Oink!

Piggy goes nom-nom!

Yo ho ho~

Here ya go... have a headless, handless portly fellow.

Can anyone guess who I'm modeling? :)

Dragon girl revisited

Kind of turning her into more of a sci-fi character than a fantasy character, but that's ok! Been working on adding bits and bobs to her outfit all weekend, extensive physical modeling of clothing is new for me.

WIP: Muramasa Piece

Starting to rework this a bit... Momohime is next.

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~

Sculpture - More Xombie Progress

More progress on this sculpture commission - he's almost done and ready for painting!

If you notice he has no toes/feet, there's a reason for that! :) I like to keep the feet as plain stubs until after I bake--super sculpey is so soft sometimes, its easier to bake in stages and then add more detail. I'll do the same thing with his tail, adding more bulk to it after its had a preliminary baking. :) Its on the 'ratty' side right now, no good!

I should have more photos, of the baked and painted version of Xombie, soon. :)

WIP, plus a few sculpting tips

Here's a close-up shot of a work-in-progress for a client on Etsy, of her American Pit Bull Terrier, Xombie. I really like how his expression turned out. :) I need to add his bottom teeth and his tongue, but its a good start.

You can see a bit of the foil armature at the bottom of the photo--I typically start with a base of foil and/or wire, depending on the size of the sculpture, and the structures I need to create. Stocky shapes are usually just foil, while thinner ones are a base of wire and foil. For example, Xombie's whole body/head is foil, while his forelimbs are wire with a few layers of foil on the outside.

I'll take more photos as I go along (right now only this fellow's head/face is in any sort of 'finished' state), and explain my process a little more, over the next few days.

Happy Monday, everyone! Have a great week. :)