That looks amazing!!!! So lovely! I love hir outfit and all the gold!

Beautiful, I like the Indian influence on hir costume.

Oh wow that's gorgeous :O

Wowf! That's some nice detailing there.

Your art is always so colorful and awesomely detailed :D

just wow.... I am blinded by awesome!

Lovely work

I know you're one of the last artists left who still work in physical mediums, which is one of the things I absolutely love about you.
Seeing the progression from inks, to basic colors and shading to this finished piece is facinating for me. What medium do you use for colors?
I've spent years collecting Prismacolor markers, and it took me almost as long to get the hang of doing simple colors, and want to learn how to take them to their full potential, so I really try to study and learn about techniques like yours.

Markers seem to be the thing around here, but I use watercolors. Cake variety. Don't like the tube variety. They don't really blend that well. And I collect the things. I've got all sorts. Everything from professional grade to kiddies' craft time. Each variety has their good and bad properties and you just learn to use them to your advantage. Who melts easily, who doesn't; who plays well with whom. That kind of thing.

I also use acrylics. They will, in fact, mix with watercolor as they are water-based themselves. I use white acrylic for blending, highlights and repair. I use gold 'cause I'm just a gaudy bitch.

Hell, I've even used glitter.

I can tell you all kinds of tricks to use with watercolor and acrylic, but I don't know anything about markers. How they blend or anything.

Thanks for your responce. I was pretty much the same way with Markers. Any kind of marker, in any shade, from any brand, from rose art, to crayola, to professional grades like Prismas. Then I spent a few years collecting a complete set of Prismamarkers, and once I finally taught myself how to even remotely use them properly, and seeing first hand trhat even minimal skills with those was blowing the best I could do out of the subgrades, I gave up the crayolas altogether.

I love watercolors, though. And I'm extremely envous of skills like yours. I mean, your watercolors look like markers, sometimes! (Sorry if that's insulting, I don't mean it to be. I see amazing stuff with markers, and when someone's a master, the two look mediums look alike to me)
I would love to learn watercolors, but I'm afraid I don't have the patience for it.

Eh? Watercolor is quick. Oil paint takes a looong time.

Not so much patience as in time, but more in patience with myself. There are some things that don't feel intuitive to me, and I stick with it, and get better (Like basic shading)... but then there are some things that I just don't simply get along with. Had a simular reaction to charcoals. My dad once bought me charcoal pencils and made a big push for me to change my medium to using them to draw with instead of my pencils. That was something I just could not get along with, reguardless of practice.

? What's wrong with colored pencils and markers? Don't use them myself but...

And charcoal sucks! It's messy as hell and you can't do detail work!

Nothings wrong with markers? It's my preferred medium. But I like to learn how to do other things as well. I'm decent enough with colored pencils (Outside of being stuck at the stage where every thinks I'm using crayons instead of professional grade pencils). I don't like colored pencils as much as my markers, but I enjoy being able to use them, and strive to be as good as professionals with them.
And I equally admire people who're as good as you at watercolors, and wish to learn how to be good, too.

What I was driving at is that there was nothing wrong with your media choice and I find it odd that someone would force another on you. Especially charcoal, which is usually seen as intermediate material. For sketches.

Conte and pastel are the two usual soft media --and they're messy, too.

Aaah, I see. My bad. Yeah, it was for my drawing that he tried to get me into charcoal.
More recently, he's found this stack of some type of oversized filter papers, he's convenced would make good drawing paper for me. (I don't even have any surface big enough to place it on to start with) And he's been on me the last couple years to use those.

Anyway. I'll stop clogging up your comments. My appologies.

I'm sorely tempted to start a series of commissions of chakats wearing various traditional/ethnic costumes.

this is really beautiful . i love the clothes and the colors.very nice work