Raw Sketches

Well, I've had these doodles sitting on my system for a few months and since their conception I haven't really had the energy to go back and do much with them. The top is a sketch of my character Luka; he's a vigorous workaholic with a hole in his life, yet he's afraid to let even the prettiest stranger in to show him how to love again. The bottom is a sketch of Ramando (aka Zylix) in his slave uniform when he was under the command of a very wealthy man. I've yet to revamp the male slave's costume design, though I really look forward to doing do after the holidays.

A couple updates

Here are a couple of doodles I did and decided to spruce up a bit to make them presentable. Both were originally sketched with pen, and all the color is done in Photoshop CS5. The top is a sea turtle version of an alien race I've developed, a happy accident this sea turtle. The second are two chibis of a couple characters from the graphic novel I'm developing.

The Good King

This isn't something I would normally showcase, but I am very happy with the painting I did for the portrait on the right, so I thought it would be good enough for the blog. Metal, particularly polished metal, is one of my favourite materials to render in paint. I'm probably still not doing it 100% right, but the way light and shadow interact with its surface is just so mesmerizing and pretty.

Still working on my anatomy.

Speaking of costume design concepts, I don't think I ever put this one up on here yet. It's on my deviantART, though I must've been so busy at the time that I couldn't get around to updating here as well.

The Hunter

It is done. Progress shots are on my DeviantArt.

-Ali

Snow Beast Update

Opening up the canvas a little more. I'm learning not to be afraid to paint over, even at this point where I have already developed details.

Snow Beast

          Some progress captures of my latest sketch. Here we are with one of many designs of a yeti-sort monster I was assigned during a game project for a class. It was a lot of fun coming up with monsters and boss creatures. This one here lacks the more extreme fantasy elements that were implemented into some of the other concepts for the yeti. I might take up painting one of the others later after I finish this.

          Wish I had taken intermediate captures when I was fleshing out the fur details, but so often one gets into the rhythm you forget to pause a moment. Oh well, that's always a good sign anyway, now that I'm slowly getting back into drawing and painting. Not that I haven't been sketching, I have, but for a long time - since about March it seems - I never felt truly productive with my work. Now it feels like it's coming back. It's a very, very good feeling.

-Ali

Time is Running Out

          Updating as often as I can. Here we have my latest little fascination: clockwork arachnids. They were inspired by a rather obscure line from a song: "Time moves like spiders" I still don't know what the song writer meant by it, but this is my interpretation using clocks and spiders.

          It was a lot of fun learning about a few species of the widow genus that previously I hadn't known about. The Southern black widow and the brown recluse spider are most common in the area I live in, but a whole plethora of wonder opened up when I read a bit about the Northern black widow and the red widow. Such a beauty, the latter.

         I digress, to the sketch. Here we are with a humble old pocketwatch presenting his deadly siren with a prized, polished watch battery - because only one so vintage as he would think a mere battery is prized. Clockwork and the steampunk genre that encases all related things is still a little foreign to me as far as art is concerned, but nonetheless it's an intriguing one at that. More practice with gears and the like are in store.