So this is a piece of gift/fan art for  Ahkahna that I made pretty much on a whim. Ahk has definitely been a source of personal inspiration to me as far as artistic talent, training, and integrity through my young adult life. Not only have I been inspired by the designs of her critters, and the amount of loving planning, research, and design that goes into them but also by her use of each media that she chooses.

/fangirl.

Anyway. I've been trying to stretch my artistic wings, as it were, and I've been trying to push myself in my personal art to work more with backgrounds (and sometimes foregrounds), space, and depth. So here I was really just trying to get the right look of cast-shadows on a non-flat surface (that would be the dimpled, depressed, and knolled surface of the ground.) I dunno how well it worked, but it definitely helped me learn a few things. Mostly that I need to figure out a more efficient way of calculating cast-shadows than knee-jerk reaction.

Methinks I need to start some plein air painting studies when things warm up.

This was a very large pencil sketch that I lightly shaded. I decided to ink Ahkahna and my character (the one with the weird head-things) to help give their forms clarity, but I didn't have as thin of a micron as I would have liked to have used. I think I also need to work on my inking - and also probably stop drinking so much coffee. Jittery hands =/= conducive to inking.

Scanning this was a bitch. Boyfriend made a very good point that if I were patient I could take it to the computer lab of my college and scan it there, but. . . well. . . I dunno, I decided to just scan it in four parts and piece them together meticulously in Photoshop because I could do it immediately instead of waiting a few days. Because of the way I scanned it some of the edges were cut off, and that gives the characters an uncomfortable, semi-claustrophobic feel and kind of detracts from the "speed" of the poses. So maybe Boyfriend was right in the end.

BUT INSTANT GRATIFICATION!

I'm still tweaking the design of my character, Gaframor, so I sort of jumped the gun on this and had to do a whole bunch of anatomy study-sketches inbetween. The thing I really like about Ahk's character is how well-definied the muscle-systems of each specie are; looking at Ahk's work I can get a feel for muscle-movement like looking at an anatomical illustration, and this jives with me.

Anyways. After scanning it, bitching, and nearly ripping my hair out a few times while piecing it together, I decided to tone the page so it wasn't boring gray-on-gray. If I was really smart I would have drawn this on toned paper.

Ahkahna is ©  Ahkahna
Gaframor is © me