So I am back from Origins Game Fair, and taking a lot of things into consideration after getting some critiques on my portfolio as it is. Along with that talking to some of my buddies and other artists, as well as reviewing a lot of the companies out there, I've come back to focus more on doing the kind of artwork I had set out to do before college and all the fluff involved had their effect on me.
Originally I wanted to work on MTG type of images, so after some thought it was recommended that in addition to creating my own art, that I ought to look at 'reinventing' concepts that already have been done. Above is a sketch on 140lb coldpress (yes, that's right...coldpress, not the type of paper I normally use) Fabriano watercolor paper. I had some other sketches I had done previously in my sketchbook that led up to the actual drawing. It's approximately 8.5x12 inches.
I've sorted out some reference materials as I got ready to finalize my idea, and am kinda sampling some of the colors to create a pallet. Right now I am using a mixture of Viridian Hue, Yellow Ochre, and Windsor Violet. I've been painting with watercolors for a little over three years now, and it's my medium of choice. Along with that it's also lead to me picking up tendencies to favoring the use of particular colors, be it for pigment, or what not. To get a grayed violet I add in a little yellow (complementary colors will do this), and for a darker near black I like to mix green into the violet. I don't often use pure black when I paint.
Right now I am taking a break, as using the cold press paper causes my paints to take a little longer to dry, and I am not a fan of using a blow dryer to speed up the process as I feel it moves my pigment around. Furthermore, I have applied salt in some areas of the painting in a controlled manner, and to use a blow dryer would push the salt around to areas I had not intended to use it.
I know some people prefer to have pristine paints in their pallet, but it's been a habit of mine to muddy up my workable pallet.
It's been nice to jump back into painting, especially as I find that I have been doing digital work more frequently. Right now my biggest challenge is how to handle representing lightning using watercolors....or rather in general. Lightning isn't something that I have painted before, so I am a little anxious as to how this will turn out.
Anyways, I've written quite a lot but figured it would be nice to feature this here...wish me luck on the lightning!
-Kat
