| February 2009 | Page 1 Of 1 | |
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Photoshop Kitten
Posted On 02-18-2009 , 7:50 PM
I was fully intending to draw a beautiful picture to post this week as a belated valentines image but....it didn't happen. I had far too much fun going to movies and out to dinner on double dates with my fiance and some friends of ours. However, that is not to say that I will leave you barren for the week.
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Around the middle of last week, I was given another cat. He is 6 years old and goes by the name of Andy. Anyway, to make a long story short: I wanted to take a picture of the cat. However, my camera sucks. After many attempts of photoing the uncooperative feline, I finally came out with a very dark, but clear picture. I then stuck the picture into Photoshop to clean it up and decided (as I can't be the only one out there with a crap camera) to post a tutorial on the clean-up process. So, here is a tutorial on how I turned a dark and off-color image into something usable.
As you can probably see, the finished image isn't perfect. I could probably have continued adjusting the color until it was, but I am honestly not that obsessed with my pets (this is me refusing to admit that I have photos of both my rats and both my cats).
The white of Andy's fur still has a slightly reddish-brown look that should have been removed, but I'm honestly okay with how it turned out. I was even able to pull the blue back into the blue-jean quilt that is on my bed! That was actually one of the harder parts. That quilt really did not want to be blue.
Anyway. As always, I appreciate any comments and feedback.
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Lucivar Yaslana
Posted On 02-12-2009 , 4:24 PM
A few years ago I read a series of books by Anne Bishop called the Black Jewels Trilogy. The books are amazing, about a young girl who is destined to grow up to be Witch, dreams made flesh. Witch is a witch born when every sentient being dreams of a hero and the magics that control the Realms turn that dream into flesh. The books center around Jeanelle (Witch) and the three strongest dreamers in the Realms, who are the three men who needed saving most and will become most important in the life of Jeanelle: her father, brother, and lover.
Here are the books from Amazon, for those interested in checking them out. I highly recommend them! The first three are the trilogy I discussed; at the bottom of the page are the next three in the series.
Anyway, what all this explanation comes down to is that I drew my favorite character from said books: Lucivar Yaslana (adopted brother of Witch). Lucivar, who often goes by the name Yas, is tall, dark, with long black hair, and bat-like wings. Here is my interpretation:
I started the drawing nearly two years ago and it was one of many that sat in sketchbook unfinished….but on Tuesday I got sick and wanted something to take my mind off how miserable I was. So I pulled out the drawing and decided it was time to complete it.
As always with my work, I am mostly pleased. However, I can still see so many little errors that I want to go back and fix but can’t (I spray my drawings with fixative when I deem them “done” so that they can’t smear). The hair and wings and shading I really love. I am even very happy with Lucivar’s face (he is said to roughly handsome, as he is a warrior). However, the neck and head of the figure is much too large for the body width and height. The proportions are off and it annoys me.
I am pretty pleased with the way the wings turned out, and am VERY pleased with the hair! Black hair is one of my Achilles Heels, so this hair turned out wonderfully, in my opinion.
As promised, here the other three books in the Black Jewels Trilogy. These three are also set in the same world and have the same characters, but are not a part of the main storyline that is apparent in the first three. I hope that makes sense. (Just found out Anne Bishop is coming out with a seventh book this March too!)
So, thoughts? Opinions?
P.S. Looky at the new RSS feed in my site! Above the calendar.
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Bones
Posted On 02-09-2009 , 1:47 AM
A few weeks ago, I started watching a series called Bones. It’s about a forensic anthropologist who works for the FBI. Basically, the woman (Dr. Temperance Brennan) looks at the skeletal remains of murder victims and picks up clues that help her partner (Special Agent Sealy Booth) catch the murderer.
So, I got this idea for a drawing. I wanted to draw Brennan with half her own face, and half a skull’s face. I thought it would be interesting. One of the characters on the show is an artist who’s job is taking the skull of a victim and using tissue markers and drawing what the victim’s face would have looked like when he/she was still alive (way cool job, by the way). Anyway, I wanted to try it in reverse.
I started by drawing the…shall we say: “meaty” portion of Brennan’s face. Then moved on to the skull. I used the “meaty” side to guess the line of the cheekbones, eye socket, jaw, etc. This is what I came up with:
Unfortunately, I was focusing too much on the skull, and the “meaty” version of the face is off. I’m reminded more of Michelle Pfeiffer from this picture than of Emily Deschanel (the actress who plays Brennan). Here is a picture of the actress I was attempting to draw:
As you can see, my image isn’t quite right. Still, it was an interesting study and I really enjoyed working on the piece.
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New Headers!
Posted On 02-04-2009 , 1:25 PM
Notice anything?
I have spent the past few days playing with the style for my website. Ultimately, I wanted to make my blog and gallery match the rest of my site a little more than they did previously. I also wanted to create a header for my site that was made by me (the fire-y header I used previously was a stock header that I merely adjusted and made my own).
So, for comparison sake, here are the old styles:
And here are the new styles:
As you can see, the new stuff matches better. It is also, in my humble opinion, a little more professional.
The new headers were fun to make, particularly the one for the blog and gallery. I loved putting my art onto papers and playing with the perspectives. I also really enjoyed creating the organized chaos of the blog header.
Other than the headers, I have also created a new background (which is a gradient from black to red) to help keep some of the old colors in the new styles. I’m pretty pleased with the finished products and I’d like to thank everyone that I hassled into giving me opinions and suggestions during the creation process.
Let me know what you think of the new look. I hope it is well liked.
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| February 2009 | Page 1 Of 1 | |
Buzz it!
