Contets Prize Drawing - Ketza

I volunteered some prizes for .

This is 's character Ketza, who "is a white anthro fox with three yellow eyes, human-like hands, and hooved digigrade legs." It was nice to draw anthro again, it's been ages (probably years) since I have! And to draw such an original anthro was even more lovely. I had fun on this. It took about an hour in Photoshop.

1 prize down, 3 left to draw.

Enjoy!

Meg

Personalised bookmark commissions?

So I love making bookmarks; they're like mini projects! But I could also do with providing some cheaper budget alternatives for full size commissions...

What do you think of these? I would offer bookmarks backed on card approx 7x14cm for under £10. These would be *personalised 1 of a kind originals*. Sound appealing? Let me know!

~Meg

Paint Colours

I feel compelled to provide evidence that I picked up some actual real paints and actually really painted with them! Haha. I painted a small gradiated patch of each of the colours I have to see what they looked like, then attempted some kind of translucent orb.

Paints are scary, though. I feel very clumsy with them.. and this is an odd sensation. Usually I am competent at anything I turn my hand to quite quickly... With paints, it appears that this isn't the case! :-) But I am glad that I tried my watercolours. I would like to get better with them! Hope I can dare to actually try some watercolours on linearts...!

Princess Jubi

This is something I drew to accompany a letter to a friend. It's her character, Princess Jubi, created with my usual black ink pen and some copic markers for the colour. I haven't drawn her in years, and fancied a bit of a manga style doodle. I was inspired a lot by another friend and immensely talented artist, Thali.

Anyway, enjoy!

~Meg

Phoenix Tattoo

This is the finished tattoo design, now all neatened up. :-) I'm happy with this one <3 p="p">

Enjoy!

~Meg

Phoenix Tattoo WIPs 3 & 4

I tweaked the tail feather design (above) because the client wasn't quite happy with how they are  and then once approved, tweaked the others too (below).

Enjoy!

~Meg

Phoenix Tattoo WIP 2

This is WIP two of the tattoo design; it still needs some tweaking to get it just right, though. :-)

Enjoy~

Phoenix Tattoo WIP 1

A tattoo design I'm working on for a friend. This is the rough sketch so far - the final version will be a lot neater - testing out various design elements without any colour. This is going to end up being a pretty small tattoo, but it's hard working with such a large file; it's so tempting to over complicate the detail! Must... resist...!

Enjoy!

~Meg

Portrait Sneak Peek

A sneak peak of a portrait I've been (slowly) working on. I've had this sat gathering dust for about a month sadly, simply due to focusing on writing. It's been therapeutic today to get out my pencils and shade <3 You may recognise this from my previous updates. :-)

 

Enjoy!

Concept Art - Dagger

I'm hoping to do a series of illustrations of people/items from my story and eventually filling a full sketchbook I've been saving for the purpose; this is the first.

I kind of want to share what it is, who it belongs to etc.. but I also kind of want to keep it to myself; I think I'm too used to being secretive about my writing haha.

I will reveal that this dagger belongs to Evelyn, though I won't reveal how it came to be hers, because it reveals part of my storyline.

Its hilt is made of ebony which has been engraved and half wrapped in leather strips. Its guard is made of silver and engraved, and part of the blade itself is engraved and enamelled. I tried to design it to be decorative but functional!

I drew this using a mechanical HB pencil, copic markers, and watercolour pencils. I'm trying to branch out into watercolours now for the purpose of my concept illustrations. Wish me luck!

Enjoy!

Expanding Into Watercolours + A Sneak Preview!

Hi all!

I have been busy writing lately, hence why I haven't been drawing. However, I have been really itching to illustrate various people and objects from my story. I also really really really like the watercolour painting style of AuroraInk on DeviantART, and was toying with the idea of giving watercolours a try; I haven't painted with watercolours since we used to paint with those cheapo sets in a tin way back when at school. It's daunting to dabble with unfamiliar mediums but it is something I've been wanting to do for a while now; I'm glad to have taken the plunge. :-)

Well today I happened to be passing an art shop so I went in and on the spur of the moment bought a small Winsor & Newton watercolour set and some brushes (pictured with my Winsor Newton sketchbook which is the most fancy-pants sketchbook I've ever had!).

I also sketched one object that features in my story. I coloured it in with a mixture of copics and watercolour pencils which I already had laying about; unfortunately the mini watercolour set didn't come with a black colour pan which I didn't realise until I got home! D'oh!

You can see a sneak peek of the object above and below, which I have now totally finished; I'll post the final image shortly. :-)

Meg

Commissions are OPEN!

Hi all,

I'm opening my commissions for the summer, so please contact me if you're interested in me drawing something for you! :-) You can either send me a note on DeviantART, a message here on Facebook, or email me at: megan@artbymeg.co.uk

I will pretty much draw anything you ask for: from tattoos to book covers to personalised portraits and more. I have a standard price list that covers the basic possibilities (which can be found here: http://artbymeg.co.uk/Commissions.html - prices are listed in British GBP), but for anything else please contact me to discuss. I use both digital and traditional (pencils, colour pencils, artist markers) mediums.

Examples of my work can be found in...
My portfolio: http://artbymeg.co.uk/Portfolio.html
My Gallery: http://imaeko.deviantart.com/gallery/

I look forward to hearing from you. :-)

~Meg

Untitled Portrait - WIP 1

So I haven't worked out what I'll call this piece yet but anyway, I started a new portrait, after the very kind owner of the reference photo granted me permission to use it as a reference: isn't it lovely?

Guess what I was watching as I started it? Ok, fairly obviously LOTR haha. Here are some terrible close ups of the portrait at it's early stages: I've done a slight bit more work now though but I'll post that another day.

 Essentially all this is is the very basic outline of the figure and some general shading done in light crosshatching with my mechanical pencil. 

At this point of any and every portrait I really have to switch off the inner monologue! This is always the scariest time of drawing a portrait, because it's so early that it looks absolutely nothing like the subject and you really have to just plow through the doubt and indecision and get stuck into adding depth and dimension until it finally begins to bear some resemblance!

The above photo is really rubbish though. I am photographing these in good lighting conditions and they look fine on my camera screen but alas, not when they transfer to my PC! So... yeah. Most hated part of traditional work? Trying to photograph/scan it accurately enough so that it doesn't look completely rubbish when I post it online....! Failed this time, but hey ho, it's only a WIP, I'll make the full effort for the final piece. :-]

This was just me running an auto-filter in photoshop to try and clean it up... and I thought it looked pretty cool, so here you go! :-]

Finished Piece: I wait...

Originally I titled this piece "Contentment". You may remember seeing the sketch and ink on my art blog in January. 

Well, I finally finished it. I'm back! You may see more than completely no updates on here, but I don't think I will return to my previous high levels of activity on here this summer, due to focusing on getting the first draft of my novel completed. Still, some art is better than none, and for me it's a breath of fresh air to return to drawing!

Here, I used my pencil crayons and copic markers. :)

You can find the full piece and post at: 

http://imaeko.deviantart.com/art/I-Wait-306342921

Teddy Graphic

Oh my oh my, it's been a while! I have been kept prisoner by many assignments for university, which have devoured my time mercilessly! This is actually a graphic I whipped up quickly today for my very last project, which is now done. So it's cute, and signals freedom from assignments until September, yay! :D Enjoy!

Arya & Firnen - Final

(Cross posted from my DeviantART)

This is my entry for the #eragonfanclub contest; due date tomorrow! I only just made it.

For fans of the Inheritance series (by Christopher Paolini), this is the moments after Firnen (the dragon) hatches for the elf Arya (erm... the disembodied hand is Arya!), and, when she touches him for the first time, the gedwëy ignasia ("shining palm") forms on her palm; and thus, she becomes a dragon rider! Happy days.

I hope I win the contest, it would be satisfying after putting lots of effort into this piece! In any case, it was amazing (like a breath of fresh air) to be able to dust off my Wacom and become absorbed in a painting again. I've missed it so.

I enjoyed painting this a lot generally (didn't keep track of how long it took to paint, but quite a few hours. I dunno, if I had to guess, maybe ten or something?) Very therapeutic to paint scales, and satisfying to paint dragons. I hope that, by providing this picture so large, that you can see the textures in it (I used a cracked mud texture by *HumbleBeez [link] ). I'm hoping I managed to get the very harsh light painted convincingly; it was hard!

Anyway, enjoy. It's been a while since I was able to post last, so my apologies! Hope to post again soon.

Arya & Firnen - WIP 5

I'm starting to get there on this piece, yay! :-) I'm really liking the merging of scales to skin on the wings. I dunno, the contrast of it (or lack of, I suppose) is a feel I wish I could give more of my painting work. :)

Arya & Firnen - WIP 4

Life has been consumed by essays since I last posted!! Aaaaah essays, my brain feels like sludge right now haha. But I suddenly realised I only have a couple days before the contest deadline on this!! So I will have to work hard to get this done. Here's today's contribution, fingers crossed I can get this done before Saturday! Scales, so many scales...!

Arya & Firnen - WIP 3

Wip 3. Scales, scales... and more scales!

Arya & Firnen - WIP 2

WIP 2! I have started the painstaking job of Firnen's scales now! This could take a while!

Arya & Firnen - WIP 1

A painting for a contest run by an Eragon fanclub on DA. I saw the contest theme of Arya and Firnen, and this idea popped into my head! Since I love the Inheritence Cycle, and I love dragons, and I miss painting so much, I really wanted to get this idea out. This picture is the moment that Firnen hatches for Arya, and she bonds with him as his rider the first time she touches him. The hand was modelled by myself. :-) This is obviously nowhere near done! But I wanted to share it all the same. :-)

Sketches

Hey, look, I'm actually drawing!! This was a post I meant to make a few days ago haha. But look. A photo. To prove I'm actually drawing! You can probably guess from what's laid out on my desk what I'm drawing, bwaha. I do love Mr O'Connor's "Dracopedia" book. Really helps with pinning down dragon anatomy.




These are some doodles I did in college the other day. The latter is a random image of Evelyn that popped into my brain. She does not wear such impractical but kickass clothes in real life lol. Well, in real life in my fictional world.... lol.

Contentment - WIP 2

Ink for the sketch I finished yesterday :-)

Contentment - WIP 1

Goodness, it's been a while; I'm sorry! I truly am. I really haven't been drawing; I've been focusing on writing my book, or generally just too busy. But, yesterday a wondrous thing happened... I drew three times in one day! (I'll upload the first two doodles at another time). The first was because I was a little bit bored in a lecture. The second was because I had an art class and we had to draw portraits of each other (this was for part of my degree, and thus to illustrate a point rather than practice any art skills), and the second made me really want to draw a portrait! so I started doing a very stylised portrait based on some stock I found on DA (link). Here's the sketch. Enjoy. :-)

Farewell - WIP 5

Ok, so I reverted the size of the piece back to how it was. I think it's for the best... though I worry that without a sky-scape in the back, that I will detract from the piece. I might end up having to switch it from landscape to portrait orientation later on in the piece and paint in the surrounding mountains and sky. But I'll see how I go on! I would prefer to avoid that, because this orientation ensures that Evelyn is the prime focus of the piece. Anyway. This is the sketch, done. I'll lay down some basic colours next and see how it looks.

Farewell - WIP 4

Today hasn't been a particular productive day in terms of art or anything else! But I have managed to transfer the sketch I made of the castle into a digital lineart (on a different layer to the sketch of Evelyn and her horse, I will erase the overlap when I decide on final positioning!). It's neater, more geometrically accurate, and I've included some perspective distortions in it so hopefully it will sit well within the final picture.

I have also changed the size of the canvas, because it really didn't feel right as it was... I'm not sure though, I feel like I still haven't quite nailed the size/shape of the canvas... hmm.... Might need to take a breather to re-evaluate this piece. Anyway, hope you like the lineart so far.

Farewell - WIP 3

So I designed a basic outlook for the castle/keep for the background... It's the castle at Arlyn (fictional place from my book) where Evelyn (one of the main characters) says goodbye to her father.

I looked around at lots of different places to reference for this, but in the end the one most close to how I picture the castle turned out to be Raby Castle, which is in County Durham I believe. I drew some of it freehand, and some of using a ruler just to make straighter lines! I only drew in one window as it's a basic sketch for now, though I think I will tweak the design slightly. Think I will enlarge and move the door too. It doesnt fit as well into the design as I thought it would sat there. I took inspiration from the door from a beautiful local church.

You can see how it fits in to the drawing as well. I will re-line it in Photoshop to make the lines both neater and darker, and to cut out some of the noise from the scan I took from my sketchbook. Wish I had picked a bigger sketchbook to draw this in - I ended up running out of room! I need to extend the building to the left.

Farewell - WIP 2

Oh goodness me. Horses.... are REALLY hard to draw! I used to draw horses (and foxes) all the time when I was a kid! I got pretty good, actually. But that was... *cringe* over a decade ago so I'm 100% rusty!

I will be glad when I can get some colour down on this piece, because that's when humans really start to look like humans, and hopefully horses will actually start to look like horses! Still got the background to lay down in sketch form though. Hmm. Just trying to decide about layout. Drawing the bakcground required designing a fort.... which I can't say I've had any experience with! I need to pin down my vague ideas. :) It's going well so far though. I am enjoying this piece. It's always lovely to draw something that I have had in my head for a while. :-)

Farewell - WIP 1

This is a work in progress of what I plan to be my next "big" picture, a.k.a. one I'll go all the way on, painting and everything, or so I plan to at this stage. This is a scene from my book. When I was writing it, and when I read back over that particular bit I just see this particular still image really vividly. The colours, the lighting... I have, of course, no hope of capturing what my minds eye sees, but I'll give it my best shot. :) It's a chance to attempt movement, horse anatomy, buildings, perspective, composition, and atmospheric lighting all at once! Frankly, that's quite scary! Wish me luck, haha.

Sketches

I've wanted for some time to make a small head/shoulders bust of a dragon (out of polymer clay). But I just can't seem to get the plans right! This was me having another failed attempt. I don't know why I can't draw a really nice dragon head. So back to the drawing board with this one. I'm debating as to whether I should skip the planning stage and go straight to sculpting?

The dwarf is just a random doodle I felt like drawing! ImagineFX magazine had a great dwarf drawing in the Christmas issue which I had just read at the time.

So yes. Random sketches, enjoy. Hopefully I will post something better soon, eh? :-P

Gesture Sketches 3

I didn't feel like doing more than one gesture sketch this day (Wednesday 7th December), so I spent time developing the shading instead. It's a hand, cut off by the edge of the page because I'm an idiot and didn't leave enough room to develop it! Hands are something I need significant amounts more practice on though, that's for sure!

40k Kiriban Art - 1

I recently passed the 40,000 pageview mark on DeviantART, and two people caught the kiriban. This is the first of the two kiribans I've done art for (the second is to come). It was based on the first persons sketch (that person being this person!), which I've lined and coloured in. I picked this sketch of his because the feeling behind it really came through on the sketch. I thought it was lovely. :) Ooh it was nice to do cell shading, I think it's years since I have done!

Credit for the lovely sketch must go to : Tom Kiely

Gesture Sketches 2

Some gesture sketches from yesterday. I used the same resource as last time; http://lovecastle.org/draw/

Gesture Sketches 1

I'm alive! Ok, so assignments aren't quite done yet but the end is in sight. Anyway, I decided I should really start getting back into basics, and experiment with some gesture sketches. So hopefully this will become a regular thing. I hope to be doing a couple every few days as and when I can fit them in. I spent 10 minutes on each of these, but I definitely aim to cut that down significantly with practice. Hopefully over time I can become a pro at creating gesture sketches and poses! :-) This is the site I used for this set of gesture sketches, it's really good! http://lovecastle.org/draw/ Enjoy. :-)

P.s. I am unsure whether to watermark these gesture sketches. They're not exactly a big deal, I know, but eh. I can't decide whether it's still worth it to. I'll see how it goes for now.