RPG & OTHER ART/PROJECTS INSPIRED BY SCI-FI & FANTASY

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Something Old is now Something New

These are OOOOLD, but not to you! LOL

(above) Skimming the Silver Lining:
inspired by Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern -- I believe it was Lee Edwards' portrayal of the dragons that I really like. Here is an example of his paintings of dragons... Myself, I was influenced by some pictures of Chinese dragons: those dragons looked like dogs... Add the extra sheer wings and we have our happy dragon...

(above) Wakeful Dreams

(above) Mare Nubium: inspired by C.S. Lewis: The Magician's Nephew

(above) FRAGMENTS OF A NIGHTMARE: I originally did one lino carving, rolled ink over it, and rolled it through a press. Oldstyle! In the above is only one of those prints, and with the help of my antiquated, yet somewhat useful, paint program, I was able to edit out the smudges, add chunks that fell off the lino and therefore didn't print (wrist and thumb), and then copy and paste in reverse and also upside down. I rather like the effect!

(above) RATS: This young lady was carved on a copper plate with a dentist tool. These four are all from the same plate, but done slightly differently. The upper left was done with rolling ink over it, but then removing a large amount of it. The upper right one was done after etching on it for shading and then dipping it for a short time in some mild acid. The bottom left one had some ink smudge off after going through the press. The bottom right one, I believe is the same as the upper left... So essentially (if scanning something is removing it from its original reality and transporting it to cyberspace/digitalizing it) the final print it is a digital replica of a digital replica of the original (twice removed), while the other three are only digital replicas of their original prints (once removed).

Thursday, January 25, 2007

CITRUS

My husband's request, finished.... I think.... Just had to edit the letters: they looked too soft/faded and I did have to edit a spelling mistake!

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

7thSynn's Drawing

Here is 7thSynn's Drawing from FAC: he was having trouble with scanning the entire sketch at once: he had three pieces scanned - and this was the only way I could think of that he could get the whole thing at once... He can take this picture and save it to a program like paint on his computer and then download it to FAC: if he wants I will take the coloured version and do the same for him -- I do it all the time for my pictures.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

HOW TO DRAW, if anyone is interested

Click on this to see a larger view of it... It's for moonlightelf, but it is very similar to spiritedchaos' issue below...

Some helpful drawing tutorial links:
-- Animations/Motion (medical) of various body parts -- Art (general guidelines & history) -- Clothing (Alvin's Tutorial) -- Clothing (wrinkles/draping/female) -- Clothing (wrinkles) -- Colouring Pencil Techniques -- Colouring Pencil Tips -- Colour Theory -- Creatures (various) -- Dragon -- Eyes -- Feathers (plural, wings) -- Feathers (single) -- Feathers (two, layered one behind the other) -- Figure (female) and Joints -- Figure (adult, children, musculature, hands, feet, head) -- Figure (more female anatomy lessons) -- Figure (different points of view of female) -- Figure (male) and Muscles -- Figure (male, torso, proportion) -- Figure (proportions) -- Figure (basics: very detailed & helpful) -- Figure (real-life poses) -- Fur, Feathers -- Graphic Design Ideas -- Hair -- Hair (even more!) -- Hair (long) -- Hair (again) -- Hair (Manga) -- Fur -- Manga (basics/anatomy/gear/details/etc) -- Shading with Colouring Pencils & PhotoShop -- Shading (with complementary colours) -- Wings (anatomy, how they sit on the creature) -- Wings (comparing bat and bird wings) -- Wings (detailed feathers) -- Wings (bird's sections of) -- Wings (different sections of bird wings) -- Wings (leather) --

IF YOU FIND ANY OTHERS LET ME KNOW AND I'LL POST THEM IF YOU LIKE...

Trinity_Fire said I could post these links to her tutorials, but if you aren't a FAC member, they may not work: -- Colouring Pencil Tutorial 1 -- Colouring Pencil Tutorial 2 -- Pixel Tutorial 1 -- Pixel Tutorial 2 -- Pixel Tutorial 3 --

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At any time, let me know and I will remove your drawing from my blog... I just use it to send you a link, but I leave it here until then on my blog...

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highteckdudu had some issues sending a scan: here is how you can flip a scan so that it isn't saved upside down or sideways...

STEP 1: if you like you can save your scan to a paintshop program if it makes it easier... But scanners usually have arrows or an editing tab that allows you to flip your picture in a similar manner... After you scan you can go to your picture in the file and choose the edit options...

STEP2: then you would select the entire picture either with the tool or by clicking on EDIT>>>SELECT ALL....

STEP 3: Now you want to choose EDIT>>FLIP IMAGE
STEP 4: This picture needs to be flipped by degrees...

Voila!

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I noticed some folks have trouble drawing folds: this is rather simplified, but I hope it helps...

MOONLIGHTELF wanted some assistance with drawing dragons from the front point of view... It is tougher than three-quarter view, but it's possible... Hopefully these will help illustrate what I mean. You can click on the pictures to see them better:
REPTILES:

COMPARING EYES: BIRD/REPTILE/HUMAN...

This is courtesy of crocdragon who I did a little tutorial on elbows for...

Below: Just some issues I noticed a lot of folks have (including myself):Wow, I don't seem to know my left from my right... I think I accidentally switched them to opposite sides and forgot to edit the article... lol

For 7thSynn : who wanted to know about hips and knees...

The above tutorial is courtesy of SPIRITED CHAOS: a magnificent drawing. He mentioned he wanted to know more about drawing noses...

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OK people: you can't save a BMP type file on FAC... So check out this tutorial (above)...

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A...
B...
C...
The above is for jclark who always used to save pictures with empty space off to the right...

I also stick my nose in people's business sometimes to offer help with artistic problems/endeavours. I am not saying I don't make mistakes - far from it. I welcome critiques with informative and helpful comments because I am always trying to improve... It may have been something that I can't shake from my teaching experience...

I was having issues finding where I was able to edit my stories, but finally figured it out -- Stratadrake is one of the Forum Admin Supporters so he pointed me in the right direction. I suggested it would be easier to make visual instructions like the ones I made above as I am a visual learner... The bottom one is for ME!

Thursday, December 07, 2006

COMIC: Honourable Death?

Here is a section from my Poster #4 that I edited to look like a comic book...

Thursday, November 16, 2006

KALLEN and SARISS

KALLEN: AKA AURYNN

SARISS

Here are a couple more pictures of characters. If you've read this Blog before, you may have already met Kallen, AKA Aurynn... However, Keith's character Sariss, I don't believe I have introduced to you as of yet... Sariss is a master of disguises, and appears to be one of the very few females in the Empire who has quite a lot of power. I will ask Keith to send more info for her, and I think he got her from a source book.

More information on Kallen/Aurynn can be found here 7/22/05 and here.

Monday, October 30, 2006

TRINTA POSTER

Here is a collage version of the poster I did for our Trinta Adventure. I tried to get an actual photo of it, and it isn't as good as the other posters because I had already framed it.

This was from our Trinta Adventure: there were several adventures leading to this one and continuing after, but this was the one that really stood out for me. Initially, we were attacked by someone who apparently were bounty hunters or, at the very least, were enemies of the Rebel Alliance. We crashed on what appeared to be a haunted or cursed planet. We would have nightmares, but they seemed to come true: Uan'a saw a flaming Rancor that attacked her, and in her dream she died; and then she woke up. Velexa fought Tarc in a light saber duel and she was sliced in half; then she woke up. Eventually, we all went mad... All except Crovax. If it was not for him, we would all be rotting on that swamp planet.

This character... She was a little shady, but we had no choice but to trust her. Her name eludes me at the moment, but she seemed to have that sort of effect on people. In the background you can see the lightning and the green clouds in the background. Everything had a heavy weight to it. It seemed to be the evil, rather than the humidity, that we absorbed into our clothes, our skin and our minds... It was a slow, seeping dread that spread through our bones and made it impossible to feel safe or at peace.

See the eyes in the background? We always felt like we were being watched. It turns out that it was a Jedi, a tormented individual who died after he was tortured at the hands of Darth Vader. It was he who gave away some of the hiding places of other Jedi during the purge of the Jedi. His guilt drove him mad, and the evil vortex that was formed on this planet was the result.

Uan'a's nightmare, above.

Aria here, is about to throw a Zenji Needle. Behind her is the Kazellis Light Freighter. To her right is a panther of sorts that attacked Crovax; it was saturated with evil as well.

Crovax is surrounded by the peace and light of the Force.

We were confused by this image: it seemed to be Raptor Gase, a well-known Rebel Alliance supporter who seemed to have gone bad. He and his band of hunters and trackers were hunting us, and we were attempting to avoid them, and something else was hunting both of our parties. They did catch up to us an momentarily had the advantage. However, we found out by a few well-placed Zenji Needles that it was someone impersonating him.

Uan'a reacting to her nightmare of the Rancor: this image would haunt her dreams for many years to come... To her left are the representations of the undead Dark Jedi who attacked us...

Velexa turns a dark green when angered; she is attacking or defending herself from her nightmare image of Tarc attacking her.

These are not the best images, but I had already framed this poster before I had taken any copies of it, so this is a little bit darker than I would have liked to display. I feel a bit annoyed because SOMEWHERE in my house I have some slides of this work as well that are better lit, courtesy of Keith. It's driving me bonkers that I can't find them, but when I do I will put those on this site as well.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Keith Dobranski's Landscaping: for all your RPG needs

Hey all,
Keith sent in some of his landscaping that he put together, which I think is mostly carved from painted styrofoam or has rocks or dried plants glued to it from miniature landscaping kits. Perhaps he could send me an email giving me the correct terminology, and what steps he took to make these environments. He has since sent a few more examples which I have added in...