Tag: fan art

New Art! “Blue Eye, Silver Tongue”

I’ve been working on this fan art piece ever since Blue Eye Samurai came out and finally had a chance to finish it after wrapping up deadlines, taxes, and Life Happening(TM). Mizu’s story of revenge, betrayal, and growth spoke to me in ways that made me want to drop everything and keep writing my own stories, despite my art block and uncertainty, of late.

I felt a personal connection to Mizu’s struggles as a biracial child who felt out of place and someone who also was not overtly feminine, which made my early life more difficult. My thanks to this amazing show that made me feel like my peculiarities are strengths rather than weaknesses.

I couldn’t resist painting a cross-over piece with one of my early original characters from the Exalted TTRPG setting – Koh the Silvertongued Devil. Koh and Mizu share the same unstoppable conviction towards their revenge plots, genderfluid identity, and taste in sunglasses. Not sure who would win in a fight, but I hope it would end in trading survival tips over tea, at the very least!

Painted in Procreate.

Wallpapers anyone?  If this piece is popular enough, I can add a wallpaper pack for it. Let me know in comments if you want this, Patrons, and I’ll add it to the upcoming Patreon digital shop I’ll be debuting here soon!

Want to help me out by giving this art some love on socials?  I’d be delighted if you all like, shared, commented, on social media. A comment of support really makes my day!

New Art! Cult of the Lamb

The Tiefling known now only as “The Lamb” rose from her would-be death as a sacrifice to become a Warlock of an Ancient One set on a quest for revenge for her slaying!

Or she would if I took the story of the adorably evil video game, Cult of the Lamb, and combined it with Dungeons & Dragons, which was the first thing my geek brain did when I played the game.  I enjoyed the straightforward story for the game’s premise so much, alongside all of the mechanics.  I had never played anything quite like it before!

According to my husband, I made quite a terrifying Lamb. Mua ha ha ha!

This was just a fun, silly mashup idea that came to me when I first played this game that made for excellent art practice.  Also a hint of the kind of art I’m moving towards, as it was also an experiment in nurturing a more painterly dark style inspired by Tarot (specifically the Klimt-esque aesthetic brought to the Dragon Age Tarot cards).

Hope you all enjoy my quirky little style experiment!  Painted in Procreate.

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  • Watch a 1 min timelapse for this piece here.

If y’all feel like supporting this art on social media, you can find this piece at the links.  Every share gives an artist wings!

Sketchbook June 2022 – D&D, Gideon the Ninth, & OC Art

I’ve been slowly edging back into working for longer on art, but still haven’t managed to do more than a few sketches lately.  I don’t mind it, though, as not being able to work on serious projects has given me the ‘excuse’ I needed to let my muse off the leash to explore whatever fun topics came to mind!

D&D Sketch – Rabs the Fire Genasi

I really fell in love with my Barbarian from The Unmerry Band from the campaign we recently finished playing.  She graciously volunteered for a warm-up sketch to explore an extreme perspective shot.  Her tatts and eyes are always my favorite details to draw with their dramatic glow!

I hope to re-visit the band again sometime with more explorations of the dramatic scenes from their campaign as well as a level progression chart so I can practice drawing armor.

Gideon the Ninth – Harrow & Gideon Portraits

Lately I’ve been trying to catch up on my Fantasy genre reading.  Gideon the Ninth was high on that list (check out my spoiler free review if you like).  It was a fun ride full of skeletons, sarcasm, and murder and I really enjoyed it!  The combination of mystic necromancy and scifi really inspired me and thus these sketches were born!

I chose to draw Harrow as she appears in full Ninth House pomp in Gideon the Ninth.  Her goth skelly aesthetic really appeals to my sensibilities!

I’ve pictured Gideon here with her rapier, claw, and signature badass glasses.

My idea was to make portraits as if they were from a visual novel like The Arcana.  These were so much fun that I may have to properly polish them up sometime!  If you’re a Locked Tomb fan, who would you like to see me sketch next?

OC Art – Redesigned Kalara

Some of you may remember Kalara from my Exalted ttrpg adventures.  I had a lot of fun coming up with fashions during her Shirt Cut Meme, which made me realize she hasn’t had a new look in 8 years!

[WIP of the line art for Kalara’s revised look.

I hope to do a whole other article talking about her new design later once I’m finished with a new reference sheet, but for now, enjoy the sneak peek of the line art for her new design.  I’m stoked for how much more sophisticated and dramatic this new look is for her!

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Lastly, all of these sketches were done in Procreate, as curled up on the couch with the ipad has been the most physically comfortable way for me to draw lately.

And this has been another month of rest, healing, and stress-free sketching!  I hope to inch back into more serious work in July.  I’d love to keep practicing with warm-up sketches when I can, however.  It felt good to do fun things that don’t have strings attached to any major launches or paychecks.

The Locked Tomb has been an especially inspiring series, so I hope to keep doing more portraits!  Have you all read these books?  What other cool Fantasy books should I be reading right now?  Let me know in comments or feel free to come chat books with me in my Patreon Discord server!  There’s a whole channel for geeking out about books and media.

That’s all for now!  I’ll have another announcement soon about this Patreon’s move to temporary Tip Jar status.  I know this isn’t much, but I hope you all enjoyed the art treats anyways!

♥ Ang

Hiatus News + New Art! The Pirate’s Kiss

Oh wow we’re almost there already!  My shoulder surgery looms on April 8th and I have been cleared by the doctors so that everything is set and ready to go.  I have paused my pledges again for April so I can focus on healing and the long recovery!

In the meanwhile, I’ve been enjoying the prolonged sabbatical and using it as a time to indulge in marketing classes and in some exploratory art.  (And also bodily disappearing into the world of Horizon Forbidden West, which is one of my favorite series of all time!).

One of those aforementioned art explorations was a gift for a dear friend, Sam Hogg, who has created such lovely art of my characters in the past.  I have been wanting to paint her characters myself for a long time!  I’m thankful for this downtime to finally have that opportunity and to enjoy slowing down so I could enjoy my journey through a painting without rushing.  This was also an excellent opportunity to experiment with Procreate’s acrylic brushes!

One of my favorite pieces by Sam featuring Ramah from my story, Song of Exile.

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“The Pirate’s Kiss” features Eidy & Kalam from Sam’s story, The Whaler Girl. Eidy is a powerful Daichen who can control water, while Kalam is the pirate lord who seeks to harness her abilities and mold her for his own ends.  I’m looking forward to seeing Sam explore more of their tumultuous relationship in her stories!

Inspired by Klimt’s The Kiss, which always struck me as being about a woman swept up in a dangerous romance, which was the perfect root inspiration for these characters.

You can also watch a 1 minute time lapse of this video here.

The full piece:

The detail:

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I hope you all have enjoyed my experimental explorations of late!  I also have some D&D-inspired portraits in a Legend of Vox Machina-inspired style that I’d love to share soon as well, granted I can finish them before my surgery happens.  We shall see!

For now, enjoy the new art!

Ang

May 2020 Wrap-Up – Fanarts, Refocusing, and Next Steps!

May went by way too fast, you guys!  I was able to take about a week off before I had to hop back to prepping Backerkit for the Goddesses of Spring Kickstarter to make sure that was working smoothly for those of you who picked up pins.  But do not worry, I plan to take a true and proper break once this FINAL Kickstarter finishes its ‘lifecycle’ and everything is shipped!

In that bit of downtime, I took on the Six Fanarts Challenge which are my first paintings in Procreate!  I’m extremely proud of these.  It’s nice to be reminded I can still paint this way after years of working almost primarily in ink and watercolor:

(Check out this post for the collection and narrated time lapse video!)

I’m also pretty terrible at downtime and as usual when I am trying to take a break, my brain is alight with all the things I’d like to do!  I’ve been thinking of the ways I want to re-focus and make some changes to organize my studio, refine my social media output, etc. now that this project has finished one major phase and begins to enter another.

The focus of this next and final phase is going to be the Wall Calendar and Art Book, the latter of which will feature some unpublished pieces (that my Patreon Patrons will totally be getting a sneak peek of before everybody else!).  These pieces are going to be much more in a dark and elegant vein as I bridge the gap between Mucha’s style and my own personal style.  It’s going to be very different, but still something I hope you all will enjoy!

June is going to be about finishing up one last Art Challenge to let my brain wind down (The 6 Outfits Challenge), setting a study schedule, wrapping up Kickstarter (I hope! These delays are killer), doing taxes, and re-organizing the studio to be more efficient now that my inventory has grown so very much!

Lastly, as much as I like to focus on my fanciful art here, this month has also been mentally rough for so many folks, especially as I write this.  For those who don’t know us, my husband and I are an interracial couple.  Seeing recent events unfold is a strong reminder of how safe my husband and family are not in this world, a constant 24-7 truth we’ve become good at ignoring just so we can live our lives.   I’ve shared some places you can donate here where you can also help others during these tense times, if you are able. 

Please be kind to others and speak up when you see injustice!  Let this horror help us come together with renewed and combined strength.

Much love!

♥ Ang

Digest of May’s Posts

Rewards Added in May

New Art! The Cobra Witcher of Ofir

And now for something completely different – my first painting of 2020!  Seeing The Witcher adapted into a tv series on Netflix re-ignited my old love for this fantasy world, so I thought I’d take a break with my own fan homage.  I couldn’t resist hopping on the Witcher OC bandwagon with a Witcher concept of my own – a Witcher of Ofir!

Ofir is a country south of Nilfgaard consisting of numerous desert tribes and kingdoms united under a Malliq.  It is a land of great cities said to be even more grand than those of Nilfgaard.  

This gal is from the Ofieri School of the Cobra (a school of my own creation), who train Witchers in alchemy, oils, and poisons made to fight monsters.  

I don’t have a name for this gal yet, as she was very much a spur of the moment inspiration! I get the sense that she’s:

  • Extremely sarcastic
  • Casually talks about horrible things
  • Very picky about what poisons go into her body

Comment with your suggestions!

The Witchers of Ofir

DISCLAIMER! This is a fan concept for how Witchers might operate in Ofir.  It is not canon and I have not read all of the novels yet, just the first three, so there may be other obscure lore of Ofir I might have missed.

The Witchers of Ofir are not feared as their counterparts in the Northern Realms, but are revered as experts.  However, royal decree states that only a certain number of Witchers may exist at any one time, the Malliq’s subtle population control of these powerful beings.  When one falls, another is chosen from among volunteers to take their place.  

Witchers of Ofir undergo their own unique Trial of the Grasses which is said to be the origin of the techniques used in the Northern Realms and lauded to be superior, resulting in more powerful mutations with less side effects and lethality to the subjects of the Trial.

Witcher Gear

Ofieri Witchers also do not use medallions to detect magic, but rather sense it through the markings tattooed on their faces, which also identify their School of origin.  Created with infused dyes, these tattoos grow warm and tingle in the presence of magic and are iridescent in appearance.

Ofir is the homeland of masterful Runewright mages who have perfected the technique of enhancing the properties of blades with runic symbols.  The Witchers of Ofir benefit from this talent, each individual granted a unique weapon imbued with runes upon their initiation and survival of the Trial of the Grasses.  

Work-in-Progress Pics

I created this image in Photoshop with an experimental method of using multiple adjustment layers and effects.  I’ll be uploading a wallpaper pack featuring this gal for all of my Patrons, plus a PSD for my $5 and up Patrons to study and enjoy!

References for Ofir from the world of The Witcher. Including the Witcher comic “Of Flesh and Flame”, the Witcher 3 video game, and excellent swordcraft of Kaer Morhen Forge.

Exploratory sketching. I dropped the hood so she would read less like an Assassin’s Creed character.

Trying out different hairstyles.  I chose the style she ended up with since it reminded me of the cowl of a cobra, which is symbolic of her school.  I imagine she could also use the silver hair thong as a garrote in a pinch as well! 

Final line art.

Completed color flats.

A collage of all the details I spent entirely too long on.

I’ve been missing doing more traditional dark fantasy work, so this was a nice break from my usual art mode.

And now back to our regularly scheduled program of whimsical Art Nouveau ladies!  I hope you enjoyed this brief diversion into my geek love.

♥ Ang

SKETCH DIARY: The Uncrucified

Inspirations:

I’ve been working on a lot of tedious Art Nouveau of late and, while I love it, I decided to indulge in this little project after hours to help me unwind from the seriousness of that particular style.  I’ve been doing a lot of tabletop gaming lately, thanks to a friend who sucked me into a game of White Wolf’s Exalted setting.

This fun side project began as an urge to draw the character from our Exalted game as well as to create cover art for a short story about her that I wrote.  In our game, I play Kalara Vadras, a gunslinging Eclipse Caste, the diplomat of our Circle of players, and a no-nonsense businesswoman with a sordid past of betrayal and revenge.  Here’s one of her early character sheets.

kalara-sheet-lowres

 

Mood Board:

I’ve been gathering references for our game for over a year.  I love it when digital image hoarding pays off!  Kalara’s particular visual influences include Indian guns, Chinese fashion, and a generally non-Western collection of fantasy elements.

the-uncrucified-mood-board-lowres

Like this board?  You can view and Follow it on Pinterest here!

I monstress-lowresalso drew a lot of inspiration from one of my favorite comics currently being published right now – Monstress.  The art by Sana Takeda and story by Marjorie Liu are simply exquisite!

The Asian Art Deco steampunk aesthetic fit so well with what my mind’s eye conjures while we play Exalted.  Check out the cover to the comic, you’ll see what I mean!

Early on during the image’s sketch phases, I decided to push the image away from a detailed comic book style and more towards this anime-esque stylization thanks very much in part to Monstress’ influence.

Next, I did a lot of posing in front of the webcam, as opposed to thumbnail sketches.  This was meant to be a fast and fun image, so I decided to keep it simple and skip the planning step.

pose-montage-lowres

While posing, I kept in mind that I wanted her very symbolic crucifixion scar to be very noticeable to the image, which meant focusing a lot on expressive hand motions.  The 3rd pose on the far right ended up being my winner because of the diagonals that lead the viewer’s eye around.  That pose also feels the most natural and emotive.

Finally, here’s an animated GIF of my image’s evolution.

The-Uncrucified-Process-GIF

You can can watch a more in-depth video about this piece’s creation at my YouTube channel.

Final Cover Image:

The Uncrucified Cover Art

Uncropped Image:

The Uncrucified

Prints and products of this piece are available at my Etsy shop!


Like my art and want sneak peeks, special goodies, and more?
Support me on Patreon!

Sketch Diary – Nariko of Heavenly Sword – Part 2

Now that Nariko’s design is figured out, it’s on to coloring!  I decided to try a new coloring technique called the Ambient Occlusion method.  This technique is a way to bring a structural quality to your images relatively quickly.  I used Alex Negrea’s tutorial and also this helpful process post from David Lojaya.

Here’s a breakdown of the main layers in my painting.

  1. Sketch – I produced a clean line art using the hard brush. This Sketch layer hovers above all of the other layers for the figure.  Notice I didn’t sketch in pure black, but a very dark brown so as to keep my image from looking too stark. I wanted subtle warmth and for the line art to look natural. The same goes for the AO layer, which is not pure black, but a dark brown. You can tweak this coloration later to suit the mood of your piece.
  2. Sketch+Ambient Occlusion – The Ambient Occlusion layer sits below the Sketch and Flat Color layers and above the Shadow layer and represents places that are hard for light to enter, the deepest, darkest shadows where light is ‘occluded’.  It is set to the blending option Multiply.
  3. Sketch+AO+Flat Colors – The Flat Colors are actually a group of layers, as I kept each color on its own layer just in case I wanted to change them later.  The entire group is set to the blending option Multiply so they show the AO layer beneath them.
  4. Sketch+AO+Flat Colors+Shadow – The Shadow layer was clipped to a standalone layer that masked out the entire figure to keep my shadows from going outside of the lines.  The Shadow layer is located below the Flat Colors group and above the AO layer.
  5. Final – In the final image notice I’ve actually masked out some of the Sketch layer so that the hard lines don’t look so unnatural (particularly in the area of the neck where lines are too harsh for the soft transitions there).  Lighting effects have also been applied here.

 

NOTE: My Patreon Patrons at the $5+ reward tier have exclusive access to my .psd file, so be sure to pitch in there if you’d like to peruse my layer structure!

 

Tools Used:

Deharme’s Brush set for Photoshop CC

Finally, here’s an animated GIF of my process (roughly 8 mb).

If you’d like to download wallpapers of the final image, I’ve provided the 1920×1080 size for free.

Also be sure to check out the article this image is featured in, What Women Want…In Women Characters for an interesting discussion of female character designs and representation.

The 1920×1080 wallpaper of this image. Download here.

Other sizes plus the .psd are available exclusively for my Patreon Patrons.

PRINTS AND PRODUCTS – Contact me privately if interested.

Back to Part 1