Do Not Offend The Gods

I was going to work on this longer and then I was like, You know what? I'm sick of looking at this. So I'm going to be done with it. So there.

So this week, I'm posting my art early. Does this make up for it being late before?

This illustrates a scene from Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief.


I was walking up steps into a small room with marble walls. There were no windows, but moonlight came from somewhere to fall on the white hair and dress of a woman waiting there for me. She was wearing the ancient peplos that fell in pleated folds to her feet, like one of the women carved in stone beside old altars. As I entered the room, she nodded as if she'd been expecting me for some time, as if I were late. I had a feeling I should recognise her, but I didn't.
"Who brings you here?" she asked.
"I bring myself."
"Do you come to offer or to take/"
"To take," I whispered, my mouth dry.
"Take what you seek if you find it then, but be cautious. Do not offend the gods." She turned to the tall three-legged table beside her. It held an open scroll and she lifted a stylus and wrote, adding my name at the bottom of a long list and placing a small mark beside it.
When I woke a moment later, Pol had dinner ready.

.....

I had been dreaming again of the lady in the chamber; her hair was held away from her face by a string of dark red stones set in gold. She used a swan feather pen to put a second mark by my name, and she seemed concerned for my sake...






Yeah, I know I did a little column thingy instead of a three-legged table. I thought it looked cooler.

I also didn't have any photo reference for this... at all. So yeah.

More art.

So I've just been posting all kinds of things here in the past week or so. Probably because it's finals season, and I've been finishing off some projects. But alot of the stuff I've been posting have been personal things.... so I dunno. I've just had a really productive streak I guess.


I'm being done with this one because my hand hurts. I have a tendency to squeeze a tablet pen, but not a regular pen or pencil or paintbrush. This makes painting things in photoshop problematic. This was started as an oil painting, then brought into photoshop to finish the details. I still want to finish the oil painting, but for now, here is the finished-in-photoshop version:

Mistborn cover, and arguments with photoshop

I've painted a few things in photoshop. Honestly, I still don't really love photoshop. When I'm painting, I want to, like, PAINT. You know, with brushes and turpentine and canvas and that kind of stuff. As much as you can play around with the brushes and layers and filters in photoshop, I still miss my paint.

I'm trying to develop a better relationship with photoshop. This is what we were able to do together. Not that great... I am very not satisfied with it, but... its coming maybe? Meh. Maybe I'll just be the illustrator who does huge oil paintings instead of jumping on the digital bandwagon.

Chracters, etc. belong to Brandon Sanderson, the art is mine. Thanks to Brooke for being my awesome model. 

A Sensational Team

Elizabeth Wein is one of my favorite authors. I couldn't wait for her newest book to come out in the US, so I ordered a copy from the Book Depository. And then, as I tend to do, produced a piece of fanart. I haven't worked a whole lot in photoshop lately, so this was just me kind of trying to figure it out all over again. Characters of course (c) Elizabeth Wein, art (c) me.

A few random pictures I made recently...

Animals


Animals I drew for dads business presentation. You'll have to ask him what they're all supposed to mean because I only vaguely remember.

Dust



Fanart for Megan Whalen Turner's A Conspiracy of Kings.

Pangur Ban



Fanart for The Secret of Kells, and I guess you could say also for the poem Pangur Ban.

The poem, grabbed from (http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/poetry/PangurBan.html), so you don't have to wonder what this picture is supposed to be about:

Pangur Ban

I and Pangur Ban, my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at;
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill will;
He, too, plies his simple skill.

'Tis a merry thing to see
At our task how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
Into the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den.
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our tasks we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine, and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade ;
I get wisdom day and night,
Turning Darkness into light.'

Because I can.

Brought to you by my cameraphone (that means this is a really poor quality photo) I give you: Alice, falling down the rabbit hole: IN PROGRESS! (that means that I'm not done with this painting yet.)

Because I felt like it.

The end.



The passage illustrated:

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.

Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labelled 'ORANGE MARMALADE', but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.

"Do you understand what is going to happen to you, Goatfoot?"

Ok, so I haven't posted anything in AGES. Sorry. But part of that is I haven't really had anything I felt particularly post-worthy, or anything that wouldn't require the bother of photographing, editing, etc. in order to put up--and I am both busy and somewhat lazy and so haven't taken the time to do that. I finally decided that I needed to get SOMETHING up here.

So.

Here is my first-ever painting done in Corel Painter. I painted it out of my head (as in, no photo reference) so some of the anatomy is kind of Eh, but that is, of course, my own fault. I'm still figuring out Painter, which is a kind of glitchy program, and I'm used to photoshop. But I didn't think this painting so horrible that I wouldn't put it up--I don't pretend that I'm not still learning to do art, because I most definitely am. (Learning, that is.)



This is a fanart piece for Megan Whalen Turner's The Queen of Attolia. The earrings are rather significant, but thats all I'm gonna say about that. When my teacher was critiquing it, he was trying to help us with more than just technique, so he was asking me about the scene I was illustrating.

"Who is this?" he asked.
"Um, well, this is a scene from one of my favorite books. She's a queen."
"Oh. Well, is she a good queen or a bad queen?"
"Um, well... actually, shes sort of ambiguous."
"Oh. Well, thats OK then, because she looks ambiguous."


For some reason I found this exchange amusing, and decided to post it here. :D