Lately, I've been feeling the need to take a step back and do some studies and test out some brushes. This is a study of my friend Alena - I liked the way her hair fell in the photo and wanted to paint it. Also, she's actually wearing a hoody but I like to think of it as a medieval cloak. xD Gives it a different feel.

It's a little stylised and I managed to stop myself in time so not to over-work it....which is a minor achievement for me! It's always tricky to know when to stop painting until it's too late, usually - but I guess that's the beauty of painting digitally (not too painful to fix!). ;)

My mind keeps bouncing back to an old painting of a blind mage and wanting to expand on its story more, so I started doing this today. The idea is that all mages are physically blind and instead 'see' in a more spiritual/magical way very similar to sonar technology; perhaps to the extent that they can see within beings to spot weak points, much like how CAT scans work. The more advanced their skills, the more they can see and respond to them. Such abilities can either make them deadly weapons or invaluable tools in medical treatment.

Anyhoo, that's the base idea so far and here's a start on some hat/hair designs.


The whole horn thing is kinda a mix of: a.) I like the shapes they make, b.) I've been playing Dragon Age a lot, where mages are heavily disliked and in a sense, are seen as sins or devil-like....but tbh it's mostly the former. :P Also, where there are big, flat spaces on the hats, I figured it could have a family/clan emblem or something (to indicate they're the leader or said group). It's all very up in the air right now!!

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On a side note, I haven't been a completely lazy bum and not drawing much but have recently designed a tattoo for myself. It's been an enjoyable process to design something so personal and time (i.e. funds, lol) will tell if I wuss out or not! I don't want to post it until it's literally on my back and chances are it'll be in the me/Me. blog.

If you know any really good (and cleeaan) tattoo artists in Newport/Cardiff (Wales, UK) then drop me a line, please! The more recommendations the better. :) If they have a website that would be grand - otherwise I'll contact them closer to the time to see their previous work.


PS: [In terms of all the photos on this blog] Scanned versions of these drawings will be on my website once I get enough done to make a compilation of pages for my portfolio. Apologies for the blurriness!

SO. Getting into the gaming industry is proving to be more difficult to do now with the current environment so I figured my (super-simplified) choices, besides improving my work and understanding in general, are the following:

a.) Man-up my work. Lots of brown....broooowwwnnnn.
b.) Go cutesy for casual gaming.

I've done some vector stuff lately and have loads of stylised shizz so perhaps it's time to switch sides to test the water. I received this really wonderful book by Adrian Smith (Dark Fantasy) as a graduation present and decided to use it (and some Brian Froud books) as a starting point to draw the kind of subjects I don't normally do.

I started this last night and haven't finished yet but wanted to post it now in case I butcher it later. :P




^ Let us not be sexist! Here be a lady.
She started off with longer hair until it looked like some
weird ogre shampoo advert so I gave her a plait instead.

Happy Valentine's Day~! ^_^


^ This is to my wonderful boyfriend but he doesn't mind me sharing the love~

I've recently finished my moleskin sketchbook so I'm now using a big leather one that's an inconvenient size even for an A3 scanner (which I don't have access to anymore, sigh~). It's a nightmare to scan so I'll try my best to take clear photos (which will actually be better since I'm super lazy when it comes to scanning stuff).

Here are some ink hand studies:




^ Playing with le brush pen and different styles.