An Egwene Update

Another long weekend is coming up and I'm so excited. I get to do my stuff! Clean the house, the office, work in the garden, and of course, finish the painting. Maybe do a craft or two. Considering how stressful the job is, these little tranquil days of quiet are so precious.

As for my second painting, I've finally added a hand! Based off my own of course, and I had to strain to get a nice meaningful pose - not just your average gnarly fireball-conjuring hand.

I also toned down the colors a bit, which is a wild guess. I will have to go over the other computer to view it again, and see if my colors are right this time.

I think I'll be done before the weekend comes and I'll be posting this to my deviantart account!

Backgrounds are Hard Work!

I showed my unfinished Egwene to my boyfriend and he gave me some nice suggestions on how to improve my little painting. So I took his advice, and it got even better!

I must say, painting the background is hard. Even if they're just clouds and smoke, I really wanted to get a good mix of both drama and realism. Anyway, I still have to view this on the other computer and see how the colors turn out. My laptop's colors are screwed!

Long Weekend with Egwene

It's a long weekend once more as the Palace declared today a holiday. So I finally got some R & R and some more time to work on my Egwene project. Here's how it's coming along:

I've been trying to tone down the colors every now and then, and given that my laptop isn't calibrated, I really can't see if the colors are too intense. I'd really like a dusty look filled with debris and smoke, but I think I'll add that last. And yes, no hands yet! I have a hard time making hands so I'll be making those last ;-)

Alone like Egwene al'Vere

I think I'm coping up nicely being the lone 'Artender' in the Creative Department, and so far I've managed to squeeze the time to design my own artender table. Hopefully, the production team will get to fabricate it in two weeks, so I don't have to sit exposed to everyone anymore (Yes, everyone who passes by can take a peek at what I'm doing -- which would piss off any artist immensely!).

In other good news, my work was featured at dragonmount.com, which fired me up to make another WoT painting! I've been thinking about my second painting for the past month, and I've settled myself with a major character - Egwene.

So far, I've only seen two interpretations of her in The Gathering Storm, so I thought I'd contribute to the fanart community. I chose her particularly because I could somehow empathize with her, in how she handles her position of power. Although life-wise I relate to Moiraine so much more, I kinda like how Egwene 'learns' things, and in that way I think I've learned a lot from her too.

And learning from my first painting, I think it would be better to detail out a few things before I jump right into the coloring, so now I'm taking my time in sketching. Here's a sneak peek:

I may have to edit the facial features more, but so far, I'm happy with the pose. 

However, my long-time friends and I are going to have a little party this Saturday, so I think there goes my weekend painting plan. In any case, I'm taking my time with this one, and hopefully it would turn out great, if not better than Verin!

 

Work and My Assistant

Work has been incredibly tough of late. With my assistant artist submitting his resignation letter, I've been forced to take on all our brands. That includes designs for a vast range of clients: from dental products to liquor, hair care and hair styling, hotdogs and meat products, real estate, health care and pharmaceuticals, energy drinks, spice and baking products, to condoms and banking. It's a wonder I haven't posted anything this September, but still, I am thankful for all the projects.

For any who are wondering, I'm the Creative Director of my company. Well, it is a small company, and through the years, I've trained graphic artists who now have come and gone. Now, my artist who has been with me for over five years has come to the decision to leave, perhaps to pursue a higher paying job - I really haven't gone through enough investigating, but I guess I will simply have to respect his decisions and be proud of what I helped make.

So far, I've got no new artworks to post (well, if you consider brand design, I've got hundreds of those!), so I'm simply going to post pictures of my beautiful, mean cat, Siomai.

I adopted him well over a year ago, and I think he's accustomed to me well. It seems I can't take away his 'meanness' completely, but I think he's gotten so much sweeter now. He stays up late by my side, trying not to sleep when I work late, and often reminds me that it's time to sleep. And when I do, he sleeps on my towel beside me, the whole day.

Aes Sedai: Verin Mathwin

It appears I couldn't stop myself from adding a background. Whenever I peek at this painting, something seems to be missing. So here, I've added some village houses and a few scraggly pines. I think it sort of completes the picture, adding a sense of scale into it.

Verin Mathwin in Emond's Field

Here's a close-up of Verin again:

Verin Mathwin

Well, to say the least, I'm quite satisfied for now. I think I can have a good night's sleep tonight, ending my  week-long vacation. I didn't go out of the house except for buying stuff, and instead I just cleaned and worked on the garden (which I would post about one of these days!).

New Stuff and Painting One (Part Four)

Almost there! I think I've done around 60 percent of the total composition and I'm liking the feel of it. I'm already itching to adjust the depths, but I can't do that unless every element has been laid out.

In other news, I'm planning to help my colleague clean up the office, with all these cigarette butts lying around. I will have to find some cheap ashtrays to assign everyone, one big ashtray for all is encouraging laziness! So I thought why not assign people their own ashtrays with their big names stuck on the little canisters - that way everyone gets to see who smokes like a chimney and who acts like a slob. Brilliant! If I may say so myself :)

New Stuff and Painting One (Part Two)

So far, so good. I've taken some new approaches to my painting style, and it seems that I will always revert back to my style 10 years ago. I'll try hard to flex these point-of-view muscles as much as I can, but as for now I will have to do what feels comfortable.

After sketching the layout, I proceed with some details. As I've often said, I like to put intricacies last, most artists (like those who love comics), start with most details, almost to the point of finishing it off. I kinda jump right in with the layout, coloring first, then applying the details. Sometimes, doing both at the same time.

Bear with me, I've been off painting for more than a decade. Here's the progression...

I noticed that too much detail on faces causes the pixels to merge (unpleasantly) when zoomed out. So here I tried to minimize the facial features - believe me, I've a hard job restraining myself.

Verin Mathwin Painting

Well, I guess I'm a little satisfied. Not too ecstatic about it, but for a first, I'm quite happy with it. By the way, I'm sure all you Wheel of Time fans out there would have recognized the character from the 'plumpness' and colors used. It's Verin Mathwin! Know more about her at: http://wot.wikia.com/wiki/Verin_Mathwin

New Stuff and Painting One (Part 1)

Yaaay! I've finally bought my first pen/tablet and I'm so excited to paint - digitally! I think the price was really cheap considering the size, but I'm not quite sure how long it will last since it's one of those lower-end products. I installed it today through my laptop and started sketching right away... given that I hate going through tidbit training and I tend to just jump right in, I started with a large scene and composition.

Okaaay... So I may have gone over the top a little. It's another Wheel of Time scene, and I think it will be well worth it considering this is my first time painting again after, what... a decade?! Anyway, wish me luck!

A Little Depressed with Elaida a'Roihan

Having a moderate case of Seasonal Affective Disorder today. Hopefully that’s just it, and nothing too serious. Feeling a little bit helpless about my future, not having a lot of resources to pull from, unlike so many of my colleagues and friends who have successful family members to turn to for help, or family investments to tap on in the future. Seems so easy for them when everything’s laid out already, all they have to do is check, check, check. Well, as for me… I have to plant things yet, and hope they grow. Well, so far the things that grow have become stagnant, and I’ve very few choices to make.

Anyway, I wouldn’t want to depress anyone else, so I’m saturating myself with happy food for the rest of the day. A double dose of coffee, chocolate doughnuts, and later some hot cocoa. I’m planning to fix the garden today, that always makes me happy, but only if it doesn’t rain anymore, and only when people start to leave the office. I should probably print out my Sketchup dream house, and draft it in the moleskin.

Unfortunately an email (one of many) came up again for more revisions on our projects. Maybe I’ll just delegate this and forget about it for the meantime.  I’m beginning to love these sarcastically hilarious quotes from my friend’s FB wall, and I think this one is appropriate:

Haha. True, true. 

To get my blood flowing a bit and refocus this stream of sad energy into a raging waterfall of activity, I'm posting another Aes Sedai. The one everyone loves to hate. Elaida.

Elaida do Avriny a'Roihan, The (Usurping) Amyrlin Seat from Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time Series