Broken Crown

 

I feel this one came out looking worse than the thumbnails. Oh well, can't win 'em all.

Fox Familar

 

This piece was certainly a lesson in patience. 

A two-legged fox showed up on the internet early this year.

I wonder if medieval people might have thought it was demonic, or if weird mutated animals didn't mean anything. Regretfully I could not capture the utter "life sucks but idgaf" mood of medieval woodcuts.

Spring Birds

Last of the old art, and my favorite piece from 2022. I love American robins and bluejays and I had this in my head for a while. I also have an alternate version, since this piece was inspired by vintage bird paintings after all.

Orion Wells and James Audubon

WIPs:

First I had to figure out how the bird griffins were going to work anatomically. It doesn't look important in the final, but figuring out how they were constructed really helped in the sketching phase.

Thumbnails. It was very hard to choose between the first and second one. The second one seemed more open and friendly between the birds, but there wasn't a great silhouette with the robin. The first had the opposite problem: a much more striking silhouette but the robin looked angry as hell. In the end I adjusted the first to make the robin happier. 

Finally some sketch/line work.

Space Cat

 A little doodle that got out of control one night.

Alternate look.

Dead Water

 

  Another old piece. I saw a leaf with holes in it like a skull, so inspiration struck. Also found some WIPs. 

 

 

Hunger

 

I have a very love-hate relationship with this piece. On one hand, I'm still pretty proud of it. The rendering has aged a bit, but the composition and subject I think our dead on and it was a big step forward for me. 

On the other hand, a lot of people loved it, which would be great except I think they also expected this kind of art from me consistently, even though it's the kind of art I don't care to make anymore. I'd rather do cell-shading, sketches, and (hopefully, eventually) comics. Highly detailed art takes too much time and I just don't have the attention span to commit, and I'd rather take that time to experiment. But even after switching styles, this has still been my top eyeball piece for a number of years now, only recently being dethroned by the derpy ichthyosaur comic (thank god). 

I don't hate this piece for that, but it's the centerpiece to my problem with "artist branding". People expect you to make a certain type of art and if you switch it up, it throws them off. I get why it would and viewers aren't obligated to follow an artist that doesn't interest them anymore. But it still puts a lot of creative stress on artists, especially those whose art is their income. Thankfully mine isn't so I can afford to be flexible, but burnout from lack of creative freedom is a real problem. Add in if an artist has an unhealthy relationship with validation, you have a nuclear meltdown in the waiting.

Anyway, I've been thinking of putting this guy in a story idea, set in prehistory. The concepts are still vague tho. Also a lot of people said this reminds them of Homestuck, a thing I know nothing about except that half of all cons were full of gray trolls like a decade ago.

Cat Christmas Card

Last year I made a custom Christmas card for my mom and dad. It's of their cats, Ticky and Friday (aka the Black Hole of Love.)

JO STAR JO

 Some old fanart of Joseph. He's got that flashy cowboy look goin' on. 

 Got some WIP images too.

 

Scribble thumbnail.

 

Roughing it in.

Cleaned-up sketch.

Lineart. I do the eyes later, so for now he's creepy.

Flat colors. 

 

Shading. Had to completely redo the hair at this point since I forgot that hair has volume and layers. Oops.

Effects and details added and we have our final image!

Cinnamon Roll Dragon

Swamp Sickness

I think this was the third or forth time I ever attempted a detailed digital painting like this, sometime back in 2017 or 2018 (?). The rendering itself has clearly aged but honestly I think the composition is still pretty solid. Another one I want to redo just to see how far I've come.

By some miracle I managed to find some WIPs.

Lava Hound

 Secret Santa gift. This was super fun.

Skank Snake

 

 

 A gift for my friend. I still love this one.  (Yes, Skank is their character's name.)

 

Bear Pred Alien Thing

I started to doodle and just did not stop lol. I really tried to push myself with the detail and textures, but ultimately I think I focused too much on those and it backfired a bit. Still, good learning experience.

Old Odds and Ends

Bunch of old art definitely not in chronological order, most of it for other people. 

 

 

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