The Owl Princess

Another Art Challenge with friends. This time the topic was: The Owl. Mine is an Owl Princess as you can see.

close up:

I wanted to practice painting flowers. Which was stupid. I used lots of custom brushes for the foliage. I also used a ref for the owl and wings (random google image), as I never painted one. And a ref for flowers, of course (my own). Or actually a few. And I think I based initial tiara design on some photo, but I changed it so much, I'm not sure if it even resembles it. I still don't know what got into me that I decided to paint such complicated foliage.

I'm quite happy with her owl-face. And it was fun to do something more stylised and painterly this time :)

Demonic Circus

Another Art Challenge. This time I came up with the topic, got it from a game name generator and just loved it. I got kind of carried away with it. Had so much fun with the faces that when I finished them I needed to make all the rest more realistic than I intended to. Ah well. One day I'll learn ;)

The twins were inspired by the twins from The Shining, and I used some random still as a reference for their hands. Just the hands though. Clown's hands are referenced on my own. No faces were referenced which is perhaps why ringleader's smile is so weird. I learned painting teeth hurts. Other than that, just too much time in Photoshop and Painter. Here are some additional close ups.

Twilight.

No, not the movie ;) Just a pic. Meant to be a light practice and also a tribute to a forgotten polish XIXth century painter Siestrzencewicz. Not a very direct one though.


And a face close up (100%, so a huge one). A bit more painterly than most of my earlier pieces and I definitely prefer it this way. Seems more alive.


Here is original Siestrzencewicz's painting (crappy mobile photo of an album reproduction, sorry):

end of 2008

So, Christmas has passed. It's been really nice. Except for the funeral of my aunt just two days before it. I hope, wherever she is, she'll find peace. Honestly I've never been to a wedding (really, never in my life), but attended too many funerals of people I cared for. Sometimes I wonder if this is a reason I prefer darker themes when painting. Somehow light, heartful ones just don't speak to me and, actually, they never did.

Anyway. I started a series on scents of flowers. Maybe because I needed to draw something simple and pretty. Or maybe because I fell in love with few smells and got inspired by it? I've also been doing lots of painterly sketches last days, so it felt good to do something more stylised. Here's first one:

Close up:

Also I promised some close ups for my recent piece, Misery. So here it is for those interested:

Close up:

Only few days till 2009 begins. I look forward to it, it's been a bad year and it's good it's going to end. Well, maybe not that bad, but last half of it turned my life upside down. Health related problems and such. It's still not great, but I really hope it'll get better and I'll be back in full shape, feeling strong and all that. The worst thing is uncertainty, even when I feel good I'm just afraid if it won't get worse. I'm just scared to be scared. And, believe me, it sucks. God, how I wish I was 21-23 again, these were years I was perfectly fine.

I'm also starting a new job (as a proper concept artist this time, before I worked as a general gaming graphic artist, doing lots of pixel art too) and as much as I'm excited about it I'm also afraid how I'll manage with getting up really early (long commute), writing my master's degree essay (history of art), finishing second master's course in another town (graphics) and finding time to work on my personal projects. It's going to be hard, but maybe all these chores will help me get better and forget about, well, other things. I hope so.

Anyway, wishing you all a happy new year :)