Process Photos: Grove of the Fern Faerie

I really enjoyed working on this piece!

Really crappy photo of the sketch. Sorry!

Crappy photo again. 

Started coloring her sleeve. I had way too much fun. :)

Dress is pretty much colored. Went more detailed than I initially planned. Sometimes art has a mind of its own...

Started coloring the tree.

More tree coloring!

I don't even know how this tree came about. I love how it looks but wow. It makes no sense.

Foreground complete!

Started the background.

Close up of the plant life and part of the tree.

Plant life begins to take over...

Now it's eating up the side...

More trees! Oh boy!

Working on the background some more...

Close up of the right corner's process.

Background complete!

Starting her wings. Forgot to take process photos of the wings. I referenced real butterfly wings if that helps at all.

Friends Complete

I'm very pleased with the outcome of this piece. 

I'll be drawing more chickens in the future.

Process Photos: Friends

Wanted to practice illustrating animals some more so I decided to draw a cute little picture of a girl with some of her farm animals!

Sketch in colored pencil...usually the inking stage; however, my brown pen died. I like the look of the colored pencil better, honestly.

Started coloring the girl. Really happy with her face in particular. :)

Coloring my first horse! I'm sure I've drawn a horse in the past...but that was probably a good 10 years ago!

I really enjoyed drawing and coloring the lamb. 

While drawing this picture, I discovered my love for drawing chickens. Chickens are amazing. I'll be drawing more in the future.

Colored my piggy! He looks emo with his ear in front of his face haha.

I always tell myself I'm never going to draw/color another tree again. Some how at least one tree always manages to sneak itself into my pictures...

Started coloring the landscape. :)

More landscape work!

Coloring the old barn begins.

More barn!

Pretty much complete!

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!