Butterflies' Rest

First completed full size illustration in about three and a half months.
Very happy with the outcome though, so I think it was worth the wait to finish it.
I had a lot of fun with this piece. Especially the ivy and fungus on the tree.

Original is alcohol based marker, watercolour ink and watersoluble pencil on 15" x 11" watercolour paper.

Garnet Colour - WIP

This evening I've been trying to rescue this piece. Watercolour paints are deceptively very different to watercolour ink that I usually use. Luckily one of the things I love about traditional media is the how you cope with mistakes. I guess it somewhat compensates for my inability to test new techniques before diving into them.

Garnet - Sketch WIP

A new sketch... just in case I don't actually have enough unfinished sketches yet.
This one is on 9"x12" watercolour paper, so a bit smaller than usual, which means I'm more likely to finish it... hopefully, and also gives me a chance to practice with bottled ink some more

18th June '12

Another ACEO - Original: alcohol based markers and water-soluble coloured pencil on 2.5"x3.5" Bristol Board

9th May '12

This is my first ACEO card art.

It was an interesting challenge going from my usual drawing size of 11.7"x16.5" down to 2.5"x3.5", but it gives me a chance to focus more on certain aspects of my work.

The original and print versions of this image will be available shortly via tangentine.com (minus the watermark). For any enquiries please contact me at firedemon@gmail.com

Original: alcohol based markers and water-soluble coloured pencil on 2.5"x3.5" Bristol Board

15th April '12

Slowly trying to colour this.

2nd April '12

Got round to doing some inking at the weekend. Tried using a nib pen since I haven't done so in a while and it meant I could finally use the lovely shellac drawing inks I bought a couple of months ago. I think it will definitely speed up the inking process, although I need to find some thin tubes for mixing the ink consistency.

26th March '12

The sun has come out over England and the weather is lovely ^^. We could still do with some rain though, but I wont be complaining while I enjoy the sunshine.

7th March '12

I'm slowly getting through commission work and hopefully have some time to finish off some personal work. Also hopefully start turning these sketches into colour drawings.

5th March '12

I've always thought freckles are really cute.

27th February '12

I've been a bit slack on uploading anything new recently, since I've been trying to complete a commission piece. But hopefully I'll have time to fit a few more sketches in as I work.

6th February '12

We got our first proper snow of the year this weekend. It's been pretty cold too! Luckily I've been keeping warm by eating cake.

1st February '12

February already!

31st January '12

Today's sketch - I'm rubbish at drawing men

26th Jan '12

Today's sketch

25th Jan '12

Another miniature sketch.

24th Jan '12

Thought I'd try working smaller to try and improve the speed at which I work. This is a 2.5"x3.5" sketch.

6th January '12

This piece is coloured pigment ink on A3 Bristol board. I'm tentative about starting colouring on it as I like the lineart a lot.

2nd January '12

First post of the new year! Finally getting back to drawing again after the busy-ness of the Christmas season.
I don't do New Year's resolutions, but each year I aim to get at least one piece finished per month. Last year I managed to complete 16 full colour illustrations, which is a definite improvement on my productivity of the past couple of years. It helped that 10 of those were A5 sized images, whereas I usually work at A3 size... maybe it's a hint that I should try and do some smaller works as well so that I finish them.

It does mean that I have half a dozen larger sketch pieces waiting to be finished, some of which I can hopefully work on this week.
I also spent about 3 hours today trying to get a Wacom Bamboo Tablet, Windows 7 and any piece of graphics software to talk to each other nicely to do a tiny weeny bit of editing done. On the upside where I am now is a lot more comfortable to work, but it is frustrating knowing there are two much better graphics tablets sitting unused in my other room many miles away.

The piece above is an A4 picture that I decided to try and finish, so maybe if I'm very lucky I can get it completed by the end of the week.

30th November '11

I've not been particularly productive on the art front lately. Both nights and days are dark and I still feel tired after the cold I had two weeks ago. So now I'm kind of just waiting for the Christmas holidays so that I can sleep, because it's going to be a very busy month coming up... fun, but busy.

This picture is something that I started a year ago. It's on A2 paper (42x59cm), which will be the second largest illustrative piece I've done. It's also not something I'd usually draw. I have very limited knowledge of guns, helicopters or apocalyptic scenarios, and there's a distinct lack of flowers anywhere. But I guess we'll see where it goes.