Watercolours

Mega Monday #2

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Well I was hoping to get all of the Generation 2 Megas done for this week but unfortunately I only managed to finish Ampharos and Scizor (Heracross was actually done last week, as I paired it with Pinsir).

Scizor

Heracross

Ampharos

My excuse for not posting Houndoom and Tyranitar is that I’ll be pairing them with Aggron and Manectric, respectively. Since they’re part of Gen 3 I’ll hopefully be able to share them with you next week! Here are some progress photos to prove that I’m not completely slack:

HoundoomWIP TyranitarWIP

Doing all this art this month has been awesome, but it’s also been pretty taxing. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get all of the Kalos Megas done during the month but worst come to worst I’ll just put a couple of Pokémon up each week and stretch out Mega Mondays past the end of Blaugust.

Fan-Art Friday #2: Ranma 1/2

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Is it any secret that I love Ranma 1/2? Ranma is the first anime that I watched, way back when. I believe it was the OVA How to Boil Water. Good times.

This painting has a way closer camera than I normally ever use. It put me quite out of my comfort zone – not a bad thing, but there are definitely issues with it  as a result. Well, it’s practice!

Ranma

TMBG Tuesday #1: You Probably Get That A Lot

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Welcome to TMBG Tuesday, where I post pictures inspired by the band They Might Be Giants.

The first painting is based on You Probably Get That A Lot from the album Join Us. I think it’s probably my favourite TMBG album!

This song is a love song to a cephalophore. What an absurd idea! I just love the imagery.

 

youProbablyGetThatALot

Mega Monday #1

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It’s the debut of my Mega Evolution paintings! My goal is to recreate the moment that each Pokémon shows off their newly Mega-Evolved form.

I got started on these a while ago but hit a bit of a wall after painting 8 Pokémon. I had inked versions of Mewtwo ready to go for ages but didn’t get around to finishing them off until the impending deadline of Blaugust came along. Yay deadlines!

In the time since I started this project they’ve gone and announced new Megas, but eh. I’ll just be aiming to illustrate Kalos accessible Pokémon. If I find the time, I’ll add Blaziken and co in!

Here’s the first (and largest) batch, featuring Kanto Pokémon.

VenusaurBlastoise  Charizards  AlakazamGengar  KangaskhanPinsir GyaradosAerodactyl

Mewtwos

Simulacrum Sunday #1

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simulacrum
sɪmjʊˈleɪkrəm
noun
noun: simulacrum; plural noun: simulacra; plural noun: simulacrums
  1. an image or representation of someone or something.
    “a small-scale simulacrum of a skyscraper”
    • an unsatisfactory imitation or substitute.
      “a bland simulacrum of American soul music”

Yup, it’s Simulacrum Sunday, which means I’m posting art based on real things. People, still lifes and landscapes, I guess! Hopefully my representations are more satisfactory than, uh, un[satisfactory].

We’ll start the series with some Reddit Gets Drawn paintings I did when procrastinating from AVCon stuff a few months ago. I had a short burst where I forced myself to draw each day and heading over to Reddit to find models to paint was very convenient.

arc9en1ciel4

Reference

phoquetopus

Reference

I tried not to spend too long on each painting. These are a couple of my more successful attempts!

Sketchbook Saturday #1

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This post is a little late as we went out to dinner, then spent much longer hanging around than anticipated. I fell asleep on the couch and everyone thought that was a good excuse to play a few hands of poker while I was non-responsive.

Here are some recent little scribbles, experimenting with a couple of things. I’d been watching Revolutionary Girl Utena for the last couple of weeks and wanted to experiment a bit with hair!

sketches02

This first picture is kinda based on some Utena fan art I found, but it’s also inspired by recent depictions of the AVCon mascot Ayvee. I’m also trying to decide on a new paint colour to add to my collection, and I experimented with paint from a sample sheet to paint the hair. I still haven’t decided on new colours to get! if you want to make a suggestion, the Daniel Smith watercolour range that I use has an extensive offering. I’m looking to get another blue and maybe some more earth tones. New colours are a tricky thing!

sketches01

Some more experiments with hair and a frilly outfit kinda also inspired by Utena. Last week I bought a new white gel pen, which is a little more effective for applying highlights and covering inking errors than the old pen I used. Leaving the whites of the paper unblemished is always the most striking and effective way to depict highlights but the gel pen works great in a pinch.

Fan-Art Friday: The SuperFogeys

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Is it Blaugust again already? Oh my!

For 2014 I’m joined once again by John and Thom. Jimmy will hopefully get some stuff up for the last week of August, but will otherwise be absent (he was doing too well, after all, so we sent him off to Sweden). I’m also joined by a host of new Blaugust challengers:

Mark, Paul, Mason, Michael, Rosie, Kevin, Pichy, Laura, Jimmy 2, Shaun, Grant, Brad and probably a few others! Peer pressure is a wonderful thing.

This year I’m aiming to get at least five posts up a week. After last year’s shameful showing I’m a little wary of promising too much but for each day of the week I’m also aiming to get content somewhat like the following up:

  • Fan-Art Fridays for Fan Art of comics, anime, games, whatever else takes my fancy!
  • Sketchbook Saturdays for scribbles, in-progress ideas and art from my sketchbook.
  • Simulacrum Sundays for portraiture, still-lifes, drawing from real-life type stuff
  • Mega Mondays to document the progress of my Pokémon Mega Evolution art project (and to ensure I can’t just use Pokémon for Fridays)
  • TMBG Tuesdays for art inspired by TMBG songs. I’d planned to spend a month doing this after my successful Blaugust 2012 run but ended up too tired to do so. I’m reviving the idea for Blaugust this year!
  • Wheezing Wednesdays for the very worst of my accordion repertoire.
  • Three-Dee Thursdays – documenting projects from throughout the year that have more dimensions to them than just my flat ol’ paintings.

Today’s fan art pieces feature characters from a comic that I also drew last year. It’s the SuperFogeys! Here are a young Spy Gal and Captain Spectacular.

YoungSuperfogeys

Laura brought around some marker pens the other week and I tried them out on a drawing that I decided to turn into Spy Gal. However I forgot that the characters in the SuperFogeys only have four fingers on each hand! John noticed while I was drawing but because I was yet to put the black on Spy Gal’s costume, he assumed I was drawing an alternate version of the character who has the “correct” number of fingers. Nope. Whoops.

The markers were a bit tricky for me. I guess I’m just not that used to how unforgiving they are. So I retreated back to familiar ol’ watercolours for Captain Spectacular and the below painting of Dark Maiden. (Who I also forgot to only put four fingers on, then had to fix half-way through inking).

DarkMaiden

Man, I love Dark Maiden’s costume!