Rhea Amell

I have a problem. Every time I start a piece I think it'll take me two or three hours. No. It doesn't turned out that way. Seven hours on this today. Sigh.

Anyway. This is another Dragon Age fan art, my human mage Grey Warden. I've kind of been on a Warden-making spree the past couple of days, and it's really been a lot of fun. Naturally, I want to eventually draw all of them, just for the pride of it. 4 out of 7 done (the others being Skadi Aeducan, Apollo Cousland, and Amanali Mahariel). I'd like to hope I can do them all this week, but considering the amount of time this one alone took, that's not a very realistic goal. Still, we'll see.

This was an unusual approach for me, and honestly, I had no idea what I was doing. I started it as a drawing, but wanted it to be more than just grayscale, so I added color. I didn't want it to turn into a painting, so I did the next best thing: a poor attempt at cell shading. I'm brand-spanking-new to the technique, so if anyone would like to give me critique or pointers, I would be grateful. Obviously, the hair went a little overboard. Still, I'm happy with the way it turned out. And the eyes and teeth are just plain painted. Other than that... yeah. Not sure what else to say. Help plz.

Reference image.

(The following may not make much sense if you haven't played the game.) A little bit about Rhea Amell: angry Chantry-hater sums it up pretty well. She's always resented her captivity within the Circle and believes that magic should be free in all its forms- including Blood Magic. Naturally, she has trouble getting along with anyone who frequently exerts their faith in the Maker. She's not afraid of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, and has a lot of compassion for underdogs who live by that same code. She was thrilled to join the Wardens for the chance to live free of the Chantry, and is fiercely loyal to her new calling.

Watch for more Wardens. <3

What has it been up to?

Weeks of silence. Ominous indeed.

Actually, I've just been focusing my attention elsewhere. Mostly on Dragon Age and Dragon Age fandom, but there's been a little more lomography too. I haven't produced anything stellar, but here are the scraps I have done.

First up on the queue are some redesigns of Sabrina Shepard, the main character of a story I will probably chip away at very slowly for years to come. I wanted something more distinctive and less emo goth. There's nothing here I'm going to stick with, except for the red hair/headband. Nevertheless, it was a good exercise. The first one was practice with clothing and folds, as well as a messy little cell shading technique I may pursue further.







The next piece is some Dragon Age fandom I'm not very happy with. At all. It's a mess that reminds me of my work from five years ago. The background was an accomplishment, though. I'm terrible at backgrounds, and apart from all the architecture being crooked, this didn't turn out too bad. It was also my first real try at cell shading, which is strange because I believe most artists start with cell shading and from there learn to paint. For me it was the opposite, which made this difficult in an awkward way. Practice, practice...



This last piece is just silliness. On the Bioware Social Network in the Varric fan thread somebody made a connection between Varric and Fabio and suddenly artists started producing mock romance novel covers featuring Varric as a Don Juan protagonist called The Stone Heartbreaker. So naturally, I had to make my own contribution. As I said, silliness. I'm proud of the way it turned out regardless.




And that's all! Hopefully I will get back to being productive soon. That will probably be around March 8th when Dragon Age 2 comes out and I am unable to buy it. I will drown my sorrows in art.

Lomography

Okay, so when I started this blog I decided I wasn't gonna put any photography... but screw that.

I haven't really drawn anything for like a week. Or half a week that has felt like a week. I had a ton of work build up for my classes that I just couldn't ignore anymore... also, Dragon Age 2 marketing has ramped up a ton in the last two days, so I've spent a little more time obsessing over that than I should have (but really... hot dayum).

Anyway, suffice to say I haven't been able to commit myself to the 3-6 hours it takes to do a drawing, let alone a finished piece of work. Instead I've been doing little ten minute slices of lomography style editing in Photoshop. Lomography, for those who aren't aware, is the style of photography that embraces imperfection and a more casual approach to shooting. It imitates the look of retro film cameras. It probably won't amount to anything, but I think I've got some pretty interesting shots here. Including two experiments: one with my frame drawing placed over the lomography, and another paint dribble type thing that suddenly came to me as I was writing this (the latter not being so much a finished work as an inspiration blurb I didn't want to forget).

MaD T-Shirts (pt 4)

Yeah, it's another one. I spent considerably longer on this one than the others (twice as long, probably? 6 hours is my estimate) because of the complexity of the image. I really like how it turned out, though, especially with the white on black lettering. I probably had more to say about it, but I've forgotten what that might have been since last night when I did the brunt of the work. Enjoy.