Art Trades

So I have seen a lot of people do Art Trades lately and I really would love to get into that also. I did get to do one art trade with one of my SVA friends. She did a nice picture of Christian and his Siberian fox, Aria. In exchange I made a picture of her character, Julitz and my character, Niko in a more cartoony style:

I picked up this style when I began animating Niko for class assignments (seen below). Though it isn't my usual style, it's still fun to do from time to time. The picture I did for her is actually a bunch of inside jokes rolled up into one. The quote it was inspired from was "We can't stop here...this is bat county" Which, for those who don't know, is from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Strange movie but very funny! Instead of putting them in bat country though, they're in "Rat" country. Why? Because during school, I had a few dorm visits from a little mouse I ended up naming Remy.

Happy Birthday Trey!

Well..extremely belated birthday! Actually Trey's birthday was July 10th but due to getting busy and being distracted it didn't get done on time at all. Ah well. It is done and I'm pretty pleased with it. This is a characature of myself presenting Trey with his shiny new collar I finally designed for him! I made July 10th his birthday because that was my dog's birthday (who would've been a whopping 16 if he was still around!)

Also, on a side note, I've really been getting the hang of cell shading ;) Still practicing!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TREY! <3

"Take You There" Process

First off, an important thing to mention is I did this in Photoshop CS4. So if you're using Sai...well, it still could be interesting. This is gonna be sort of broad as I was experimenting for the most part. I would like to go more detailed as to how I do paintings and digital pieces as I get more comfortable with the process. But for now...this is basically how I did my most recent digital:

1. I have a very basic tablet so it's easier for me to sketch it out on paper. Sometimes I ink the characters out it if it gets really complex like this did. Just to make it clearer when have to ink it digitally.

2. After re-inking Ali (right) and Kit (left) I put in the flat colors. At first I used the colors they were, then used color balance to get the colors to match the background. (I got familiar with the lasso tool when I got to the grass.)

3. This. Was. Tedious. Particularly the grass. Again, got familiar with the lasso tool for that. I made 2 other layers for both the blue and golden grass. Both with slightly different shades than the first layer. Then for the blue grass I sort of cheated (^^') and copied and pasted different shades into different layers. To show more variety.  

After adding in all the shading I put in golden highlights in everything. For the fireflies that will come in later. Masking layers..becomes your best friend for that. Trust me.

4. Then I put in highlights in the eyes, stars, the fireflies and some glow effects to finish it off. And...ta-da!! It is finished! You can see a full view of it here:

Take You There