Reflection #16 – January 19

Another month in another year, I welcome you back to my monthly reflections – the only consistent project I am able to maintain over the course of (almost) one year now!

 This month was probably the last one with this much free time I can spend with my projects. I’m diving into the learning phase and of what I can remember from my last exams, the two months before them will be nothing but studying. So I guess this month was just a pre-taste of my inactivity here when it is going to be serious. How it’s going to look like after them, I cannot tell yet, maybe I’ll keep this topic for another month’s reflection.

Artwork

Art-wise, this month was a pretty good one for me. I haven’t had an art block for months now, but I went over it and I almost forgot I was struggling for a whole week to work on something again. And despite spending only a few hours a day with my drawings, I managed to get some great results, starting with:

Souvillaine – Ottoman Warrior

The reason why I drew this… was the hair. Particularly how my dear pal marcioo9 drew it had me urged to try out this design myself… and I had real fun there! I really love dynamic but somehow static stances and furthermore, I couldn’t help but to turn this onto a very own design for my sona. I wonder if I can ever bring out his actual backstory again that fits his character, right now he’s too busy doing dress-ups like a fashionable pretty boy <3

I think I learned quite a lot about colour relationships and the proper use of light and dark contrasts, which is always something I aim for.

Valentin – Winter Outfit [Collab]

There are rarely any artworks that make me experience a breakthrough in the way I do them. Out of barely anything, SquiddRz provided me with one of his previously finished lineworks for my drawings and rendering studies and I am very happy with how it turned out; especially how I managed to finally come up with a realistic rendering of a face, with a new brush and some wild fiddling around, the strokes finally begun to look realistic. I could manage what I was trying to do for almost a year now: edging! And I am curious to know where I can go with that and how I’ll be able to make a plan for this technique.

Axel Kondo – Showoff

My last work of this month is reintroducing my character Axel to hopefully build on the little universe that he is in. The more I think about him and come up with new ideas, he more and more grows on me.
 Here, I tried to mix in the high contrast of my older works and refine it with the new-found rendering technique. It doesn’t really show on his body due to his yellow patterns, but I guess you can tell on the clothing that I took my time with it this time… but still have my troubles with.

Upcoming Stuff & Preplanning

As just stated, I want to build on my rendering and perhaps turn towards more studies that are all about skin, body and muscle structures with some clothing at least. Perhaps some portraits too. I am not sure yet how tight I can pull my time-table these next months, but I can’t stop drawing at this point, since I need it to take some load off my mind :3

Shoutout

Here is where I honour all the wonderful artists I found this month. Don’t hesitate to check their profiles out, they’re definitely worth it!

 koutanagamori

 This amazing Anthro artist is especially good at drawing beefy warrior figures and not only that, but also fantastic looking outfits, armours, weapons, postures and character design. If you’re just slightly into more traditional ways of fighting illustrations, this is the gallery you ought to check out!

 Ben Wootten

 He is yet another fantastic illustrator that can best be described as master of his work. His scenes, designs and creatures are simply jaw-droppingly well done. A course through his gallery is like a journey itself. Cannot say any more to it, just go and check him out!

 Yacrical

 You should know, he is the very first artist from my reflections to get a shout-out twice. That is due to how much he has shown improvement. His last artworks he put out are of immense quality and overshadow the ones I used to know him for back in August of last year. This and the fact how he’s such a good guy to talk with is, how friendly, talkative and that he’s been ready to give me some feedback when I asked him, just makes him deserve this second spot on my shoutouts this even more!

That’s it for this month’s reflection!

  I hope you have started this year well, see you next time!

 ~Souvillaine