A Chinese Fairytale Complete

I had so much fun working on this piece. I feel like I've accomplished what I had imagined. Enjoy!

Process Photos: A Chinese Fairytale

I've been reading Amy Tan's novels this summer, and so I was inspired to do a Chinese related piece. Because my last piece, Little Red and the Big Bad Wolf, was really static, I wanted to explore motion in this piece. I've honestly never had so much difficulty deciding a color palette. In the end, I googled some Chinese paintings and found a common color thread among them. I decided to use a very similar palette in comparison with those paintings. I'll post a nicely scanned version of this sometime tonight or tomorrow morning.

Finished line art of the piece. I sat and stared at this for a very long time before I decided on what colors I was going to use.

Working on the skin tone.

Finished the hair and starting the outfit. 

Outfit finished. At this point, my mom really thought the little girl resembled a boy. I still agree with her to some extent. Oh, well!

I had no idea what color to choose for the dragon. I played around with some ideas in my head, but ultimately decided to use a pink/red mixed with tons of green and blue. This was extremely experimental. I've never drawn a dragon before. 

Started with an idea for the scales. 

Went over them with colored pencil to see if my effect would work. At first I hated it, but my sister saw it and absolutely adored it. It's thanks to her that I continued with my scale effect.

And I'm really happy I continued with it. The scales add a lot of necessary texture to the piece. Yay for the principles and elements of design!

Again, I had no idea what color to use for the dragon's hair. I wanted something dark, but I didn't want to use  a blue that would blend in with her outfit.

I'm happy I made that color decision. 

Final touches to the dragon...

I wanted the background to be really organic and soft. I'm happy I decided to leave it very basic without many distinctions except for the fact that the background is obviously some sort of Chinese mountain-like landscape.

The trees in my last picture didn't recede into the background as well as I had hoped. I wanted that effect with this background, so I made sure to blue and gray out the mountains farther back.

Closest thing to the finished piece until I scan it. The colors are really off, but it's better than nothing. I'm really proud of the finished product. I can't wait to share it. :)

Little Red and the Big Bad Wolf Complete

I'm really pleased with the outcome of this illustration. First of all, I've never drawn a wolf before - never mind colored one. And second, I really like how the background came out. There's much more space going on in the over all illustration compared to others I've completed in the past. The wolf seems a bit static and I'm not a huge fan of the bottom right section of the piece. But overall I'm very happy with this. I'll probably have it posted on my DeviantART sometime tomorrow after work.

Process Photos: Little Red and the Big Bad Wolf

Been working on this on and off for the past week or so. Probably the most fun I've had with a piece in quite a while.

Forgot to take process shots of Little Red!! Sorry!!

Starting the base marker work for the wolf. I've never done a picture of a wolf before for those of you wondering...I really had no idea how this would turn out.

Adding some first layers of colored pencil...

Wolf pretty much completed!

Foreground tree completed!

More trees finished! Thought this stage looked pretty cool. Like she's in the snow or something. I almost changed the composition for the snow idea.

Started the leaves on the trees.

More work on the leaves.

Leaves completed and some grass!

Grass almost done.

Finished!

The Gluttony of Neo Queen Serenity Complete

And this is the finished product. I'm not too fond of it, honestly. It's too bright and busy for me, but that's what I was going for I guess. I'm also not a huge fan of the color pink, but it's Usagi's favorite color, so that's why insisted on using it. I hope you guys like it more than me! I'll be posting it on my DeviantART sometime on Monday afternoon.

Happy Mommy's Day!!

Process Photos: The Gluttony of Neo Queen Serenity

Been working on this on and off for the past week. It's for a contest on DeviantART. I had a really hard time finishing this piece. I pretty much had to force myself to finish it. Here's just a few process photos.

One Thousand Sorrows

Something different from me. Felt like doing something quickly in ink. Took about 2 hours total.