Thomgirl's Digital Ruminations

They're actually magic runes, or going to be

That moment you're working on metal... and you realize it looks like orange poop smeared around with some weird yellow bits...

Deleted several layers, back to square one on the mace. Hopefully I sort this out today, because I've just wasted one day's worth of work on it.

I haven't done much work in metals myself, so it's a learning thing for me too. ... But when I have, I've always started with just the base color, and once I start adding shadows and highlights, it's starts to somewhat form. Though I don't know much about what else to do to get the metal feel with textures, it's hit or miss when I try stuff. will be watching though!

This may be a dumb question, but isn't this image for the Black & White challenge? I just ask, since I thought those images were supposed to be colorless? ... Or did I miss a post that explained this already?

It is for the black and white challenge, but they did say we could use one or two highlight/accent colors at our discretion. The inspiration piece was a black and white piece with gold leaf accents painting done by Charlie Bowater for the latest IFX cover. She's been a big inspiration for me as of late and well... I'm not trying to copy her... but... since this is an aasimar paladin, gold just seemed the appropriate 'color' to emphasize if I could choose only one

Oh, ok cool. Didn't know that part. ... I've seen where some add small amounts of color to sketches, and if done right, really looks nice.

All done

That scepter came out great, and the metal finish looks just awesome! ... Not being a gold person, meaning I prefer silver or white gold, I have to say that gold and black goes quite nicely, and fits this very well.

Completely agree with Dave, the gold is looking really nice. Coupled with the wings, eyes and hair it creates a really nice rythm across the whole piece.

Thanks guys Still have a lot of learning to do before I'm feeling pro with metals, but maybe one of these days I'll just set up a still life to work on that. Glad you both like the piece though I'll be doing more down the road. Finishing up that mage and I got at least a couple more in the wings.

Today though I FINALLY got my block out of the first of biblically based works I want to do. These are intended to be pretty massive projects, not fast works, so it'll probably be an ongoing thing. This piece is based off the passage in 1 Peter 8-9: Be alert, be on watch! Your enemy, the Devil, roams around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Be firm in your faith and resist him, because you know that other believers in all the world are going through the same kind of sufferings. **

** Disclaimer: If anyone finds my work offensive to their beliefs, I want to state that that is not my intention to put down anyone's beliefs. I am open to discussion, but I will not engage in attacks or hate. Tolerance, not teetotalism I will respect the freedom for you to choose your beliefs, but in return, I ask that you respect my freedom to do the same. We're all artists here



And for anyone that remembers, yes, I am aware that this harkens back to my manticore piece What can I say, when something works, it works. Though I hope I've grown more as an illustrator since then!

So a couple updates. I realized I've done men in my fantasy/scifi art very little and even when I have, not to any sort of detail. Breaking the standard for me a bit and now I seem to have ended up working on TWO male dominated works.

"Stand Firm" is coming a long. Did some armor work, but trying to figure out what to do with the background. I was thinking of some sort of ruined city with dark souls or something ghosting around in it for the side of Darkness, and then for the Light side... I'm thinking something with life... maybe a harken toward an Edenish look. Go mostly monochrome... white trees, maybe like good dragons or something emerging from the ground and trees to assist and like... bad looking things emerging from the dark side... anyways, spitballing here.



Another portrait started, my first male character since well... college when most of our models were guys. If I do the math on how long ago that was, I'll feel old, so not telling! Anyways, this is Camaris, a Great Weapon Fighter from the Dungeon's and Dragons universe. He's actually a compliment to the last portrait I finished up, hence the similar style of pose. He's also meant to be a gift to the person who created the character who is also one my best friends and biggest supporters of my work next to my husband. I've been promising him a 'Cam' portrait for a long time, so here's my go at it finally.