High Time

oooh epic apologies to Kellz for me being SO slow to update!

So here's my half of the Monk challenge. I really liked her choice on this one once again. He was a lot of fun to draw. I took a lot (maybe too much?) from Balinese culture. mmm... I dunno what else to say. I'm not feeling very eloquent at the moment. Or articulate.

Ravinous

Messing around with scenery type stuffs. I had a lot of fun on this one, but drawing a waterfall with a mechanical pencil is terrible! Well hey, that's what I use and this was about me exploring new ideas with my weapon of choice! So I only have my self to look at if I thought it was difficult :) I think I'm gonna try falling water again though. I like how it took me out of my safety zone!

Robey

When Kellz and I were discussing the challenge this time around we were on the phone (normally that convo takes place over e mail) and when I mentioned we should draw Bith she misheard me and thought I said "Sith" and was all "uhh... ok..." ahaha I thought it was a little strange that she was so hesitant about such a simple one but when I realised what she heard... yeah. I understood. Since there's no real definitive (canonical) documentation of what they look like yet it wouldn't be the kinda thing I would field.

So here we are. I had drawn a Bith Jedi a while back but in a more manga style and I recalled how tricky it was implying that it was a female so I had to go back and reference that illustration to try and recall what I did. I think it kinda works (about as well as I can hope for anyway haha)For the robes I went in the direction of Luminara Unduli & Shaak Ti from Episode II because I really liked the slightly unconventional look they carried, and how it almost felt as if the design carried some hint of their culture especially in the embossed leather panels in the front of their robes. The pleated under robe was inspired by Darth Maul's and the lightsaber (what there is of it) was loosely inspired by Luke's second saber.

Halfsies

Ohh looks like Kellz is on a Pathfinder kick and wants to do Half Orcs. Nice choice! and yet again something I wouldn't have chosen to draw of my own accord I think. So not wanting to be conformist, I think what I have here is a Gentleman Scholar Half Orc. Or something like that... I had fun on this one

The Rodian Less Traveled

I've totally been in a Star Wars groove lately and I think Rodians are my favorite alien race from the movies / shows. So that was that! Someone busted out their awesome piece for the challenge amazingly fast so I had to pony up :D

So I Hear you like Heroinez

All I'm gonna say is stumbling block outta no where >_>' In unbelievable proportions. But here's my half of the challenge with Kellz!

AZIZ!

March brings us a step closer to Spring and with it the advent of cook outs and bonfires. While I'm a much bigger fan of seeing the city blanketed in silencing frost, I don't mind a cook out, because that means brats & beer! So I also got to thinking about tiki torches (of last summer's cook outs) and lanterns which got me to thinking of this challenge! I know Kellz had a rough go this last week but she's a total hardcore trooper and busted out some hot lantern-ness anyway!

While I don't think this is really a backyard cook out type of decoration, I do have a thing for mausoleums, where this would fit right in! I really wanted to go in the direction of morbid, but not conventional morbid, so I had the decorative skull motif on the left hand face which would be repeated on three sides of this lantern. I patterned the lower half of the skull from an amulet of a hand I remember seeing a long time ago. The face of the lantern on the right is meant to be where one would insert the candle. The hands folded in prayer comprise the two halves of the door. Also on this side is a continuation of the skull pattern on the top half. While the previous side contained a stylised third eye, closed, on the side that prays the third eye is now open in illumination and gazing upward.

As a side note, I did a little googling to see if I could find the amulet I was thinking of and it must have been a Hamsa Amulet. It has an eye in the palm and is a symbol to ward of evil. Hmm...

Hair of the Dog

Well looks like Kellz, and I had some stuff blow up so that really slowed things down for this round. Add to that, what would have been a perfectly enticing subject, Worgens from World of Warcraft, was heavily dulled for me by the unforeseen sudden dis-interest in the game(after six years, it had to happen NOW right? /facepalm)But hey, it is what it is and the game was afoot (so to speak) So here's my go at what was still a sweet subject after all! For the record, I have NO idea how crossbows work. I'm quite pleased with the result! HOORAY FOR WORGEN HUNTERS!

Cottage Cheese

My brilliant idea this time up was Tudor Cottages. I was looking for maybe 80% accuracy with the architectural style. Apparently Tudor house frames are prone to severe warping and this may be part of the reason why there isn't a whole lot of reference on them aside from the high end houses and buildings as Kellz can attest to (she was looking at the Tudor revival halls going "I'm gonna kill him...")

I am not sure entirely how I did it but I totally managed to suck the life out of this drawing. The cottage looks so sterile to me. I'll have to revisit this in the near future with more sketches to see if I can figure out what went wrong. Speaking of more sketches... I am including some study work for this one. In the first image you will see my lil cartooned up cottage. This was my thumbnail for the idea. It was mostly so I can see what concepts I wanted to incorporate into the cottage so that I could figure out how they would look before I actually went in and did the cottage. Also on this first image is a close up of the support beam looking things detailed up. I've never seen documentation of these things being ornamented but thought it might look neat. The owner of this cottage may have been a wheat farmer...

The second image is a study for the balcony (again, I've never seen reference of balconies on this type of Tudor, but... I wanted one!) and of the front door. This was referenced from a photo. Another big difference you may notice between the thumbnail and the full is that I switched the roof material. Originally I wanted a nice tiled roof but I was so unhappy with how lifeless it looked as I progressed that at the last second I decided on the more common thatched roof style for this type of building. My hope was that it would give some of the more organic feel I was looking for. I dunno if it worked. But there you have it!

Stutter

Wow, hella good challenge from Kellz once again. This time, 19th century sidearms. I strongly suspect this has something to do with her fascination with steam punk >_>' I had to research the subject on a couple of separate occasions. turns out particular wording (i.e. sidearm vs. pistol) will get you wildly different results. Dunno why, doubt I ever will. Regardless, I got MUCH more interesting results the second go around, so I went with a Pepperpot Pistol. It's a .36 caliber, other than that I can't tell you much about it. Also, it's amazing how often it seems like a straight out profile shot of a firearm is apparently deemed sufficient photo documentation. Really people. c'mon.

So anyway, let's see... filters were my friend again. I want to say I used a grain filter for the metallic parts. I tried very clumsily to re-create the diamond carving pattern on the grip by making a layer of a little wedge shape (two different light values) and setting it as a multiply layer at 25% opacity I think. I'm not satisfied with the way it came out. It's missing something. The idea is there, it's just... it doesn't look quite right. I also used an etching pattern from the side of another pepperpot that I had a much better photo of. I created this on a separate layer as well and used the distort tool to get it at about the angle I wanted. Brush tool, multiply and adjust the opacity again.

The Trouble With Trees

The hilarity of random tasks continues! This time it was my "great" idea that we do trees! I've learned a couple of things from this so far. First, I need to be more damned specific, and B: Filters are fun!

I was far too general with the sketch before hand. I think it would have been a whole different piece if I did a little more with the line. Next time I think I'm going to opt for pen or pencil only. just to see, you know? On a scale of 1-10 I'm pleased with this to the tune of about a 6, maybe 7. Maybe.

This is why we can't have nice things!

Oh what was I thinking right? I of course come to my good friend Kellz and go "hey I got this really great idea... Why don't we come up with like... 'art challenges' and we have to draw what ever either of us comes up with! you go first!" and you know so of course, right off the cuff, she comes up with Batman...Batman... See? I knew why I knew this would be a great idea. Never in a million years would I choose to draw Batman of my own accord! /facepalm. But hey! my plan worked! We are both doing something creative and challenging! Well... challenging for me anyway >_> So now, I'm not into superhero comics much at all really. I'm familiar with most of the batman movies of course, but then I got to thinking about the Adam West TV Batman and I was like oh I wanna do THAT batman! So I tried to capture not so much the "whacky" from the show but like a little more... I think starkness? anyway I really just liked the idea of drawing the TV show Batman. So here goes. Awesome selection by Kellz!

Rough Cut

Ohhhh what a horrible weekend. Awful start to the year already. And many dreams again! only got 2 hours of sleep last nite because of one. Recently I apparently grabbed my cards, and undid the bindings they were in while sleeping. I don't know if I laid them out or not. I have vague recollections of the whole event at best. A certain friend of mine suggested that I needed to do a reading, as I was clearly trying to tell myself something. I hadn't done one in quite a while because I am simply not interested in reading what I already suspect, echoed in the cards. But I did anyway. The reading, as suspected, was no surprise. I must also though, at this point, make mention of this particular friend walking in on her brother and his girlfriend. She says she saw nothing because she didn't have her glasses on but was told "If you're gonna stand there and watch, get some popcorn" which I found highly witty. No real reason in mentioning this other than it makes me laugh. But then, that's reason enough, isn't it?