Lost No. 4

Sometimes I just lose interest, or forget what the hell I was thinking when I started the painting.

This is one of them. To be honest, I have no idea what's going on here. Stuffs, is my guess. I was never any good at playing around with shapes and such anyway.

 - tattersail, signing off.

Lost No. 3

So, this is a personal painting I've been working on for the better part of a year, but I can never seem to finish it. I open it up once in a while, work a little on it, get bored/distracted and then I go do something else and forget about it for a couple of months. And I don't understand why. I believe it could be a very good, if not great, painting, a painting that might redefine my style...

Inspiration for this one is the art of Lauren K. Cannon and Thien Bao, who are more or less polar opposites when it comes to colours and techniques, but what they share is a love of the weird, birds and the female form.

With this painting I am trying to push my colours and develop my storytelling-techniques. I have no idea if I'm succeeding :P

Firstly, I'll show you my inspirations and references, which I haven't done so far, I think. It's kinda weird, seeing as references are very important to my process...oh, well. I shall strive to do better!

Broken Flame by Thien Bao.

Mek by Thien Bao.

Bloodstone by Lauren K. Cannon. See what I mean by polar opposites?

Mhegoriah by Lauren K. Cannon

Rhumii by Lauren K. Cannon.

And, now for my painting which I've titled Bird Lady or some such. Hooray for imaginative titles!

Preliminary sketch to establish pose and light source. I decided on two,
the blue being the primary and the the yellow the secondary.

The idea is slowly taking shape...I see beewb!

Bird skulls are awesome!...alright, all skulls are awesome! Unless
they're printed on a hipster T-shirt :P

Changed the eyes.

Colours!

The head dress and secondary skulls have gotten more definition,
and I've added more colours.

Trying to blend the colours and add texture to form a background.
The secondary light source has finally come into play. Pushed the shadows further,
and started on the bird. Also, nipple! As if you didn't notice...

Aaaand this is where I left off. Don't really know where to go from here and the damn feathers keep killing my motivation. I love feathers, but they're a effin pain in my posterior to paint! Hood's hairy balls, I really want to finish this thing!

 - Tattersail, out...

Step-by-step no. 2

Time for another Malazan painting. Hooray! This is a scene from Toll the Hounds, a sort of stand-off between the Son of Darkness, and a swordsman without equal named Traveller. I chose to depict the moment right before everything hits the proverbial fan, because I think the "moment before" is always so much more powerful, especially when you know what happens next. This is the moment when you inhale, and hold.

As per usual, my painting starts off quite simple. Just one guy
What's the worst that could happen?

Things are starting to take shape and I've begun laying down
some basic colours. Quite a muted palette, but I doubt the Son  of Darkness would look
good in pink.

Hands! And new hairdo. And yes, the sword is supposed to be
THAT big.

Cape! Also, my light source has been sorted out.

Had to expand the canvas
to make room for more CAPE!

New hairdo again. And changed his stance after someone commented
that it looked like he was crapping himself. That just won't do.
Also, constructive criticism is great!
It might sting a little at first, but that's just your ego being bruised.
No pain, no gain...

Oh fuck, shit just got real!

Moving stuff around. Important to keep the cape in the frame.
It's a really nice cape, it really ties the painting together.

Moar stuff? Are you insane?!!

Traveller's got clothes on now. And say hello to Pallid and Lock,
two Hounds of Light. They mean srs bisniss.

Aaaaand done! Nothing to it :P

Some details for you.

Dragnipur is the name of this badass sword.
It's what all the hoopla is about.

Rake, the Son of Darkness. This is his happy face.
No, really.

Recovered

Remember that Twilight meets 30 Days of Night painting I never finished? Well, I finished it after I finally remembered why I stopped working on it. Those stupid reasons hav ceased to matter, so here it is, WIPs and all!

Just floating heads and a hand that isn't really attached to anything. Charming!

Here's where I left off...

...and here's where I picked it up again. Added background, more hair and a jacket.
Fixed some minor anatomical/perspective/compositional issues as well.

Beard!

And done! Refined things here and there, and worked on his hand and their hair.
Hands and hair are some of the most difficult things to paint. Good references and decent tutorials are key!
More on this laterz.

Tattersail, signing off.

Lost No.: 2

This one is not so much lost as completly neglected...For years! I remember spending quite a lot of time on this drawing, pouring over all the little mechanical details, looking at countless references, consulting with a book I'd just bought in New York, entitled How to Draw Robots or some such. I never draw mechanical stuff, mostly because I have little to no understanding of how things actually work, and because I can't draw a straight line to save my life! So why I decided on this particular theme for a drawing, is beyond me. It might have been after watching I, Robot...Also, I had to use my newly purchased book for something. Otherwise it would just be money wasted. I still think the concept is pretty cool, though. But I think it needs more mechanical stuff...yes, MOAR! Cog wheels, pulleys, hamster-powered lazurs and whatnot.

Anywho.

What's this? I see feet!

 - Tattersail, signing off.

Step-by-Step No. 1

This is a painting I've returned to three times, and each time I've painted it differently. There's just something about it that won't let go of me. I can already feel it calling to me, willing me to return a fourth time and paint it again. I suspect I shall succumb to this particular siren's call. Hey, what can I say? I'm only a weak fleshling.

So, to the painting in question. This is the first version from somewhere back in 2005. Notice the almost total lack of digital tampering. This is what most of my stuff looked like back then...In my n00b years. I hadn't yet procured my trusty Wacom Intuos 3, nor did I have Photoshop at that time. Also, I was in love with the Smudge-tool.

Couldn't draw feet properly, so I just gave her paws instead.
I do that, A LOT.

In 2008 I returned to the drawing and re-did it in my style at the time. Obviously, I was a big fan of purple back then. The painting is basically the same as the original drawing, with some minor alterations to the buildings in the background. her hair and wings. The pose, the dress, the clouds are all the same. The major difference is, of course, the palette and the amount of digital work put in it. As far as I recall, this was one hundred per cent Photoshop.

Still couldn't get the feet right.

Then in 2010 I re-returned. Mainly because of a contest at Deviantart, where you were supposed to re-do the first submission to your gallery. This was mine. But I'd been itchin' to go back to it for awhile, so the contest suited me fine. Didn't win, though. Didn't even place. You get used to that after a while. No matter how good you are, there will always be someone out there who's better than you.

The third time I decided to start completely from scratch, and only use the original as an inspiration for the new painting. The basic idea and composition is still very much the same.

Initial sketch! I like to use blue on a darker background for this.
All my digital sketches look more or less like this.

Blocking in basic colours. I keep everything
relatively loose at this stage, as I might change my mind
and scrap the palette.

Shading, yay! One of my favourite things with a painting;
seeing how things gain a shape, simply by adding lighter and darker colours
here and there.

The dress is starting to come along.
Can't have her running around naked!

And now the dress isn't seethrough anymore either!
But those white eyes are creepy...

You might have noticed by now, my shadows are quite colourful.
I never use just a darker version of the midtone (or gods forbid! grey or black) to shade, not after having
been taught better by the likes of Martha Dhalig and Lauren K. Cannon.

And voila, done! I kept most of the clouds
and colour scheme from the original drawing,
because I felt it worked, and because I love pink, fluffy clouds.

The original inspiration for this painting was the new Peter Pan movie, and a perfume commercial, I think. Stay tuned for version 4!


  -Tattersail, signing off.

Holy Ambition, Batman!

This is a painting I'm currently working. A collab between me and a friend, whose name for now is Corporal Nobbs. You can see his stuff here http://luktarig.deviantart.com/.

The whole thing started off so simple and easy. We decided to do a collab (we've done one before and it was a HUGE success. More on that later.), and chose a scene from a book called Dust of Dreams, which is the ninth book in Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen-series (google it, as I'll be mentioning him A LOT!). Oh, how quickly things spiralled out of control. Well, let me just show you what I mean.

This is the intitial sketch. Doesn't seem so bad, right?

Oh, things just a got a little more complex, didn't they?

Expanded the canvas and added more people. The painting needed more people in it.
Some seem to have disappeared, though.

What's this? More things?! The flying things are wyvals,
and the big lizards are K'Chain Nahruk. Vicious and highly intelligent beasts.
White squiggly lines and brown blotches are humans. You'll see :P

Yes, definitely more things. And we now have an exploding
head. SWEET!

Holy Crap, this is really starting to look like something! The Corporal
has really worked his derriere off lately. Hats off to him! Also, 98 characters
so far, in the painting. 98!!

So far we've spent countless months painting stuff, sending the painting back and forth, removing things, adding things, discussing, procrastinating and furiously jotting down lines and blocking in colours whenever Inspirtaion or Time has been our friend. I daresay there's still many more months left before it is finished. I shall keep you posted.


  -Tattersail, signing off.