Fus Ro Halloween!

I'm sure there is a better shout to combine with Halloween, infact - I am positive there is one, I just don't know what it would be. Suggestions?

So my freetime for the last few weeks was mostly devoted to the creation of my Dovahkiin halloween costume. I can't really sew and have never actually made a costume before (cutting a shower curtain into a tabbard doesn't count) so this was some pretty new territory for me. The helmet and shield took the majority of my time and were made from cardboard, masking tape, hot glue, mod podge and acrylic medium. (And paint, of course!)

Starting the helmet.

Creating the horns from twisted masking tape.

Construction of the shield.

Gauntlet and painted shield. 

Finished Helmet!

Unfortunately, I ran out of time at the end and had to purchase the midsection piece as well as the rubber gauntlet/shin guards. The "fur" beneath it was chopped up six dollar bathmats from Target.

We headed out to Lincoln Road which is the hub of Halloween night here on the beach. The streets fill up with terrific costumes and everyone has a blast, ourselves included.

Now that I've washed and packed up my costume (totally going to wear it next year too!) I spent a bit more time with another piece of Skyrim-related art; the poster I haven't touched in weeks.

I think it's almost ready for color. After adding the eyes, it's feeling a bit cartoony to me, so I'll probably go back into each of the faces and tweak their expressions a bit. Uthgerd also looks a bit *too* pretty, need to make her a bit more rugged. After ignoring this piece for so long, I am pretty pumped to finish it :)

A few Skyrim WIPs

I finally picked up Dawnguard, the expansion for Skyrim last weekend.

A few minutes into my illusion-based thief's story and I was already itching to make a new piece of Skyrim art.

I started thinking about my character's journey and how incredibly movie-like the last 45 minutes of play time had been. With that in mind I decided to try my hand at a Drew Struzan-esque movie poster.

Drew Struzan was one of my childhood favorites. His work is probably most recognized in his massive collection of illustrated movie posters, like the late 90's StarWars collection. Mind blowing stuff. And all done on gessoed illustration board too... so incredibly impressive.

On Friday night, I started sketching out a movie type poster using characters from Skyrim that had a major part to play in my Dragonborn's story.

This has taken most of my weekend, and is still super, mega WIP (What is going on with Ulfric's forehead!!??) But I am excited to continue it. Please ignore the eyelessness of the characters -- I like to save those for last :)

Ulfric Stormcloack.

Brynjolf, my fellow thief.

Uthgerd, probably my favorite follower.

My Imperial.

When I finished my tribute to Mordin, from Mass Effect I made a mental note to avoid complicated armor sets the next time around. And what do I decide to do next? Dragonscale armor. It's like I enjoy the frustration of teeny details or something.

I'm hoping to finish up the value study this week and start adding color by the weekend. Lofty goals indeed :)

Dragon Seekers -- finally finished.

3 months and one broken Cintiq later, its finally finished!
...and this was supposed to be a quick painting.

Its been awhile since I've worked on an image that went through as many fundamental changes as this one. It started as a vastly smaller, close-up of Farkas and the Nord woman.

Then I decided to redo the bow that the Nord woman holds. The dwarven bow I had painted felt over-done. A few days after that, I found the dog Meeko out in the woods of Skyrim and simply HAD to add him. Which meant extending the image more and giving both warriors *gulp* feet.

--(I don't really mind adding feet, but they used to be a huge source of frustration for me. I've since gotten over a lot of my trouble with their anatomy, but regardless of how many feet I draw -- I think I'll always carry a bit of that nervousness.)--

Then Dan had the great idea to distress Farkas's armor, which meant another evening of small tweaks.

I wanted to give the warriors bloody noses, or black eyes; something to suggest the middle of a fight - but I think I am skirting the line of over working the entire painting... so I'm done.

There are so many fantastic, emotional moments in the game - its hard not to want to draw them all.
Do you have a favorite? One quest that pulls at your heartstrings or causes you to fly into an almighty rage?

Watercolor practice + Cintiq Update!

I just started work on a mini-project from a lovely friend and her wonderful family to create a series of watercolor animal illustrations for her children's playroom.
It's been a few months since I've picked up my watercolor set, so I started off today with some practice animals.

I love redtail hawks. Growing up in Michigan, hawks and falcons were a constant source of inspiration for my drawings as I was able to see them in the wild fairly often. Though their habitat does extend into Florida, I haven't yet had the opportunity to see one here -- besides the falconers' tent at the Renaissance Festival!

Florida does have a lot of other awesome birds however - so no complaints there.

I think the final project will include a raptor,(deciding between a peregrine falcon and a redtailed hawk) a toad, a squirrel and a fox. I'm going for a slight Beatrix Potter-ish feel, but that may change as the project continues.

In other news --- my cintiq returned home this week. The wacom tech people did a speedy and flawless job repairing my old friend and it feels so good to have it on my desk again. The fix for the broken backlight was very affordable, so I went ahead and had them switch out the glass as well, as it had a few small scratches in it. Feels like a whole new machine and I couldn't be happier.
I want to go back to work on my WIP Skyrim illustration right away - but I've got a few other projects to finish up before I can get lost in that image once again. It is a source of serious motivation however :)

Cintiq needs a timeout...

Earlier this evening my Cintiq decided to take a time out. I was 2 glasses of wine into a new Skyrim-related piece when the monitor went kaput. (My Nord and her favorite companion Farkas are actively seeking out a dragon to slay)

I scrambled to adjust the settings, un-plug/replug every cord to ever grace my desk area and swap power supplies... but to no avail. It seems my trusty cintiq decided it was naptime.

I'll call Wacom in the morning and see what my options are, fingers crossed that it is something simple. It's just incredible to see how fast I've come to rely on this piece of technology and how utterly weird it feels to see it turned off.

It's not like I don't have a heaping list of other non-computer works to attend to, so I'll just switch gears for a little bit. In the spirit of staying creative, I printed out this list of 33 ways to stay creative to help in my non-cintiq guided pursuits. It's a pretty great list to keep in a sketchbook in times of need :)

Update! Finished!!

Oh Skyrim....

Skyrim is fantastic. AND, eating up the majority of my free time.

The other night my Nord ran into giant mourning his dead mammoth. It was really rather sad, so I walked over (slowly, to avoid space-flight.) Knowing that there was really nothing I could do to help, I dropped a flower before continuing on.