A mage transcribes single-use spells from their schoolbook. The spells are probably very basic and benign, perhaps for use when doing housework.
A variety of spells can be stored in this manner. To invoke the spell the paper is burned.
You may remember the watercolour 3DS cover plates that I posted a while ago. While at AVCon I had them displayed at my art table. Lots of people were interested in having their own custom plates created, but they didn’t own the new 3DS.
So I had a look around and found some cover shells that I could prime and paint. Here’s one of my commissions in progress, custom cover shells for the new 3DS XL. The client asked for a design featuring Agumon, Gabumon and their warp evolutions. I initially had the rookie classes appearing on the top plate, then I realised it would make more sense to put their Mega forms in the background. It meant I could fit the crests in there too.
Next step is to get the paint on these! A little nerve-wracking, to be honest, but the primed watercolour-ground surface tends to be quite forgiving.
My commission queue is currently full, but if you would like your own customised 3DS cover plate you can email me at ale@chenonetta.com for more details!
I have had an image stuck in my head for the last couple of days. It’s a lotus flower.
It’s elegant, it’s geometric. It’ll look best in watercolour, I think.
It uses a series of triangles – they repeat along the shape of the petals in a regular fashion, each triangle equally sized as opposed to being a planar construction across the surfaces of the flower.
…
I have so far completely failed to get this concept to work. I see flashes of it in my mind, but I think perhaps it’s something that cannot physically be manifested. A shame.
Here’s one of my attempts to squeeze the idea into being.
Today’s post is not a complete work, because the new Splatoon update has arrived and I must absolutely prioritise playing it over completing my blog post.
Besides I’ve started to go a bit cold on the art itself so it might get scrapped and started from scratch again.
Anyway it’ll let you get a little bit of insight to the creative process when I prepare files for laser engraving. Here you can see the initial sketch drawn up and my vector lines over the top in red and black. Red areas are for cutting, black are for etching. I took a slightly different approach with this piece as in previous pieces I have done the whole lot in black lines and then cut up the outline borders. I’m not sure which method is faster overall as I’m still a bit slow in the vector world.
Also, I only realised it yesterday but perhaps some of my fondness for Judd stems from his similarities to the wallet I’ve used for the past 10 years or so.
So I finally stopped procrastinating and started on more Megas for today’s post. And I drew a Mega Manectric I was pretty happy with.
And then I realised I’d made a rather large error.
Can you spot what it is?
If you compare this with the WIP of Tyranitar from last week you’ll notice that I’ve not laid down both strips of tape in the middle of the paper. My awesome Manectric sketch is completely misplaced! Luckily I realised before inking. You can see here that I’ve started to transpose the sketch further to the right, starting with Manectric’s snout. But as for getting finished art up today, wel’p, I don’t think it’s happening.
Oh well, there’s always next week!
Posting this on Sunday. I know, I’m bad. I’ve not really made the time to arts this weekend, so I’m feeling a bit stressed that Mega Monday may not get a post.
Anyway, to Sketchbook Saturday. Here are some of the sketches that led into Friday’s drawing, and also some various critters that have turned up in my sketchbooks as of late.
 
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).
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:
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.
This month I’ll be featuring fan art for five different webcomics. The plan was to do inks on Friday and watercolour them on Wednesday, but I might end up using Wednesday for different arts.Anyway, there are a few themes for the characters featured this month. They’re all ladies. Many of them have layered personae or alternate identities.
The most complicated of these is Rita – or Ritas – from Egypt Urnash’s aptly named Decrypting Rita. The story revolves around the reality warping adventures of the various Ritas. Frequently told as multiple stories in one, the comic employs many clever visual tricks to keep the action moving across the four main realities.
I started the thumbnail for this one on Tuesday, when I realised that I wanted to substitute Rita in for one of the five characters I’d be featuring this month. The scribble quickly evolved and suddenly Rita went from being the week 5 post to being the first one of the month.
The thumbnail has been done over a couple of other scribbles – the figures in the middle right and in the top left are part of completely separate ideas. (One of them is a sketch of someone on the bus. The other is just a figure extrapolated from random lines on the page)
Here’s the picture transferred to watercolour paper and inked. I completely winged the fingers because I’d left the hands as mittens in my sketch. Mostly I think I got away with it except for Robot Rita’s right hand.
Finally finished off Tepig today. It’s been sitting around with just the tail to go for a while. The curl in the tail was very fiddly (I can’t imagine doing that at the original model’s scale!) but fun. The tail was a bit droopy but I’ve used some hot glue to make it stand up. I usually use acetone based craft glue, which is great for sticking the tabs together. For attachments however, hot glue is the way to go.
Also, here’s a photo of WIP Lapras.
My work process for Lapras has been a bit different than for the starter pokemon. Since each polygon is so freaking huge, using cereal boxes is a bit impractical. Instead, I’ve had the templates printed at A1 size and I’m pasting them to 200gsm brown craft paper. It’s flimsier stuff than the boxboard used in cereal boxes, so the shapes don’t hold together as convincingly. As I progress more, I’ll have to add more support (I’ve been kind of papier mache-ing around some joints as I go) and may need to make some kind of scaffolding structure for the insides. Another consideration is going to be portability – I’d like to take Lapras out of the house, which may mean making it modular.
This isn’t the painting I set out to paint, but I forced myself to see it through once it got going. The whole reason why I started this one is because I was dissatisfied with the way one of my other paintings was working out, so leaving yet another work abandoned seemed silly.
I don’t think it’s finished yet, but I’m not sure if I’ll push it much further either.
