Reflection #27 – February 20

Hey there!

What a great occasion to write my monthly reflection on a day that only occurs every 4 years. Last month, I talked about my desire to change my artistic journey up to work my way into a profession. And this is where I want to reflect on how far I’ve gotten since.

 As aforementioned, I worked out a sort of workout plan to study anatomy and it worked very well for the first 3 weeks until it started to crumble. The reason for that has been a family occurrence I don’t want to elaborate on here. Let’s just say things got mixed up and I suddenly had my focus elsewhere. After finishing my last project this month, I decided to dive into something challenging once more. You might have seen the note by dA staff a few weeks ago, announcing their active contest about creating an arcane idol and well, I really wanted to join it because i haven’t worked with a given concept for a while now. As it is a pretty time-consuming task, I slowly got into pressure as though the deadline is right around the corner and I needed to lay off my daily anatomy studies for now. I think if I focus more of my time on that project, it should even out and I’ll be able to sketch some more. But more on that in my upcoming stuff section… before that, let’s take a look at the finished projects this month.

Artworks

Souvillaine Reference Sheet [2020]

My first project was an update to my 2018 reference sheet of my persona. It was a huge load-off to be working with an already existing design and just enhancing it from how my skills and experiences allowed. My main take with Souvillaine’s design was to replace his cloud of hair to a more avian style, integrate his beak with his face to allow for more flexibility and give meaning to his body pattern to not look like a tiger pattern all that much. I looked at Buddhistic influences that go along with his personality but kept some free space for interpretation. A few minor adjustments have been made, such as keeping the values of the eyes close to the real-life counterpart while removing the name-giving beard because I always felt it got more in the way than what was good for it.

Overall, I am very pleased with this one and I am happy to keep it for… what maybe another two years perhaps?

Happy Valentines Day 2020!

I really didn’t plan of making this artwork to be clear xD I was deep in between my sketch of Cynemar when Valentine’s day struck me. I planned to celebrate that day by simply telling everyone how much I like them but… I guess I just wanted to make something, so I started sketching away and in a mere couple of hours, this one got finished and stood there as a representation of what a simple good wish can do to someone… as I hopefully was able to do.

Cynemar [Redesign]

And now, the obligatory redesign of a 5 year-old character. Who existed with my very first concepts, world-building and storytelling. Although I never got to draw him before March 2017. The redesign only influenced his appearance though, his personality only got fleshed out with this new concept. It is a demonic form of my own cynicism and only my closest acquaintances know where he got the name from. He probably shares most of my personality, thoughts and opinions than any other of my OCs which make him such a speciality to me.

 Anyway, drawing him was the very first result of my anatomy studies and I attempted the same approach as with my Red Princess artwork; to paint over the initial linework. And it worked much better here! My aim was to give the fleshy parts their painterly appeal while maintaining the roughness of my sketch for the design. And I am very happy with the result. Muscular structures are a bit too mushy yet but they are very convincing as well as other surfaces such as the glowing essence-crystals and earrings. I’ll try to continue with this method and refine it further. 

Upcoming Stuff & Preplanning

So as I said, when my current project will be finished, I hope I can return to my daily studies. As of now, they’ve only consisted of sketching, now with my securities built up with Cynemar’s defined skin, I shall begin to implement colour and painting into these studies. As for new projects, I have a really neat idea of a creature to design. That’s nice, creature design… haven’t done that in two years as well, I’m gonna look forward to it. Also, I’m still in the mood to be doing the DOOM fanart I originally planned last year. Personally, I don’t want to put fanart into my portfolio but… eh I’ll see if I do something with it. For now, I still think less artworks but more refinement is the key to marginally improving my work… and I’m following on that path.

perhaps stop focusing on single body parts and instead just sketch along and fill in pages with what is in my mind at the moment.

Artist Shoutout

I seriously forgot who I wanted to feature here xD normally I write every artist I meet down for this case but not this time somehow, awwww.

 Anyway, I don’t want to leave this space blank. instead, I want to feature my best pals at this point, who I think did great art this month ^v^

 rifle: Who did a great composition of my favourite swan mom: Duel with Death

 Rhizome: Who taught a Ying how to ride a sea-doggo: Seal rider

 SynthwaveShark: Who helped a shark relaxing in a pool: Pool shark 2 electric boogaloo

 Sayonara10: Who drew a wonderful gift: Tyskha (Art Gift For Etskuni)

 Varis: Who spread some love :3 Happy Valentine’s Day!

 Tainted Artisan: Who shared an adorable story: Another Wolf

and…

 Yacrical: who showed-off huge hight-differences: Sentinel

That’s a nice thing for a change, innit? ^v^

Whatever March is holding for you… remember that this February, it took a day longer to reach it 

See you next time! ~Souvillaine