From Red to Purple

I hope all of you guys had a wonderful Easter with your folks and loved ones around you!

I decided to give work a wee break for the Easter days and just spend some quality time with family and friends – and even though it’s still sad times because everyone misses my gran dearly we really did have a blast!

Besides, I kept working on the red dress piece that I posted a few days ago and it just wouldn’t get any better! I have rarely been that frustrated working on a piece – but hey – those pieces help you learn the most. After hours and hours of trying to get the red tones to match I quit the idea of using red at all (pah – that’s what you get for not working well, red!) and thus I changed the colours, played around for a while until I finally liked what I see.

Now that I am looking at both versions I think the purple/ blue-ish colours really do the trick. I actually always wanted to do something in those colours but never got around to do it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think it is quite funny how much the final version of an illustration can differ from the original concept. Since it was just a practise for myself there’s absolutely no harm done but in the past I also had clients who came up with ideas that wouldn’t work for anything in the world and I had many difficulties explaining why. What do you guys think? As always, please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments down below.

Next weeks is going to be busy since I’ll be working on two concepts for different projects and I still have a few commissions to finish. Stay tuned!

Colouring fashion stuff

I recently learned a different way to colour digitally and how to alter some Photoshop brushes so that they work much better for me. So I’ve been trying to use this new knowledge and it’s really going great so far. I’m working on a few pieces that are partly finished already but I want to post them as a whole series.

I’ve also picked up a few older line arts just for practise. I usually don’t like posting some of the work in progress colouring stuff but it won’t hurt to do it now, will it?

I’m not really happy with the way the skin looks and right now the colours don’t work that well together so there will be a couple of major changes for the final piece. I hope that I will get around to finish it sometime tomorrow but this one has taken me twice as much time as usual already.

I hope you’re having a great Easter holiday!

Tentacles – Colours

I went away with a couple of friends for the weekend to take my mind off things and to have the chance to relax a little bit. It was just for Thursday till Saturday but I love these kind of mini get-aways – it always leaves me with more energy and motivation to get other things going again.

As I mentioned in my last post I really want to get started with watercolour. I have never been great with them but it feels about time that I discover new artsy stuff. Frankly speaking, I am quite happy with how my tentacle lady/ mermaid turned out. Basically I just threw some colours on the paper without thinking much about it (maybe that’s the trick – like, not thinking much). I just scanned it but didn’t edit it any other way than cutting off the nasty edges of the paper the scanner doesn’t cut off itself. I especially love how vibrant the colours turned out, the red and blue tones really work great together.

 

I tried sketching more and colouring another piece in that kind of way but I failed miserably and didn’t feel like continuing. I might try it again at the end of the week if I can manage to spare some time for it and after things hopefully will slow down again (busy week ahead, guys).

Also I started working on some digital pieces (you can see some previews on my instagram).

Have a great night!

Tentacles – sketch

The last couple of days were quite busy actually (given that I am back to work for only 2 weeks). I was working on the layout of a calendar all day even though I thought it would take me maybe just the half of it – but I’m done now which is grant.

Yesterday I tried to get the printer working for a solid hour because I wanted to get a print of the line art of the vulture girl sketch. Since I’m not really sure how to keep going on this one I figured it might be best to do a print, ink the print, see how it comes out and if it’s shit try something else. But since the printer wasn’t working I’ll have to try my luck again tomorrow.

Speaking of luck – something that definitely abandoned me. After finishing work I wanted to get as fast as possible back home to join band practise (one of my hobbies that I do practise on occasion). But instead of music I got a bus that was running late, locked doors leading to our band room and a phone that just died on me as I wanted to call my friends so that they’d open the door from the inside. As much as I dislike smartphones as much did I get fond of it – it’s so handy, like checking your mails while you’re on the go and all that art related stuff you can constantly take with you (instagram, pinterest, etc). Also I already noticed it’s absence when I wanted to take a picture of  today’s sketches to upload it here. Weeeell, no luck today.

So here’s the last picture that I shared on my instagram account. I’m thinking about getting started with watercolours. I always loved the look of it but find myself having a hard time actually working with it. But if I don’t practise, I won’t improve ..

Also something different this time – no hair! Instead have looooads of tentacles ;)

I’ll make a scan of the coloured piece tomorrow and let you guys see how my little experiments turned out.

Stay fresh!

 

Trips and Art Nouveau

Hello my friends!

I know it’s been a while since I posted anything.

Unfortunately, I currently am forced to take a break from work because my wrist injury got worse and now I can barely move my right arm. I spend all the time that I actually am able to draw working off commissions I have already agreed to work on. Please, excuse the lack of new illustrations and sketches but I’ll try to come up with other cool stuff to fill my next posts.

Last week I was on a little business trip to Berlin. I’ve already been there a few years ago, but I never really liked that city. It’s just so big, dirty and crowded. However this time I absolutely loved it!

It still is very dirty and crowded but as I stayed in some kind of artist’s quarter there was also this amazing atmosphere. So vibrant and full of life!

Actually, I’m considering moving there – at least for the months in which I don’t have to attend uni. I met up with a few friends and had a few business meetings, one of them was pretty promising as I might have a job there already. But – we’ll see!

I dug up the line art of an illustration I did a few weeks ago. Still in love with the dresses and art nouveau!

Comic released!

Hello my friends!

After an incredible busy week in which I prepared my exhibition and the release of my comic book and the last couple of days in which I was at the exhibition I finally have some time to post something again.

To everyone who is waiting for a reply (be it a comment or an email) please give me another day – it was just very very much stuff going on and I’m trying to catch up on everything I missed to do as soon as possible.

The exhibition went really well and I got a lot of feedback from the people who got my comic. So far everyone really liked it and I guess I really do have to get started on #2 in the next couple of weeks! But first of all, I’ll translate it to English!

Uni really is quite a thing these days. It’s taking up huge parts of my time and right now I am really struggling to get all the work done. However it is a great exercise for the to juggle with all the work and focus on the most important parts. I do miss working on illustrations, concept arts and comics the entire day, though.

Speaking of illustrations! I know that I am very very late but I don’t want to wait another year. So here she is (for those of you who liked my Facebook page this one isn’t new):

 

COLOURS!

I finally got around to start colouring! I was really looking forward to this part because now the whole comic project starts to look “real”. As in: it’s really happening!

I decided to go with a technique used by many comic artists. Using Photoshop I have one layer for the line art so that I don’t mess it up accidentally. I use another layer for the “flats”. The flat layer contains just the basic colours that I want to use but they don’t have to match a 100% . With another layer on top I can adjust the colours and make them match, change colours to my liking or change the overall tone to create atmosphere. That’s also when the magic with shadows and light happens.

I really love the way flat layers and the finished layers look so different and how the flat layer is just an idea of the final look.

Here’s an example for you to see! More coming soon (:

 

 

I’m still alive!

Hello my friends!

I’m back to Germany and managed to take a couple of minutes off. I’m currently working non stop on my comic which will be out in little less than eight weeks!!! It’s so exciting!

I’m almost completely done with the lineart and now I want to share a few sneak peeks. The picture’s page 11 so some thrilling stuff already happend … Tomorrow I’ll write a proper post introducing the plot and maybe even revealing a few more details regarding that lovely lady!

Cheers!

Underwater creatures!

This week I got further 10 pages for my comic project done and I am close to finishing the pencil work! (Yey!)

With a lot of stuff going on and just 8 more days to go before I am going on a holiday to Scotland I’m not sure if I can stick to my schedule and get another fashion illustration done in time. Instead I want to show you some “older” (done about two or three months ago) illustrations.

I did another mini series of 3 pieces on selkies. If you have never heard of those things – don’t worry! I hadn’t heard of them before either.

Selkies are a little bit like mermaids. They occur in Celtic mythology and are said to live in the ocean and at the shores of Ireland and Scotland (maybe I’ll see one soon!). Ashore they are beautiful ie (I rarely heard of male selkies) that either hide the fur of a seal or wear it while leaving the water. Once they go back into the sea they put the fur back on and become seals. If a selkie loses her (his) fur the selkie is meant to stay a human for ever.

I really liked those legends and I just felt like doing some drawings on that topic. Another truly awesome aspect of these myths is that they are set under water too! And long hair floating in water is just a beautiful image itself! As a great hair lover I couldn’t ignore that, could I?

The first selkie I ever drew, still in her human shape (and yes, I know. She’s in my header ;)).

I hope you’re having a lovely weekend!