Brightly coloured faces!
And then there’s Joe.
Hi! This is a small, brightly coloured, neatly arranged sample of sketches that I accomplished at school or related to school, as these are on mini-flashcards. The blue and green ones are on Latin flashcards; the pink ones are when I decided to devote a whole pack of these to drawing – they come on a handy ring, even. Continue reading
Silence pervades the edge of the tournament ground where our protagonists are.
Finally! A picture I’m REALLY REALLY happy with! In the foreground, on the left, is Prince Flaer, looking grim, with his helmet and shield at his feet and standing on the roots of a much better than usual tree. See, this kind of success is what keeps me from drawing things with a reference, because sometimes I do things that I’m happy with and then I feel I don’t need to look it up. : P
On the right in the foreground is Sir Gyoriing, Flaer’s bff and right-hand man, and commander of the Moonland knights. He’s actually much taller than anyone else in this picture, so I made him squat so as not to tower. That weird rectangular thing is his shield. He has a massive shield. He is also a walking armoury.
In the background, short Princess Layalin is following Lady Zela around for lack of anything better to do, and also for comfort, because she is not Gyoriing’s girlfriend yet so she can’t turn to him.
In the story, two people just killed each other intentionally, so now everyone is shocked and sad because ‘what is this? We have never heard of murder! Blah.’
My new dream is to own a floor-length black velvet gown.
Trying to be swirly, and has too much hair.
So I gave up on yesterday’s picture and drew Zela instead. In her long dress. I’m not sure if I’m okay with it or if I hate it. It’s not very good, but then I look at it in a different way and think it’s okay. Whatever. I should do some colour art some of these days.
Rah, said the dragon.
Hey, guys! So about that book that would need to be submitted before July 1st or whatever to get a free copy from CreateSpace… well, this is my rough draft of the cover. I’m planning to get someone else to paint it ‘coz that would be cool, but I need something to show them what to do, right? So this is from this chapter, a few paragraps in. Though I’m going to rewrite the book, I’m leaving this scene in. I was also going to have a ‘dramatic confrontation’ cover, where Zela, in green, sword in hand, is confronting… Muila, in a red dress? who is looking at her disdainfully from the top of some small steps… in a dark location. But this one is WAY COOLER so I drew it first.
I used my dragon-drawing book, too!
So… in the foreground is Zela on Silver the dragon, and chasing them are three (I only put two) dragons, and then the brown spiky thing is the city, and there’s a road leading past it and to it, and there’s one of those amazing blue-green lakes nearby (there is no food colouring in Canadian Rockies water, folks! Just in case you were wondering) and the brown, rather barren mountains (green in the valleys) stretching back to green mountains and then blue, with a glimpse of the green plains waaaaaaay over on the left, and dark stormclouds capping it all. And then there’ll be a title with a twisty border and a back summary.
OTP (One True Pair)
Click for larger image! (much larger image – 1000px vertically)
This is the finished version of this picture, which I drew specifically for the purpose that it now serves as the ‘logo’ or ’emblem’ of my website. I realized tonight that I forgot about it. So here you are! It took me a long time to colour, especially Flaer’s hair. I used Photoshop 5 and a mouse. I realize his eyes are rather huge now but hey! You can tell they’re green. Which is good. Less happy about the cloth, but I guess it’s all right for my skill level. Grass was a total cop-out (green paint bucket, some broad dodge and burn, and then put the ‘pencil sketch’ filter on heavy or something like that) but I dunno how to do grass in Photoshop. X D Continue reading
And now, the finished picture! Ehhhhh… I actually used the tablet a lot less with the shading/highlighting. I used it a lot for the hair, of course, but the clothes… just didn’t work with that. I need to find a way to change the settings so the harder I press doesn’t affect the width of the stroke, but how dark/light it is.
Parts I’m pleased with: Marteth’s dark purple coat; Gullac’s teal shirt; Bayn’s grey jacket. Coincidentally, they’re the ones you can see least of. : P Tam’s jacket is a close second, though. His shoulders came out half-way decent. I’m also happy with all the hair and Flairé’s face, which was worrying me. Doesn’t he look like his parents? X D
I realize that the ink lines only get in the way now. I think I will experiment in the future with not having hard lines at all. With the tablet, I can do that now!
I’m collecting Candy-cane shards in Guild Wars so I can get the Candy-cane daggers (for Gullac, when I make him) and the Peppermint Scythe (because it’s cool). I already have a Candy-cane spear. I wonder if these weapons break if you use them too much? I don’t think so. But I’m a little nervous about actually using them in battle.
Gullac: I’m not! (sproings around like a frog, brandishing his daggers and laughing insanely)
Dude, I haven’t gotten them yet. Give me another hour.
(sings and dances) I wuv my tablet, I wuv my tablet…
I’m using this picture as a tutorial to teach myself how to use it, and to relearn Photoshop as the version that came with it is similar to the one we have downstairs (Photoshop 5) but of course it’s different. So I will be shading and highlighting and making shiny over the next week or so. When I’m not playing Wii Sports Resort (that is a pretty darn good game, if I do say so). The tablet is very handy in that I don’t have to switch brushes to do the the tiny corners – I just let up on the pressure. It’s great! And of course it feels like drawing which is very comfortable. It’s a pretty cool device.
I’m not sure how I ended up colour co-ordinated with Flairé’s princely outfit. I think it’s because it’s a generally accepted fact that I look decent in black and red, and his outfit just happens to be black and red. Hmmmm. Oh, I just noticed that part of it is not the right colour (silly me), so I’ll fix that tomorrow. Esgalwen, too, is usually in red, but she also likes blue and green. …Marteth looks like his eyes are crossed. I better fix that. And maybe I’d better recolour Jalril’s tunic so it doesn’t look like part of his skin.
Y’know, the more I look at this picture, the more I like it. Is that bad?
Whoa! Lots of pictures today, folks! Hold on!
First, a very Merry Christmas (or whatever you happen to celebrate) from all of us here at the Adhemlenei. People in this picture: Marteth, Bayn, Gyoriing, Lyrestan; Mathaning, Gullac, Zela, Flaer, Yoeath; Flaria, Jalril, Flairé, Tam, Rana; Ceniro, Leslie, Jennifer, Esgalwen. Quite a number! Didn’t have room to fit in Silver, but we all know she wishes you a Merry Christmas too. Yes? Yes.
Jalril is just embarrassed at standing next to a girl. Who’s dating his brother. She thinks he’s funny. And cute. Tam is a cloooooowwwwn. X D Flairé is wearing his princely-type tunic which you haven’t seen before! It’s red. Continue reading
Ride ’em cowboy! Ummmmm… no?
I used my soft-sketchy pencils for this one. Inspired by the Mark Knopfler song Speedway at Nazareth, especially the 5 minute instrumental second half (and maybe just a little bit of the horse race part of The Reivers suite by John Williams). I would say whoohoo but it’s not that great. Again, it’s just a concept. I was drawing while listening to the music so I had to work really fast. And by fast I mean that I blocked out the frames, and then scribbled in with just a couple strokes what happened in each frame, and then sketched it in full afterwards.
Flairé has been sent by his mother to warn the next village over that the main front is retreating to their position. Or something. Flairé is still quite young, a teenager, really, and quite cocky, and not really the fighting equal of those chasing him – yet. He is their equal at horse-riding. WOOT GO FLAIRÉ. The last frame is three poses within seconds of each other; he’s somehow spun around, watching the curve to see if his pursuers will come around the bend in the cliff, but then wheels his horse around and gallops off before they show up.
Guys, I can’t draw horses. Stop trying to tell me I can. : P
It’s a little tiny elf-person-thing! …Wait, that’s me.
This I drew to illustrate Zela’s sword for the purposes of obtaining my own for Hallowe’en. That’s why this picture DOESN’T LOOK LIKE ZELA AT ALL. I was planning to ink and colour me, and then draw Zela in pencil behind, showing that I’m very short in comparison being her, but am not her. But I never got around to it because this one didn’t turn out as good as I’d hoped. Some other time, I’ll do that. Oh, and that reminds me, I need to bug my dad about the pictures from this Hallowe’en.
I wrote so much on my NNWM last night… something like 4000 words. They just wouldn’t stop coming! I just got inspiration for the scene (the meeting between Zela and Lilar the silver dragon) and wrote and wrote and wrote. Of course, then I slept in until 11:00 this morning and missed my chance of going to study Mendelssohn. But I will still practice piano! After I write just a little more… I’m actually ahead! And I’ll be more ahead this evening! I’ve decided I’m going to try and catch up to XiaoCaity from the True Magic forum. She’s at 25,000 words right now, and I’m at 17,000. The candy thing (little reward after every 200, or 500 words) is actually kind of redundant. But it’s nice to have candy. Mmmm……