Octopus Maiden Part 3

The latest version! As you can see, I've reshaped and re-sized the piece a bit, changed the hands since the initial piece and, most noticeably, changed the structure of the legs. As you can see, she's got a more balanced weight-distribution now, being over 2 legs and 2 tentacles, though I'm still not 100% happy with how it looks and, as such, havn't begun shading this area yet.

While I play around with it though, I've been colouring in the inner areas of the tentacles, defining more shading and highlighting, done some darker, higher contrast shading since yesterday, and started work on the eyes and mouth.

The next time I post this WIP will be in a few days, till then I'm finishing off the chibi sprites commission and working on a few other small pieces, including another piece of Mousehunt fan-art.

Octopus Maiden Part 2

Still working on this piece!

Finally made some progress with it, as such I've started shading and highlighting, refining some of the details and I've completely re-structured the piece from the ribs down. I've made her stomach more protruded to give her an increasingly grotesque figure, and she's now balancing on 2 legs and 2 tentacles.

I've also worked a bit more on the commission from yesterday and should have that finished in an hour, may post it up tomorrow unless I make a large amount of progress on this lass, in which case you can expect to see a lot more of her!

Just a bunch of dots

The objects in my pixel brush pack so far!

There's still about 2 rooms left to go, plus a 'misc' tab which will cover everything from windows to radiators.

I've also been taking some commission work over at gaiaonline.com, and at the moment have been working on some sprites:

So looks like I'm fully stuck in the world of pixel artwork for a little bit longer! I'm hoping to make some real progression on the octopus maiden piece and a double-wallpaper in the next week, before I jet off on holiday.

Oh, on that note! While in Florida I'll still be trying to keep up with this blog, however it'll become once every 3-4 days with likely more text and only 1 picture a time I'm afraid, but at least it'll still keep going. :)

Mousehunt revisited!

I did some Mousehunt fan-art a while ago: Here, when I posted the original I included a post about what Mousehunt is and the like, so I won't be repeating myself here! Overall though, I'm still part of the MH community and have always enjoyed the art styles used by Hitgrab, particularly the work of Jacob Johnson.

As such, with these 2 fan-art pieces I've been attempting to emulate his style and I think I'm getting close. Though compared to my first image, done a few months ago now, I have to say my composition has definitely improved! The shadows feel like they exist for a reason and help to create the depth of the piece, while the lighting in general I feel has gotten better. You can also tell where the mouses eyes are easier in this piece...

Also, I've almost finished my pixel brush pack now, I would say it'd be done by this weekend but I'm going to see The Sister tomorrow so won't be functional till Saturday. As such, it'll be an early post tomorrow with the pixel work completed so far!

Octopus WIP

My current WIP, this is the very early stages with the basic anatomy sketch plus some additions to define the character design. I'll be removing the fin-skirt and smaller tentacles in the hair, as I don't think they quite fit the feel, and I'm still unsure about the suction-pad-milia around the eyes, but we'll see on that point.

I'm also considering re-jigging the legs into a different pose. I'll be adding 3 more tentacles, being a matching arm tentacle on her left arm and 2 leg tentacles, so she has 8 limbs in total. As such, instead of the floating-around-underwater pose we see here, I'm thinking having the human legs either far forward or far back and the body also resting on the 2 leg-tentacles, leaving a 4-limbed weight support structure. This way, I'll be able to play around more with weight distribution, and place the character on a beach rather than under water itself, as I've been doing a lot of pieces recently that have been situated under the ocean and very few featuring sand. This seems like a good time to rectify this!

I'm still unsure as to her finned hands and feet, but I love the flipper feeling of her feet so may well stick to this.

I'm still looking at underwater creatures though and considering placing the eyes at the side of the face rather than the front...But of course that would imply a herbivore, the victims of the system. On that note, I can't decide if she should be part of a terrifying monster set or a more benevolent being...

More to come!

Some small commissions today

A small sprite commission, which is the first pixel character I've done for years! I don't think I did the shades dark enough...But I still think it ended up being pretty cute.

Then we get to this piece which I did for a contest~

No idea what's meant to happen at this convention, or even where it's held, all I know is this art has a chance of being used for a poster for the event!

Also, it's one of the only pieces of anime art I've done recently and I'm really starting to think I've outgrown it... It's a shame as it's one of the styles which got me into art in the first place, but after studying paintings and life studies it all feels like such an easy style now.

I think that's the main problem, it's easy. I don't think I can improve upon it anymore so there's not really any point in doing it, other than ensuring I still CAN do it.

That's all for today! Look out for some more Mousehunt fan art tomorrow.

Old piece revisited

The Boy tells me the new image looks a lot better, which it DOES, but I still don't like it. It feel dull, there isn't enough contrast, there's no reason for the light source I lit her with, and it just all feels a bit amateurish...

I will say, my hair's definitely improved over the last year! The composition's slightly better and at least corresponds to the rule of thirds now, but still...

Anyway, after drawing this I decided I wanted to draw something pretty, and quickly. So, 10 minutes later:

Only 5 saturations of the same blue used on different opacities with 2 different brushes in 10 minutes, feeling much better after this!