Mediaeval Bedchamber

A piece I finished a few weeks back which took a while to get together from sketch form to final colour. I wanted to do a drawing with more detail at the hand-drawing stage, so Photoshop would be very much just about the colouring. I also wanted to get inspired by a Medieval setting, taking a look at how some items would have looked to hopefully give a believability to the piece as a rough representation of the time period. Wanted to practice perspective here, too! - with tricky positioning of bed and all around it. The wildcat character 'Ungatt Trunn', and setting (though the stories aren't strictly Medieval), is based from the Redwall novels.

The initial process was a bit different than usual, what with me starting the sketch and then deciding I needed more space, drawing the rest on other bits of paper and cutting and (very) roughly placing together. I thought a couple of 'work in process' pictures would be interesting for this:

Getting as much detail in as I could at the pen stage - the least I have to fiddle around with on Photoshop the better:

Taking apart to scan and then piece back together again on the computer was not simple! The tapestry image on the wall is purposely bright to carry the eye over to it. An quick explanation of the piece: this wildcat baddie has taken over the Badgerlord's castle-like home and has selected his bedchamber to stay in. There weren't any images to go on for the character's bedchamber, so it's all very much my interpretation of furniture and carvings, etc. Here's the version I settled on:

Thanks for looking. It's December - already?

Inktober 2017

Had a few things going on, but I'm now back. I took part in 'Inktober' during October. I took part last year, too, but never did get around to uploading the pictures. I thought I should just go ahead and do it this time. I've seen a lot of very detailed works for Inktober, though mine tend to be on the scruffier side doodles! Just all for fun really (and a very good chance to get using my inks again!). To be found are a few 'I see what you did there'. So here are 31 doodles, using either the little W&N inks or black pen. I don't know whether they're only meant to be black and white drawings, but I feel that as long as it's an ink it's okay for Inktober!:

Thanks for looking. More posts soon.

Beach Dragon

And then I will have to face the fact that it is no longer Summer.

Last picture with a dragon in for now (probably). Sketched out this dragon and then wondered what he should be doing and what the background should be. I looked on a couple of my trusty photos and was inspired by a recent hotel balcony shot with a beach in the near distance, and it developed from there. The dragon takes a moment to check/pick at his claws before going down to the beach (he's not on a balcony; he's closer here). There are humans on the beach, so how will they take it that a dragon is joining them? Or is this perfectly normal?

Honestly, sketches are to come next.

Sea Dragon

Have some sketches to post... then I ended up continuing my dragon pictures series. As often these days, I'm really utilising my photos as inspiration and, here, to even involve them directly in the picture, with the texture function. Looking at a Tenerife photo beside the sea and rocks, I drew this directly on to the computer and after colouring it up and using a few different brushes for the rocks and sea, I then placed my photo itself as a texture to bring an extra lift to the picture.

I started another dragon picture immediately after this... I'm finding them a useful subject for trying out different things in Photoshop, such as using other brushes aside from the standard, and it's really encouraging my exploring of different backgrounds and taking the time to add in extra details.

More dragons, trees, horses and cats to come.

Beasts In A Boat

Full title: 'Mythological Beasts In A Boat'

The same day I finished my last dragon piece, I was inspired enough to draw another illustrative piece; this time with added gryphon and unicorn. In an unusual move, I quickly sketched it out on the computer, and only afterwards did I begin to draw what would be the final sketch in my sketchbook, to later scan. I've attached the brief digital sketch because I don't often show my process in pictures. As you can see, it's pretty close from initial concept to completion. So these mythical creatures are stuck in a boat that is very small for them - I always intended for it to look like they clearly don't fit in there; but hey, they're magical. They are also fairly calm here, yet it seems they're escaping from a smoking volcanic island.

 From this...

To this...

 

Observational sketches planned up next.

Dragon Cave

Photo inspiration yet again. A few years ago I did a quick, little pastel drawing of a unicorn in a cave and waterfall scene (taken in Cyprus, by the way). I came back to the photo because I still wanted to do something more with the scene. One mythical beast to another, here's a (friendly-looking) dragon. I drew it out pretty quickly and didn't spend loads of time with the background, either; I wanted this to be a snappier, but hopefully still effective, piece. Wanted textures to be a strong inclusion here and each section uses a different texture, which helps bring out the kind of serene watery, rocky look I was going for. Nice to do some colouring on the computer again and not have to spend ages on it. As with most, this was hand-drawn and then scanned and worked on in Photoshop.

As I finished this I started drawing out another picture, purely from my mind - no photo inspiration, and that is now also complete and I will probably post that up soon, as well as some trees...

Three Billy Goats Gruff

There are certainly three goats. And a bridge.

Yet again I have used an old photo to inspire me; a few goats stood on some rocks at the same French zoo. As I do appear to like to draw rocks, this seemed a good one to do. I wanted to paint it like the motorbike, but found, as I placed the first bit of paint on the A4 canvas board, that watercolour would be the way to go. The original photo had more than three goats, so I narrowed that down and completely changed the background, too (definitely no bridge!).

Unfortunately scan nor camera got the colours right; the green of the trees in reality is nothing like what you see here, and the tones actually make the balance and quality of the picture not great. I really ummed and ahhed about showing this picture at all -- but what the hey, all a bit of fun.

 

(Detail. Because I can.)

And because I wasn't happy with the scan, I tried a few effects in Photoshop and quite liked the sketchy posterised version:

EDIT: I still wasn't fully happy with the scanned outcome, so here's a camera shot. What a difference. It's pretty faint but at least shows truer greens:

That's enough goats for now.

Explore Horizons Young Writers 2017

Had a couple of days to get an image together for the winning story of this year's Explore Horizons (tutoring company) 'Young Writers'' competition. A futuristic-theme, it was quite a different subject for me to draw, and more of a challenge -- not to mention the time limit and interpreting this intriguing story to a workable image as best as I could. In that time, of course, there are things I might have done a little differently, but I'm pleased I tried out a few different things, such as the recolouration of lines to merge the items in the picture more, which helped to make the outcome fairly effective. Oh, and I should also mention, because it will keep nagging at me and I do know my hands!: yes, the hand is the right way; it's supposed to be pressed a little to the glass, and with more time I would have refined that more. Hopefully it is clear enough; but if not, well I'll make sure future pictures have the clarity. All a learning process! I do hope it was liked; don't want to ruin the vision in the writer's head! :D

A link to the website post where you can also read the story itself:

https://www.explore-horizons.com/blog/read-north-texas-childrens-writing-competition-winning-story/

The image was hand drawn and outlined on different sheets, then pieced together and coloured (including recolouring of lines) in Photoshop.

Shrunken version:

I have also illustrated T-shirts and workbooks for Explore Horizons (which I don't think I have made a separate post about). More information can be found on the 'Projects' tab just under my robot banner.

Elephant, Castle Et Cat

Elephant & Castle

I'm sure I'm not the first to be inspired to draw a picture from the area in London that's called 'Elephant & Castle'. When I was living in London for a few months, back in 2012, I started this sketch of an elephant and then it got left to the side, left to the side... until now. Finally got that castle on to its back! Just the kind of castle I was after, Dover castle, informed my simplified castle design.  Because I'd started the sketch with coloured pencils rather than pencil, I wanted to retain that in the final piece. Therefore, it was out of the question to delete any of the sketch marks, and so the back remains seen through the castle! The way I ended up finishing this picture, I can't get out of my mind certain PC games... Got another picture in mind with this scenario.

~~~~

And quite different, but it saves making millions of new posts for every new piece, an update (not a 'redraw' as such) of a character I drew back in... 2009 or so. Looks like it might have had some inspiration from a certain late musician... This cat seemed like a character that should be drawn again; this time hand-drawn and outlined first, rather than me struggling with the pen tool straight onto the computer! As well as given more of an illustrative finish. Angles... sometimes I like them and sometimes the picky part of me just wants to round them up.

Apparently I never put the original on this blog. As you can see, he's far more extreme in the shaping, and there's something I rather like about him. Here he is:

Exhibition 2017

For the third year in a row, some of my pictures were on display, for just over a week, as part of an art group exhibition at Nature In Art. The way last year's 'Ruffed Lemurs' picture came out, informed my two new pictures for this year: taking a look at some old zoo photos for reference from one of my photo albums and selected particular animals, then used fine line black pen on textured paper, scanned it in and added a hint of colour with Photoshop.

'Macaque Monkeys'

I used two photos - one with the monkey looking up, and the other with the mum and child together - thinking they might just work as one image, despite the camera angling being different. Some inspiration was taken from the simple backgrounds, but the rock and other small bits were made up to make the monkey looking up work better with the others. (Out of interest, these zoo photos are from a France holiday back in 1999.) I used textured paper which had some coloured leaves stuck in the paper, which I thought could work with this kind of background. The general texture of the paper unfortunately gets lost with scanning, but that's what I get for not daring the colour traditionally! After going over the rough pencil lines with black fine line pen, then scanning, I worked some colour in with Photoshop. I tried colouring some more but felt it didn't really add anything, so went back to this stage.

'Sitting Bear'

 Another animal choice I don't tend to draw so much of, and a photo from the same zoo trip as the monkeys. A fun 'sitting' position this bear was captured in, reminded me of a bear performing tricks, and the textured paper I found with the differently-coloured flecks reminded me a tad of circus-y colours. (Wasn't it recently that using animals in circus performances was finally banned for good?) Anyway, this bear was sat like this against some rocks, and not much else could be seen of drawing interest in the shot, and so I came to decide to keep it simplified - hope it could work enough with the bear and rocks only. I do seem to really like drawing rocks; there's definitely a pattern there. Same process as above.

 

'Eagle Owl' 

The final picture on display was a previously uploaded image I created whilst at the first exhibition (2015) when I was an 'artist in residence'. It can be seen at this link, along with what I exhibited then:

Owl & 2015 Exhibition

Last year's 'Ruffed Lemur' display piece:

Ruffed Lemur

I didn't have time to be an artist in residence this year, but when I popped in to see where my pictures were the artist at the time there said some people had commented on the bear. It's nice to hear a piece got some people talking, noticing; otherwise who knows what the viewers are thinking at these exhibits! Great to have a chance to display some pictures again.

~

On another note, this is apparently my 101st post. I thought this was going to be my 100th post, but looks like 'Buddy Holly Cat' got that honour. Hooray for 101 (Dalmatians) posts and quite a few years now on this blog! Very much appreciated those who do keep stopping by to take a look at my pictures of this continued 'creative endeavour'.

Buddy Holly Cat

'Buddy Holly Cat and His Crickets - the best Buddy Holly tribute act around!'

I was inspired to draw this 'promo shot' after going to see the 'The Buddy Holly Story' at the theatre - a musical and a back-in-time '50s concert. I knew pretty soon I wanted to draw a cat version of Buddy, and that the Crickets would in fact be mice. Started without any references for the general sketch posing and checked afterwards for details of what kind of suit, style of glasses, instrument details, etc. Hopefully this picture conveys some sense of energy and as a kind of tribute piece itself. Fun pic to do.

Motorbike Request

Birthday present for a family friend whom had, a few months prior, requested a painting of one of his old motorbikes (will edit with motorbike type, once reminded). My first 'serious' painting on a (about A5 size) canvassed board in quite a while, I believe. Also to mention that I haven't exactly drawn many a motorbike in my life -- so a bit different for me to work on. I worked from a small photograph and changed the background a tad to add more light and colour. Going by paints which hadn't hardened yet (!), I used a mix of watercolour and acrylic, with a touch up of coloured pencil, and even felt tip in some places to help bring it out some more. It was good practice. I know I keep saying things like this, but it has helped encourage me that I can attempt to create 'proper' paintings and will improve; so I will make sure more are created this year.

Took photos with my camera, and just by these two there is a change in the light, so the colours won't be exact to the actual painting (as is always the way).

Whilst it's by no means perfect, I still worked a lot on this little piece, and fortunately, the recipient seemed to be pleased enough with it!

Fantastic Beasts

After finally going to see Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, I felt inspired enough to draw my own interpretation for a bit of fun. Cutting a long story short, I decided it would work more for me and what I wanted from it to keep the sketchy pencil lines. I later had a look at some Art Deco posters to get a teeny '20s feel in to it with background colour. I couldn't find any Obscura pictures online, so my version of the raging thingybob in the right-hand corner seems to have taken a kind of Joan Miro (or similar) approach.

Irrelevant to Fantastic Beasts, but nevertheless tagged on to this blog post, anyway, to avoid clogging, is a picture I completed just before this one. Again, this was an idea I suddenly to do, and forced myself to go and get on with it whilst still fresh in my mind. Fully traditional with 'ordinary' coloured pencils, the scanner ruined the colours a tad and then I attempted to make the balance better in Photoshop. No true version of this picture here, unfortunately. I might try taking a photograph and switching it. Otherwise, you get the idea!

Thanks for looking. More being worked on.

Musketeer For The New Year

I hear you cheer...

A picture I'd slowly been making progress on the past few weeks due to busyness. January the 1st I resolved to finish it, to have a nice piece of achievement for the New Year. Inspired by watching BBC's The Musketeers, and also, clearly, the '80s cartoon, Dogtanian, where I chose to draw my own interpretation of the canine musketeer. More to come from that. Drawn straight onto the computer with inspiration for the background from a photograph I had taken a few years ago of the garden area at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire. Lastly added a texture which really made the final result for me; giving a kind of watercolour appearance. Dogtanian lightly pokes a fellow 'muskehound' for perhaps momentarily being a little bit lazy on the job.

I hope to continue to submit a decent amount of my art to this blog; hopefully more than last year!