Further Colored Pencil Adventures

Bug and Robut, 4″ x 6″
Faber-Castell Polychromos and Prismacolor pencils, mostly

Bender from Futurama (in a rare spot of fan art!) for a Secret Santa partner whose likes include bugs and robuts. I hope she likes it! This is mostly done in Faber-Castell Polychromos. The main drawback to using them (or other creamy-type pencils) is that I use a lot of pressure at times which causes muscle fatigue. And I am no spring chicken! Or other chicken. What a weird phrase. :D

Also! Ugh! Colored pencil dust. (Probably because I use too much pressure.) Any tips? I keep getting little colored dust stuck all over. So frustrating! Please provide tips if you have any.

Linus, 2.5″ x 3.5″
Colored pencils and pens

And this is Linus. Also done in Polychromos and pen. I like him! He is strangely stylish.

Thanks for dropping in! I was in Florida for a long weekend and work continues to be crazy but I hope to get back to at least once a week, soon.

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Prismacolor Pencils, Back in Action

Legend of the Sleeping Tiger
5″ x 7″ Prismacolor pencils, Copics, Staedtler Triplus fineliners, Signo gel pen

Let me first say I still have my set of Prismacolor pencils from high school circa *cough* 1987. I was a big fan back then, but as you may recall, I abandoned the art for a couple decades (not recommended). I have since read (somewhere?) that the Prismacolor brand has gone downhill due to new owners, but I can neither confirm nor deny this item.

The tiger was done in new Prismacolors, because I bought a handful of warm bright colors (and b&w) for an experiment a couple months ago before digging through moving boxes for my old (battered) set. I think the color is quite nice, though I will confirm my black tip broke off shortly after being sharpened. Hmm.

I left the sketch alone for a while because I really liked it and didn’t want to mess with it! But I was inspired in part by meeting Diana Harlan Stein this weekend at Windycon and I finished this Sunday night after it ended. More about how that went next time. :)

Thanks for dropping in! I hope to get back to a regular schedule, and visit folks back properly, soon.

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Legend of the Sleeping Tiger, Pencil Sketch

Legend of the Sleeping Tiger
5″ x 7″ pencil sketch

The above is the second in a long-sleeping feline collection. (Ok, it’s only two, but it could eventually be a collection. )The first is a sleeping kitten, also covered in mushrooms (I’ll post that one next time, or maybe you saw it on my Facebook page). Here is the tiger reference image.

I have finally replaced the main images for Sept/Oct 2014 posts, but not the progress pics (except for Lulu). As mentioned previously, there will be more! (If you’re just tuning in, I got hacked at the end of October and lost all the blog images from those months.)

Thanks so much for dropping in! I’ve been busy preparing for WindyCon in Lombard, Illinois this coming weekend. I have done craft shows in the past (ages ago!) but really nothing like this. So, lots of stuff to do! Hopefully I’ll do more after this one, particularly with so much of the initial setup work already done. More on all this business next time!

Thanks for dropping in!

Halloween Continues, Tiny Ink Art

First, a quick note about the hacking that happened October 25th. Most of my images for the past two months are no longer on the site. So, I have to decide how much I’m going to replace. Probably main pics but not progress pics. It’s just so time consuming. And I have a really good password now. And I’ll make more. :)

I thought I’d post some more of the Halloween ACEOs from last weekend’s Halloween making.

Six for Halloween
Each 2.5″ x 3.5″ Copics, fine liners, gel pen

At the bottom left, a Pumpkin Drone beside a Pumpkin Crone. And then the Zombie Bride Calavera mash-up!

And then there is the witch made at the request for another of a previous witch. Sisters! Of different orders, certainly.

The Witch Aricela, and The Witch Josabeth
Each 2.5″ x 3.5″ Copics, fine liners, gel pen

The Witch Aricela is flying even now to The Netherlands. And the Witch Josabeth, to the UK. (Both traded for other Halloween art). It’s cool! Thanks so much for dropping in!

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Hacked.

I’ve been told one drawback to using a huge service like WordPress is – easier to get hacked. Which is what happened Saturday, October 25th!

I am supremely lucky in that I live with a computer programmer who was able to remove the offending material – which is not worth identifying – and put my site back up. However, many uploaded images were lost – looks like the last couple months – and I will be working on fixing the posts as I can.

Yikes! Thank you kindly to all who visit and a special thanks for all the great comments!

Tiny Halloween Art. Early. In Ink.

So here it is more than ten days since my last post. Here is what I have been doing: Doodling Halloween art cards and watching (or listening to, mainly) Project Runway Australia (available on YouTube)! My day job has been totally draining. Also, I should eat more broccoli.

Anyway! Here are some of those tiny Halloween thingers I mentioned!

Halloween Themed ATCs
Each 2.5″ x 3.5″ pen and ink, Copic markers, gel pen

At the top left is Glum Nevin. Whether glum because he’s been forced to wear a demon suit, or because he is a young demon who has just been told he must empty the dishwasher, I do not know.

Hello to Paint Party Friday! And thanks for dropping in!

p.s. I got hacked Oct 25! I had to take the progress photos gallery down because all the images were deleted. Alas!

More for Inktober, with a Princess in a Bottle

My goodness, post every day did I say? No, that’s not possible, it turns out! However, I HAVE been managing lots of little ink projects as Inktober continues to continue!

Uli With Familiars, and Mausoleum for Mona
Each 2.5″ x 3.5″ pen and ink

Actual black and white and also some grayscale – these are noteworthy details as you don’t generally see either around these parts. Perhaps that will change. Perhaps a “Grayscales Project”. Ugh, but no time right now. Will put on back burner. :)

The Princess in the Bottle
2.5″ x 3.5″ Copics

The Princess in the Bottle

Once there was an evil queen who loved nothing but jewels. It is said her heart was a hard, tiny diamond. They say she caused the riding accident that took the life of the king as punishment for impregnating her with their only child, a daughter. When the baby was born, the queen was repulsed by its soft helplessness, and without so much as giving it a name, she sent it away to live with a childless crone living in the dusty hills.

Unbeknownst to many, the crone was a witch,. She named the child Marta and taught her everything she knew,  all the while filling her with tales of her mother’s greed and evil nature. When the child was thirteen, she set out with a pale amber bottle she had prepared for her mother.

When Marta arrived at the castle, she found the queen a sad, lonely wreck of a woman surrounded by her jewels, who could not even keep a hound for more than a week before it ran away into the forest. She admired her daughter’s beauty, and wished some for herself. Marta agreed she could have some, so she added a few words to those she had prepared, making her mother young again, as young as Marta herself, before capturing her in the amber bottle, and sealing the lid with a waxy resin she’d made from boiling her own hair.

Marta invited the crone to live with her in the castle. They threw open the heavy curtains for the first time in years, and tamed all the half-wild hounds that roamed the forest.

None of the hounds would go near the room that housed the amber bottle, the one with the sad, tiny princess who was once an evil queen.

(c) The Slumbering Herd, 2014

***

Thanks for dropping in! And super late hello to Paint Party Friday. :)

More Pen and Ink, Inktober 5 and 6

Spotted Rooster, in progress
Each 2.5″ x 3.5″ Copics, fine liners

Inktober continues! The rooster was fun. I really tried to manage a black and white pattern that would hold up up without color. But then I added color. :D

Villa van de Paddestoel, in progress
Each 2.5″ x 3.5″ pen and ink

This mushroom villa actually has a bit of perspective (instead of a flat front). Still need to work on that. Meanwhile, where the heck did October come from? Yikes.

Scouting Team, from Black and White to Color

Submitted to Illustration Friday for the topic “Silence” because silence is one of a scouting team’s most potent weapons!

Scouting Team, 6″ x 6″ pen and ink with Copic markers
Inked version for Inktober and final color version

I must say this was an interesting exercise! For Inktober, I attempted a black and white image but you can see on the left where I got stuck and started to add color. I was going to fill the whole background with black, but I decided I should at least TRY an interesting background of some kind. And hopefully keep it from clashing or interrupting the figures in the foreground.

The final version seems a bit overly busy, but I don’t think it is competing with the figures, so that is one victory! I don’t tend to plan ahead, so maybe that’s something to work on. Here is one of the horse photos I used for reference.

I’ve also noticed that this orange-green-purple (red-violet, really) palette has followed me through three projects! Here they are all together. This is a departure from my usual VERY bright colors. Who knows what colors I shall use today! Maybe it will be ones that do not need to be filled. Haha.

Annabelle, Scouting Team and Stacked Housing
pen and ink with Copic markers

This is horse number 15 of the Season of the Horse project, in which I draw horses in hopes of improving that skill. Thanks so much for stopping in!

Stacked City in Pen and Ink, Inktober Day 2(.5)

Oh my gosh, you guys, it’s so much cuter in color! The black and white on the left was my #inktober production for Day 2, Inspired by this photo of Norway.

Stacked Housing in progress, pen and ink with Copic Markers
Final image 2.5″ x 3.5″ art card size

And here is a progress shot of the Scouting Team from the other day. You may notice I changed the eyepiece on the horse, as well as the drape of the hood. Also working on the background.

Scouting Team, in progress
6″ x 6″, pen and Copics

Thanks for dropping in! Hello to Paint Party Friday!