Cuteness Break!

This baby red panda is SO HAPPY! I love him.

via Zooborns

Shirts are heeere + Shellyrodriguez.com store is OPEN!

http://store.shellyrodriguez.com

I am moving everything from etsy to my new website store - less fees FTW. ;)

Also, my Octopus shirts are here, and they are AWESOME. They are printed on American Apparel Tees, using a screen printing technique to make the print soft & part of the fabric, not stiff or 'plastic-y'.

Only $24!





Preorder peeps, your shirts will be sent out tomorrow! :)

A little peek into how I work, digitally.

I recently completed this piece (the characters are from an anime called Code Geass, for those who are curious), and along the way I tried to make sure to save various degrees of progress.

Onto the first WIP (work-in-progress):


I prefer to start with linework drawn on cardstock, over most other papers (bristol board is ok, better for doing markerwork I think). I like the way that cardstock holds the pencil lines, nice and smooth - its also good for markers. The linework doesn't always have to be perfect, since I'm painting over it anyway. I can't draw very well on a tablet, but I can color just fine. Huh

For this piece, I didn't want to show all of Suzaku's face. I felt like it was more mysterious & less obvious not to - anyone who has watched the series knows who he is without seeing his face.


This image shows the base colors I put in. I almost always work from dark to light, and prefer to work on a purple-toned image.


I focus on painting the sky/background, and then characters' skin. I'll probably start on the clothes or hair next, once I am happy with them.


Here I start on the clothing - it is not something I like to paint without reference at ALL - but I tried my best! Can't improve if you don't try, right?

Unfortunately as I ramped up to finish the image, I forgot to take any more WIPs! Sigh! I did however shrink her head down a lot... it was waaay too big.

Here is an animation of the progress:


I hope that this was useful on some level... if you have any questions or helpful tips to share, please leave a comment~

HellSackboy

This is so adorable!

There's even a sackboy group on flickr, with oodles of Little Big Planet/Sackboy cuteness! Who knew? :)

If you're the knitty/crafty type, you can even purchase a pattern to make your very own sackboy!

I don't need any more hobbies (art + costumemaking is enough!), or I'd make one for myself. Sigh!

(Crafycrafty.tv via Wonderland!)

Dancer

Been working on this on and off for most of the week - started on the colors last night after work, and juuuust finished it, after working on it for most of the day.

I'm very happy with how this turned out!