TLDR

I finally finished it! It literally took me days to complete, with it's overall creation time spanning well over a week, but it's finally done! And you know what? For once, I'm almost completely happy with a picture!

Saying that, I'm sure in a year I'll revisit this piece and, hopefully, re-make it again even better. :)

I'm happy that I finally incorporated a character into a background, I'm happy with how the image progressed as a whole, I'm happy with the composition and the lighting, and I'm really happy with the floor!

Now, this has all been a mini project for myself to compare how I've grown as an artist in the past year and, I have to say, it's a LOT.

'Poison Ivy' was the original, and was actually the first time I ever attempted dreadlocks (as mentioned in a previous post). This was way back in the days of not caring about, and therefore not even starting to attempt environments around the character. I generally thought 'green = jungle' and left it at that.

That being said, although the original image is, well, it's really not that great is it? I decided it should be the start of the then-and-now as it DID have potential. I likes the idea of her character, she almost feels like an NPC your could get to join your party in Baulders Gate... I'm rambling.

Anyway, I tried to stay true to the original in many ways. Sure, I substituted the jungle for a forest, and ages her 2 or 3 years, but generally I kept to the theme pieces of the original. The glowing parts of the outfit have been reduced in number but accentuated, giving the same feel of a fantasy forest piece, though ofcourse now the clothing actually had folds and contours!

I did, however, feel the over-bodice should keep to it's original swim-suit material feel, and while I kept the stretched pieces of fabric I've re-positioned them to make slightly more sense now.

The boots are still knee-high silky fabric, but 'cat claws' have been sewn into the end to carry on the colour theme and give an interest point to the feer.

Overall, I feel this piece is generally a more mature version of the original, and, hopefully you'll agree, shows the progression I've made over the past year in terms of environments, character design and skin tones and textures.

Busy busy bees

I'm afraid I'm working on a large piece (the current WIP I've been working on for daaaays) so no real update today, other than Sonya Sones replied to me and told me she most certainly hadn't given any fans a lock of her hair, so unless someone's been incredibly sneaky, I now feel perfectly happy to throw away the DNA I apparently own.

Sonya Sones? To the lost and found please

I'm a rather large Sonya Sones fan.
She's an author of some of the books that I've read over and over while I was growing up, and recently I purchased her 2 latest ones..
I read through them both yesterday...
One in the afternoon, and one at 1:30 till around 3:00 as I couldn't sleep.
(I miss The Boy a lot, even though I only just got back from a mini holiday at his yesterday...)

ANYWAY
She's a brilliant author.
I'm a huge fan.
And, well, apparently so is someone else.

You see, I'm a cheapskate, so both the book copies I bought were second hand.
Apparently in good or best quality.
But certainly used.
I personally find books like this endearing.
I don't want a dog-eared copy.
But there's a few corner-turned bookmarked pages.
The edges are just the tiny bit worn.
And it lets me feel that ~I~ can turn it into a dog-eared copy.

But imagine my surprise at 1:30am, when I open the second book, and there it is.
Her signature!
I didn't believe it at first, but the blue pen's even leaked through to the second page.
So, I'm pretty happy.
Then I turn the page.

AND A LOCK OF HAIR FALLS OUT.
SERIOUSLY.
I THINK I MAY HAVE A LOCK OF SONYA SONES HAIR D:

I'm not a stalker, nor do I want the hair, but I kinda want to know if it IS hers.
Looking at images of her online, it's the wrong shade, but she COULD dye her hair...
Google images shows some younger images of her with a shade close to this....
What do I do?
I think I might e-mail her.

'Miss Sones? I have your hair.'

...I'll post some photos of this escapade tomorrow.

As for today, it IS an art blog after all!
Have a griffon!

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot to say about this piece, as I entered this piece for a competition in which we were told to draw line-art of 1 of 3 source images.
I got to choose the pose though! I've always likes the idea of griffons having strong (but not fat, like dragons) back legs, so tried to emphasis this with a stretched-pose.

Under the sea again!

Went for a more...realistic piece this time around. A pretty bare scene at first glance, I'm mainly trying to work with the space to give the feeling that you're seeing a greater picture (sounds...rather strange, but by giving the viewer less to focus on, you either feel yourself within the image as a whole (what I'm aiming for!), or...you skip past it).
I made sure to have a drastic fade-off of the rocks covered in sparkling seaweed to imply the distance you're looking into, and tried my hand at the beautiful ripple effects you get from looking up when underwater, or from looking down at fairly shallow water...Anyway. You might be able to see a faint rainbow-ing at the main light sources I'm rather pleased with.
On a side note, I was on 2 trains and did a LOT of doodling, none of which is worth posting here, but I extrapolated one particular set of squiggles into this:

That is, indeed, a Ghastly :)

Underground Dragon

I'm sure I've mentioned before that I take part in a monthly competition on DeviantArt called the Dragon Challenge, but if I haven't, it exists here: http://thedragonchallenge.deviantart.com/

It's a great little contest that gives you 3 stock images per month, you don't have to use all 3 but you have to use at least 1, and you create a dragon based on them. It's lovely for working to a specification but still letting the creative juices flow!

This month's contest was based on images of a cat, a peacock and a mushroom, of which I opted for using the peacock, primarily, and the mushroom as a secondary for aspects of the background.

Late Update!

At the boys so didn't have a lot of time for art today! But here's a speed painted tiny planet (VERY Tiny, hell it's a rock more than it is a planet, but don't say that to Pluto :<).

Science time!

I recently had a conversation with The Boy (I say recently, it's a bit of a recurring conversation) about a plant grown in anti-grav. It's been proven on the shuttle flights that plants use gravity to determine up and down, and random, unorganized growths appear otherwise (except in the case of common roof moss : http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/122510/growing_plants_in_zero_gravity/) but I'm wondering about what if a plant HAD been grown on earth till it was a sapling, then a sphere of the dirt it's in was suspended in anti-gravity, and the entire entity was surrounded by sunlight. Normally, once sprouted, plants will lean towards the sun (you can even see sunflowers turning during the day due to this) but if always surrounded, would it grow in all directions or carry on in the direction it's currently going, but with increased leaf sizes?

Ginger Hair and Turkeys

Well, I read all the books years ago and have seen all but the latest movie, and somehow Ginny has always managed to be my favourite character. I'm not an OMGI'LLDIEWITHOUTIT Harry Potter fan, but I enjoyed the fantasy, loved how the books aged with me (actually 1 year off, I was in year 6 when Harry Potter first entered Hogwarts, which is named after a plant! And seems obvious as such once you realise...) and as I'm now much older, I mainly appreciate how it got children to read!

And I'm sorry I'm still sticking to doing chibi work, promise it'll be something different tomorrow!

Also, I'm currently at The Boys, and we've just finished watching a VERY interesting TV show about a man who turned into a turkey (his words, not ours).

It was an interesting (social?) experiment and I hope some of his findings (that turkeys 'name' different environmental factors and other animals different things, and how their innate clock immaculately knows what stages in life they should enter when) are used as a basis for further animal 'experiments', in particular the idea of information (what other animals are harmful/harmless) being passed down genetically, something we've already had of note at happening to other birds, as well as elephants being able to walk a route to a specific location they've never been to and never been shown.