Miss Bear Portrait: Project Process Art-Wednesday

Meet the sweet Miss Bear! A digital illustration completely done in photoshop, I thought it would be interesting to some of you to see a more in-depth look at my digital process! So below her portrait, you will find my three main stages that I use in my drawings. Thank you for looking!

1) To start, I do a number of warm up sketches in the size of thumbnails until I find one that match my vision. They are usually very rough and messy. Eventually I work up to a drawing I am happy with:

 

2) I refine my design on a separate layer above my sketch, getting clear edges and planning colors:

3) On another layer, sandwiched between the existing two, I start painting! On the right, you can see my color palette for the bear. I continue with this process until the whole canvas is painted. I add another layer on top for subtle warm and cool tones. The very last step before I am done is an extra pass to clean up edges!

Thank you for reading!

Inspired by Africa: Art-Wednesday

This week I was just in an African animal drawing mood! So I had fun creating these ladies for my daily art challenge. I am especially happy with the lioness! Both drawings were created in Photoshop on my Cintiq.

(Top) Complete Lioness Illustration! (Bottom Left): Work in progress/initial sketch, (Bottom Right): Lady Giraffe Sketch

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

                       

Baby Badger: Art-Wednesday

In preparation of making my Etsy Shop, BadgerBriArt more official, I have been working on the look for my logo and banner. I sketched these while looking at badgers and their body structure a little more closely, and just had to paint this little baby guy too!

Sketches in colored pencil in my sketchbook, and the baby was started in the same sketchbook and finished in photoshop.

 

Star Wars Night! Art-Wednesday

I just had the need to watch Star Wars! And although I know 'Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace' along with II and III causes a lot of Star Wars fans to go berserk, I can't help but still love Padmé / Queen Amidala! She is so awesome! So I felt an equal need to draw & paint her!

I drew her out first in pencil in my sketchbook, and then took that image into my Cintiq and enjoyed painting her!

Above:  My finished fan art piece!

Below:  The initial pencil drawing 

*Of course, all rights to the character stays with George Lucas / Lucasfilm / I suppose now Disney! This is just my own fan art.

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

Pink Girl: Playing with Color

For this digital painting, I was inspired by a music video with the most lovely soft pink lighting. I wanted to play with color, & I love how it turned out! Painted on my Citiq tablet in Photoshop.