Learning on the Tram

Kiddos on the tram have been unknowingly helping me learn French, and to train my ears for correct pronunciation :) Yesterday a little one, staring out the window repeated “monsieur, madame, monsieur, madame....” until his mom told him to shhh! 😌

This is the first time in a good while that I have just let myself doodle with ink....oh how I didn't realize how much I've missed the feeling! We hope to be settled into our new home soon so I can really turn my focus back to my personal work (& this blog!)  :)   Take care & see you back here again soon!

Portrait of Vladimir, Companion of the Year! Art-Wednesday

I had the pleasure of being commissioned to create a custom portrait Vladimir, a very special clinic cat! March 5th, he was inaugurated into the Animal Hall of Fame as Companion of the Year through the Oregon Veterinary Medical Association! 

Vladimir began life as a stray, became a barn cat, and then grew to become the "Greeter" at "All Creatures Great & Small Veterinary Clinic", a post he has happily kept for the past seven and a half years! A truly lovely & sweet gentleman!

I created the following digital painting for his award ceremony & the human team of "All Creatures Great & Small Veterinary Clinic".

Below is the finished illustration, followed by a couple in-progress photos.

(Above):  Finished portrait of Vladimir the Companion of the Year 2016!

(Below):  Work in progress screenshots from my Wacom Cintiq Companion

Click to enlarge!

(Left):  A sketch start.  (Right):  Getting closer, with detail work

                       

Copic Marker Experiments: An Art-Wednesday

I still consider myself to be new to Copic markers. I have been playing around with them and have been so pleasantly surprised at how easy they are to just pick up and fall in love with! These markers do a lovely job of building up color and give great edges with their flexible, brush-like tip.

I am still getting used to them for sure, but I wanted to share with you some of my sketches as I have been playing around with them.

For the rose study, I did do a preliminary sketch lightly in pencil. To create the other plant, tree and coral pieces, I let myself just start right off with the marker. These flora studies were all done in my small sketchbook. If you are dying to add a bit of color to your sketches, try these!

Rose Study:  Sketched from a live potted rose

   

Plant & Coral Studies:  Half sketched from live plants & photographs, half from scientific illustrations

Tree:  Just doodling & playing with shapes here

Hair-Takeover: Art-Wednesday

Ah what a wonderful & busy week it has been! I caught myself looking like this, and laughed in the mirror. A total hair-takeover! So frazzled & giant that it left me feeling a lot like Hermione Granger.

Original Artwork by Brianna Leahy, Photoshop & Cintiq

Happy Valentine's Day!

Just wanted to drop this here, and wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day!

Original Artwork by Brianna Leahy, Photoshop & Cintiq

See the original post and more daily artwork on my Instagram, Here!

Art-Wednesday: Birthday Edition!

Today is a special Art-Wednesday, because it is my birthday! So here is a silly birthday-doodle of a birthday pup as happy as I am. I will leave this post as a short one, and go back to celebrating! Catch you next week and thanks for reading!

Sketched in Photoshop on my Wacom Cintiq tablet computer:

Coral Reef Study: Digital Painting

Starting off 2016 right with more consistent artwork! I painted this quick study while watching Disney & Pixar's "Finding Nemo" last night.

My goal doing the painting familiarize myself with some of the shapes and colors of a coral reef. I planned this exercise as a very fun and informal introduction to coral biology, as I am looking forward to a more in-depth project collaborating with a microbiologist in the field!

Please Follow me & Heart artwork on My Instagram
Painted on my Wacom Cintiq Companion, with Adobe Photoshop CC

Sick Bear: Digital Sketch

Presenting.......a portrait of me in the morning! Been so lame and sick lately; but on one of my more energetic days I couldn't help but doodle how I imagine myself to look.

Silly Rex: Digital Sketch

Jurassic World inspired me to do this quick happy dino doodle!

Puppies! : An Illustrated Gift

I want to share with you my most recent finished creation:  a portrait of my friend's dogs as a wedding gift for her! Digitally drawn and painted, but I embellished the print with gold by hand with a calligraphy pen.

Impromptu Portrait: Digital Illustration

Someone was not paying attention, so I naturally just had to paint him! Thanks to my boyfriend for not moving a muscle while working on his computer

"Beaver Smash" Videogame: Illustrations

Hi! I want to share with you some more of my recent work for Iron Ninja Games. The following promotional illustrations for the iOS app stores were released by the indie game developer to their development blog! So I get to share them with you as well! To see the full article and the rest of the team's progress on our upcoming release, please visit IronNinja.com and click the development blog tab! You can follow our progress there!

Beaver Smash: Beaver Illustrations

Hello! I want to share with you some of my recent work for Iron Ninja Games. This past week, the indie game developer released the two following promotional illustrations to their development blog! So I get to share them with you as well. To see the full article and the rest of the team's progress on our upcoming release, please visit IronNinja.com and click the development blog tab! More to come soon!

Digital Doodle: Animals!

Here are a couple silly digital doodles I have done in the past couple days on my Wacom Cintiq tablet with Photoshop CC! I hope you enjoy!

Pearl Girl

A fun sketch I made last night before bed. Painted on my Wacom Cintiq tablet with Photoshop CC.

Lucy! A Digital Doodle

A proud puppy! This is a painting of a lovely fuzzy friend of mine, Lucy Jackson.

Painted in Photoshop CC on my new Cintiq!

Freelance Work: Tree Game Models

A couple months ago I was invited to become part of a wonderful indie game development team, Iron Ninja Games! Since then I have been doing a variety of work for a game yet to be released to iPhone, Android and iPad.

This is a set of two low poly trees, which will populate the first level of the game. They are variations of trees I created for my short film, "Boris", and have been improved and modified to the director's vision. Keeping the style intact was most important to the game's look. I have completed all of the modeling, UV unwrapping, texture painting, rigging and skinning too!

If you are interested in following the game's progress, you can do so here: ironninja.com and make sure to check out the Development Blog tab!

Programs used:  Maya LT 2015 and Photoshop CS5

 

   

Ravena Concept: Work In Progress

This month has gone fast! I have been hard at work on a body of freelance work I cannot release yet, so I will do an update on some of my personal work!

 This is an improved concept for my warrior girl 3D character model. I started the project as just practice to improve my modeling skills, but after completeing her basic shape, I realized I really wanted to make her into a real character. So I went to work sketching up a different look for her. I knew so little about armor design and through more sketching and researching I have came up with this! She is still a work in progress, but her design has definitely improved! So here she is as she exists now, warrior Ravena Arlan!

Dragon Friend: Digital Doodle

Another doodle as a break from modeling! Today was a silly dragon day. Drawn and painted in Photoshop CS5.

A Guy: Digital Doodle

Had a fun doodle day today and decided to take one of them through to color! This guy was done entirely in Photoshop CS5.