10, 2016ArtworkAelussaComment

I decided to post a comparison between the sketch of my Rogue I drew today, vs the version of it I scrapped a couple months ago, to show how much I’ve improved just since then. I think my big breakthrough was getting myself to think of everything in the image as a physical object in 3D space, vs just shapes on the page. That, plus studying and drawing lots of anatomy sketches, so I have a better handle on how the human (er, Night Elf) body fits together, and a better sense of what makes for an interesting pose.

Seeing how much I’ve improved in just the last couple months has me excited for where I’m going to be in 2 months, or 2 years. That’s what’s going to keep me going, I think.

2016-01-10 aelussa_assassination_armor.jpg

Practice sketches

January 10, 2016ArtworkAelussaComment

I've been doing a lot with pencil lately, so I'm switching things up and spent the last few days doing practice sketches in Photoshop. I've filled quite a few pages in my sketchbook with human figure/pose practice sketches over the last month or so, and I've improved to a point where I'm not embarrassed for people to see them. Comparing these to how much I struggled to draw the pencil sketch of my Rogue I drew a couple months ago (which is what made me decide to start practicing figure drawing) that practice is really paying off.

The face is an attempt to practice drawing clean lines in Photoshop, which is something I still struggle with.

The sketch of my Rogue is a second attempt at a picture I started drawing a couple months ago and never finished because I wasn't happy with how it was turning out. Again, the improvement I've made since then is pretty significant, which is really exciting. I'm probably going to try to turn this one into a finished painting.

Inkling amiibo drawing

September 21, 2015ArtworkAelussaComment

I just finished a piece of artwork I've been working on for a few days: the Inkling from Splatoon, using the Inkling amiibo as a reference. You can find the finished piece in the Finished Artwork page, and a breakdown of the process of creating it, from the initial sketch, the line art, coloring and shading, to the finished piece, in the Work-In-Progress page.

This was the first time I've sat down to draw something in a really long time, and while it took me a bit to get my bearings, I have to say it felt really good, and I'm looking forward to drawing more.

The line art in particular was a learning process. I've never been very confident in my line art, and it showed in my first attempt. I decided I was going to teach myself to be more confident, so scrapped my first attempt and forced myself to start drawing quick, flowing lines. At first, I had to undo and re-draw every line a bunch of times until I got them right, but by the time I was done, I was doing that a lot less. Most of the lines in the legs and shoes, in particlar, were done in one or two tries. I feel like I've grown a lot as an artist just over the course of making this one drawing.

It's funny, because I've been away from creating art for so long that I was certain that my skills had atrophied, and it was going to be a long slog to get back up to the level of the work I was doing 10-15 years ago when I was at the top of my game and doing this stuff every day. I think that fear was a big part of what kept me away from it for so long. In a lot of ways, though, this picture is an improvement over some of what I was doing back then; certainly I've never done line art this clean. That feels pretty amazing. Not that I don't still have room to improve, because I absolutely do, but now I'm looking forward to working towards that instead of dreading it.