Tag: Character Art

New Art! Cassius, the Life and Death Necromancer

My final illustration for the giveaway prizes! This one’s for Psycheen on BlueSky of their character, Cassius, a Solarpunk necromancer who can give Death with their left hand and Life with their right. I got to once again run wild with cool jewelry and hair!

I had to go with the concept of a ‘sealed left hand’ which came to mind after hearing about Cassius’ ‘left hand of DEATH” and reading how this character unintentionally killed their older brother to save another by transferring the lifeforce from them to an injured person.

(I do love a good tragic backstory, courtesy of Psycheen!)


[The mood board for Cassius with Psycheen’s art of them on the right]

Watch a timelapse of Cassius’ portrait here:

[The line art for Cassius’ portrait]

[The final version painted in Procreate on the ipad]

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Hopefully, in the future I can re-open for commissions like this once medical things aren’t looming on the horizon and I’ve balanced my schedule for IT studies.

For now, Sam’s Dahlia and Psycheen’s Cassius were great practice for when that finally happens. Congrats to the winners on their prizes!

My art queue is now finally down to the BIG ambitious illustration of the faux book cover and interior illustrations for Cassiel’s Servant, which has proven a challenge, as I’m having to invent much of the anatomy and poses. Sometimes, it’s just hard to find reference when your characters and camera angles are unusual!

I am also pondering experimenting with black, white, and red graphite for the interior illustrations, which should go faster than full color. Hopefully not famous last words!

Wish me luck!

More art soooon, barring any other catastrophes or family needs,

– Ang

New Art! Character Portrait – Dahlia for Sam Hogg

Art has been a little slow of late, but I’m still hanging in there after a family emergency last month where I’ve sadly had to cancel my commission launch. I still won’t be taking commissions for awhile yet while focusing on family, but I still wanted to finish the giveaway prizes that folks won during the launch event just because I hate to get people’s hopes up and then have them get nothing!

To start off with, we have the lovely Dahlia for Sam Hogg, a deceptively gorgeous and deadly courtesan from her The Whaler Girl storyverse.

I had a grand time drawing all of Dahlia’s amazing details, from her wardrobe to her hair. All my love also for being able to draw curvy gals as well! The Fantasy genre is too often relegated to a certain body type, so it’s refreshing to see some variation. I had some excellent reference from Grafit that helped me figure this pose and body type out.

Line art of Dahlia:

Art of Dahlia by Sam Hogg

I simply MUST feature more art of Dahlia by Sam because she’s SO FRIGGIN COOL and the art for her The Whaler Girl is amazing. I recommend exploring Sam’s site to immerse yourself in her thrilling and beautiful Fantasy world!

Next up, I’ll have another prize winner’s art with subject matter also in a similar vein of tattooed and lovely.

There is a chance I may have to fall off the planet again randomly when my husband undergoes surgery so I can care for him during recovery, but the timeline isn’t set while we sort out all the details, so I’m trying to get as much art done as I can in the meanwhile.

Enjoy the flood while it lasts!

<3 Ang

New Art! Atorias, Soul Knife + Process Sneak Peek

EDIT: Head’s up! There’s now a Secret Sketchbook post with a deep dive about the creation of this portrait. Go check it out!

I’m so excited to finally be able to share this art that’s been in the pipeline for awhile! This piece represents a new artistic direction for me as I embark on a new journey to create more TTRPG and Fantasy Art after spending years on my Birthstone Goddesses.

About Artorias

Introducing Artorias, the smarmy Rogue from our D&D campaign (played by my husband, Kevin) whose dice rolls so far have not reflected his smooth skillset. He was a willing volunteer to test out this new artistic style I’ve been nurturing.

ART CAPTION: New head of the Collbrande trade empire after his hostile takeover. Outwardly charming, inwardly growing more heartless by the day.

He is also the twin brother of Ariminthia “Mint” Collbrande, a Bladesinger my husband played originally. When the family abandoned her to kidnappers, Artorias started his villain arc and overthrew their trade empire. He is currently working with a disparate band of volunteers to aid the city in finding a supernatural serial killer targeting aristocrats who has also cursed his sister with the inability to speak.

It was interesting to compare this new portrait of Arty to the old one of Mint done in a Legend of Vox Machina-inspired style from 2022. I’ve worked more in this cell-shaded animation style lately for quickness, so going full render on Arty was a big challenge!

Art Process

I tried a new digital process for this piece where I did all my line art and flats first, then tinted the shadows with different color temperatures on a single layer. For the final polish, I dropped out the lines in key places. My goal was to achieve a look that kept the energy of my line art and brushstrokes without dipping too deeply into overrendered realism.

I’ll talk more about this process and share the PSD file in an upcoming Secret Sketchbook post just for Patrons, so keep your eyes peeled for that this week.

In the meanwhile, enjoy this glimpse at the process and how I constructed my layers:

Watch a timelapse of Arty’s portrait here.

Upcoming Commissions

Now that I have this example complete, I’ll be releasing a price sheet soon! I’ll be offering a limited number of slots per month depending on my availability which will be offered first to my Patreon Patrons and newsletter subscribers first.

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Once I get the commission sheet out to the world, I’ll be returning to my usual schedule of working on the “Cassiel’s Servant” cover for my Story Sketchers project. My journey with acrylics and ambitious narrative imagery will continue!

More soon!

<3 Ang

New Art! Exalted Character of the Month: Yorigasu, Chosen of Battles

It’s been a month of adjusting to a new schedule! I’ve been attempting to return to our original plan of me writing more, with art being a smaller part of my day.

However, it’s been difficult trying to fit all the art I want to do into the smaller time I have for drawing, which has also been split with trying to get commission samples done and maintain a streaming schedule, which has started to fall apart already.

Plus the mental overwhelm of US politics and my current identity crisis as I move away from being a more active artist.

Still, I always make time for the Exalted Character of the Month challenge and while I said I wouldn’t share much of this type of work here because I wanted to keep it tidily confined to The Uncrucified’s Ko-fi, I find myself with little else to share while other art takes me longer to do.

So enjoy the corvid bird warrior, Yorigasu, Chosen of Battles, Sidereal Exalted, who belongs to Lobsopdoy.

 Watch a timelapse of this piece here. Created in Procreate.

Lobsopdoy’s reference image:

I was very intimidated by the bird anatomy, as I have less experience drawing animals, but I do appreciate the challenge because corvids are awesome! How’d I do?

I hope I’ll have more art to share soon, but commission samples have been slow-going and I just haven’t been in a good head space this month. Hopefully I can shake it off and get back in the art battle soon!

Once the commission samples are done, I’m returning to focus on my Cassiel’s Servant work. For now, ENJOY BIRB!

<3 Ang

Art Fight 2024 Begins! + Character Art Feature

It’s July and that means it’s Art Fight time! I participated for the first time last year and it was such a wonderful experience that helped me reconnect with other artists and a sense of optimism during all the chaos and social media shakeups in 2023. After that event, I swore to do it again this year.

(I made a video about last year’s experience and how it works, for the curious.)

The time has come once more this July! If you would like to participate in an event where artists trade images of their characters, check out Art Fight. You can find my profile here. Feel free to share yours in the comments, if you’re participating as well! Perchance I’ll have time to Attack you, if something catches my eye and I have the time.

I’ll be participating when I can, but can’t promise I’ll be able to respond to each Attack. We’ll see how it goes! I’ll share a compilation of art made for the event once the month is through.

Here are some of the fun portraits I did for last year’s Art Fight event (which you can see what other folks did for me here):

This year, I’ve added some new character art, as well as a new character to choose from, both rendered by the amazing Sam Hogg.

First up, here’s newly added art of Ramah, an exiled prince from my story project, Song of Exile. After a failed rebellion against his tyrannical father, he spends his days in exile honoring his mother’s legacy as a healer. Until the day years later, he is called by his ex-wife to return once more to tend to the gravely ill king, only to be drawn further into facing his family’s tarnished legacy and the simmering violence of a coup.

Then we have Nils, a mortician-turned-monster hunter who is a new character choice for attackers to choose from for this year’s Art Fight. Nils uses his skills as a former mortician to retrieve the bodies of fallen hunters. It’s the job nobody wants, but he doesn’t mind so much.

Nils is from another story idea inspired by my D&D adventures with Blood Hunters.

  Are you in? Go team Stardust! See you in the art trenches.

– Ang

[Art] Exalted Character of the Week Vol 1: Rainbows, Abyssals, and Big Hats

You all know I’m a nerd for the tabletop game, Exalted from Onyx Path Publishing (and if not, SURPRISE! Prepare yourself for my weebness).  I help run a Discord server for fans who like to create art, writing, etc. for this particular TTRPG community.  Recently, we started up a community activity where we roll a die to choose a character from a member to create arts inspired by them.  This little collection features characters from our first rounds.

This activity has been an excellent opportunity for me to practice different styles, so strap yourself in for a ride through the colorful characters and styles of my first Exalted Character of the Week collection!

(My gal, Kalara, was chosen for the first round, but that’s a whole other art feature collection for later).

Theo for Jen

Theodotus is a bombastic Zenith Caste who beams rainbows from his heroic anima.  The energetic style of the Hades video game seemed like a perfect fit for him. I absolutely adore this style and always wanted to try it myself!  This style involves clean line work and bold highlighting for a signature look. I definitely want to play with it more, as it suited my own proclivity for line art and elegance very well.

  • Watch a timelapse of Theo’s creation here.

Orchid for MissSunnySweden

Next, we have Leaping River Orchid, a demure noblewoman Twilight Caste who hides her Anathema nature from the noble house she was born into.  She prefers to charm rather than combat and seemed a good fit for testing out a style inspired by the Arcane animated series with her elegant costume.

I’m particularly happy with how this one came out. Despite how rough it is, it feels polished in the right places, which is a valuable lesson to me on balancing detail and value in a composition so I can plan my time and effort with pieces better.

  • Watch a timelapse of Orchid’s portrait here.

Thrice-Fallen Affections for Raefen

Finally, we have the Abyssal, Thrice-Fallen Affections, who serves the Deathlord, The Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears.  Thrice-fallen Affections has some rather risque tastes in formal clothing in the skeleton themes of the Underworld.

  • See the uncensored version and watch the full view timelapse of this piece here.  Artistic nudity warning (bare breasts in a non-sexual context) for any who do decide to click through.

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It’s my hope that by experimenting with different styles, I refill my creative well a bit, as well as learn about what makes MY style “me” by figuring out what it is I like and don’t like, what feels right to me, and how I want my work to look in the future.  Most of all, it’s just nice to take a break from serious years-long projects to have some fun with casual art!  I have been emulating Mucha for so long with the Birthstone Goddesses series that it’s nice to break out of my shell a bit.

The Exalted Character of the Week Challenge is going to be an ongoing activity in the future, so I’ll probably share quarterly collections from the event from here on out.  It’s been fun to let loose with styles and fashion exploration with all the colorful character possibilities that Exalted has to offer thus far.

Next up, I hope to have a very special bit of fan art inspired by my favorite TV series of 2023 – Blue Eye Samurai!  Granted I can get it done by next Thursday.  We shall see!

Till then, I hope you enjoyed the art dump!

– Ang

March 2023 Sketchbook – Character Explorations & Forgotten Sketches + A Lesson In Patience

Well then, 2023 continues whoopin’ my butt!  I spent a few days in the ER with food trapped in my esophagas thanks to a chronic condition that suddenly got worse, which caused me to be down for another week for recovery.  The docs are on my case to help me make sure this doesn’t happen again, but I’m beyond frustrated with how much time I’ve had to take off this year because of my fragile meat shell.  It’s been a lesson in patience and in recognizing I’m going to have to work at the pace I can work at and nothing more or less.

I’m definitely looking forward to our beach vacation coming up in April!  Kev and I haven’t taken a proper vacation outside of a staycation at home since we’ve been together and had always planned a trip for our honeymoon, which we have not taken in the years since we’ve been married.  We’re finally taking the time to spoil ourselves rotten after the past few years we’ve had!

The Little Victories

Thankfully at least I did manage to get back in the studio to clear out the mess from the move.  I still have little bit to go, but it’s finally looking sane inside!  In the meanwhile, I’ve been slowly, but surely learning how to use Clip Studio Paint, which has some fantastic vector inking features I’ve been utilizing for my amulet designs.

I chipped away at the medallion designs to complete the Goddesses of Winter set (December, January, & February).  I was supposed to have all of them done by now, but I’m trying to be kinder to myself when health things happen and let things develop as they can!

Here’s a little sneak peek of January’s pink carnation motif:

Forgotten Sketches

I realized putting together sketches that I had forgotten to share a couple!  Back in November when I was playing with my Flame of the Sultana story for NaNoWriMo, I was inspired to do some concepts for my Fire Genasi’s sister, an Earth Genasi named Badeema.  While I began this sheet last year, I’ve been coming back to it every now and again to play with more crystal hairdos for her because it’s just so very fun!  I’m sure I’ll wander back to this character to play with more agate-inspired skin striations, too.  

She deserves her own dedicated sketchbook post, along with Rabs’ other Genasi sisters, methinks!  I’d love to have my own illustrations to use for this story’s Campfire Writing story bible.

 

Next, we have an idea that came to me while I was pondering a story you all haven’t really ‘met’ yet.  Tentatively titled Sacred & Profane, this D&D inspired tale did show up in my NaNoWriMo poll as the ‘story of friendship between a pair of dysfunctional monster hunters with werewolves, vampires, and ghosts, oh my!’

One of these pair of monster hunters is Nils, a Ghostslayer, who often trains by willingly enduring near-death experiences, which opens him up to experiences like the one pictured.  The angel has a deeper significance later on, but I’ll leave that for future exploration.

I’m excited to play with the notion of the surface of water breaking up the perspective plane for an extra trippy composition if I end up polishing this image later!

More Character Sketches

My go-to ‘my body betrays me and I must control my stress levels’ happy project has been continuing the party line-up I’ve been working on during my dedicated ‘carefree sketchbook play time’.  The goal is to end up like this with a whole spread of clothing/armor looks for the party!

I finished Rabs’ armor base and now Cal, the flirtacious circus Tiefling, is up next!  I adore Cal’s carefree attitude and parti-color theme and had a lot of fun exploring his armor base in gesture sketches.  For Level 0, I wanted him to seem a little unsure of his skills, but with the potential to improve, while his Armor Base is meant to show off the confidence he gains in his skills since those training days.

Cal’s player and I have already picked the final poses for his Level 0 and Armor Base poses, but feel free to try and guess which ones we picked out of each row!

A little reminder of what Cal looks like:

Well, that’s all for now, friends!  I hope to have a more significant update next month as my body hopefully does not implode.  But also I have a lot of looming medical tests which may mean more downtime or slow time for me, depending on the outcome.  So here I am, just trying to go with the flow without raging too much about that anymore.

Bless you kind souls who still remain pledged here!  Your support when I’ve been in Tip Jar mode warms my heart.

♥ Ang

Posts You Might’ve Missed in March

Sketchbook Feb 2023

Sketchbook Feb 2023 + Recovery Update!

Well, guys, January and February didn’t go exactly like I had planned.  I’ve been dealing with an allergic reaction to surgical glue, other nasty incision difficulties, and just trying to catch up on all the sleep I’ve missed from being unable to sleep comfortably after surgery.

This may end up affecting other plans I’ve had this year, like the amulets Kickstarter, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.  I at least want to finish the designs to have for stickers and Patreon goodies!  I’m finally healing up today after those recovery hiccups, so we’ll see what I can achieve without overwhelming myself.

Speaking of the amulets, I’ve started inking them in Clip Studio Paint!  This design for January needs some tweaking because I can’t unsee the Eye of Sauron in the middle, but it’s been exciting learning more about this extremely useful program, as I’ve finally started taking proper classes on the software.

Before anything else can happen with the Birthstone Goddesses project, however, I need to clean up the studio/shipping area, which has been taunting me since I haven’t been able to lift much!  It’s been stacked with garage and parents’ basement overflow and I’ve only just now begun the excavation process to sort what’s for donation and what’s for keeping. (Oh no and is it also tax season? Halp!)

More Character Art!

Meanwhile, in my continued mission to manufacture happy brain chemicals during my stressful times, you all have witnessed Rabs’ development over the course of the past couple months.  I’ve FINALLY finished her Level 0 form!

Enjoy Teen Rabs in all her irreverent glory!  Teen Rabs hasn’t earned her tatts through training yet and sits on a gallon of pent up anger against the world and her messed up family.  Hopefully I’ve captured the difference in Teen vs Adult Rabs, with Adult Rabs being much more at peace with herself and her past.

You can watch a timelapse of both of these portraits here.

Have an additional closeup because I spent hours on the faces and I’m proud of them:

Both painted in Procreate.  I’m getting more comfortable with this style the more I do!  Though I’m a bit grumpy that you can see the skill gap already between Teen Rabs and her Adult form which was rendered first last year.

Next up, I’ll be doing a Level 0 & Armor Base for the party’s flamboyant Tiefling Arcane Archer, Calumny, which I’m very much looking forward to.

(Cal in all his sassy glory!  He belongs to my dear friend, Hayley.)

Eventually once all these base forms are done, I’ll be doing an armor/level progression chart for them, which will be great practice for me, as I consider armor, in particular, to be a big weakness after years of drawing mainly flowing dress feminine fashions.

Finally, I started playing Elden Ring when I’ve been couch-bound during recovery.  What a strangely beautiful dark fantasy game!  I wasn’t sure I would like it, at first.  The enemies can be frustrating to beat, but now I’ve found myself thoroughly hooked by its hauntingly beautiful world and intriguing exploration.

Behold my swashbuckling mage, Asha the Starless!  Still just a rough sketch, but I expect with all the cool imagery of this game, you may see more fan art from this game pop up here.

Screenshots for reference:

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That’s all for this month, friends!  In March, I’m hoping to be back in good health (knock on wood) which means I’ll hopefully have more to share next time.  I also have some inspiring books, supplies, and photos I want to share.

Till then, don’t forget you can come hang out on my Discord whether you’re a Patron or not!  I love getting to know you all there and sharing inspirations and interests.  You can use this invite to join the public server, though if you want my Patron perks for Discord, which include a private Patrons-only area where I share my private sketchbook, you’ll need to connect your Discord to Patreon.

Till next time!

♥ Ang

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Posts You Might Have Missed from February

Jan 2023 Sketchbook + Health Update!

I wanted to peek my head out and give you all a sign of life!  I’ve been taking it easy this month while healing from surgery and dealing with very heavy doses of pain medication, which means I don’t have a lot of art to share from January.  However, I hope you’ll enjoy what fun I was able to have with art!

January was all about stimulating the happy brain chemicals to help with the stress of recovery, which meant, once again, having fun with totally pointless original character art!

The Uncrucified VTT Tokens

I wanted to practice drawing tokens for virtual tabletops and so the cast of The Uncrucified, my Exalted tabletop RPG story, felt like a good starting point!  I’ve also created a project logo for The Uncrucified which I incorporated into the token’s decorative border.

(Watch a timelapse here.)

This style might not have enough contrast to really stand out for smaller tokens, but I enjoyed the painting practice, none-the-less!

WIP – Young Rabs

I’ve been poking at this young teen Rabs, my most recent Dungeons & Dragon character, since last year!  You all might remember the full body of her present day self done for a D&D party level progression chart (which I’m using as reference on the left).  

I wanted every member of the party to have a unique Level 0 example to show what each character looked like when they first got that glint in their eye to become an adventurer.  Seeing their younger self makes it even more interesting to see how they’ve changed over time/levels.  I wanted to do this to incorporate more storytelling into what is otherwise a very basic straightforward level chart.
Plus, it’s good practice for me at drawing younger ages.

(Explore a mini-gallery of Rabs’ tattoos and design here.)

Rabs was a scrappy, angry teen who used to practice her combat skills in secret in preparation for a coup her mothers and sisters were plotting against her murderous father (more on that from my 2022 NaNoWriMo exploration of her backstory).  She’s chilled out a lot since those dark days and is now rather more the cheerful optimist of the party!

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With my medications thinning out and body and mind getting back to normal, I hope to ease into a more regular schedule in February.  I have big plans this year to launch some exclusive Patreon goodies and a couple of Kickstarters I have been looking forward to for years, now, so I’m excited to FINALLY get started on working towards those goals!

I’m also starting back to my art studies and classes, as I’ve felt my skills have stagnated while I’ve been in Recovery Mode.  Working digitally has been wonderful since I can do it comfortably with my shoulder (and now stomach) limitations, but I really want to get my hands dirty with traditional paints again, which means getting my butt back in the studio!

I hope to have more to share soon, with a Patrons-only sneak peek coming soon.  Keep your eyes peeled!

❤️ Ang

September 2022 Sketchbook – Rabs & Kalara Character Designs

This weekend, we put the first boxes in the new studio and I’m so excited!  Studio pics to follow in the near future.  In the meanwhile, I’ve been using the time between the seams to chip away at the character designs for Rabs and Kalara.  Character sheets have been my happy place lately!

Rabanne Arore, Big Muscles, Big Heart

I wanted to challenge myself with Rabs’ design with a muscular body type and her glowing hair. She’s really captured my muse with her fun tatts, color schemes, and themes, so you’ll definitely be seeing more of her in my sketchbook!  This particular piece was meant to be in the style of a more traditional ttrpg rulebook style source book image, as well as a base for me to put different clothing on.  More fashions are sure to follow!

Watch a time lapse of how I created this piece, along with Rabs’ tattoo sheet here.  She was painted using the Acrylic brushes in Procreate on the ipad.

Kalara Vadras, The Uncrucified

I meant to save this image for a proper release with a full sheet of FX and turnarounds, but our house move is taking forever, so I thought I’d share a WIP!  You guys got to learn a little bit more about Kalara last month via Fantasy Indies August.  She’s been inspiring me for years since our Exalted ttrpg game, so it was about time she got a new look!

This new look captures more of the elegant merchant negotiator she becomes after her years on the run from the Guild.  

Kalara’s old look as a reminder:

More to come when I explore the rest of her character sheet!  I’m especially excited about drawing the phoenix on the back of her jacket.  The redesign was also created in Procreate using the Studio Ink Pen for color flatting to achieve a comic book feel, as this design is meant as a precursor to a prospective webcomic for the character.

Both Rabs and Kalara utilized helpful stock poses from the awesome Jookpubstock, who has been an excellent resource for inspiration!

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Art is going to slow down even more over the next month while we move our small boxes over to the new place ourselves, with the big stuff being handled by the movers.  There’s a light at the end of the tunnel finally and I’m excited to really settle properly into a new permanent studio art cave!

♥ Ang