No sketchbook post this weekend as I’m rushing to get some commissions done before the holidays, in between working all the time and preparing for Christmas myself. But I have quite a few personal projects to catch up on after that, so there will be updates soon!
Okay, maybe a very small sketchbook post. Here is a solemn-looking Santa that might have turned into a holiday card, had the time not gone by too quickly to get it done.
Happy holidays, everyone!
I’ve been away for a while, preparing for and then going on a trip back to America, and then dealing with an ongoing problem. Fortunately that problem is now resolved, and I have some exciting news!
As of next year, I will be freelancing full time again! I am so looking forward to getting back to work on character design for games, and also branching out to new and awesome projects. I’ll even have time to work on my own projects again. Ever since I made this decision I have been so much happier, and I hope to be more productive than ever next year!
I have so much stuff to post with this update. I never did get back to my Inktober drawings in all the chaos leading up to and following the US holiday, but I’ve still been busy working with new clients and on individual commissions.
To start, I have obtained permission from Thunderhead Gaming to show some of the previous work I have done for them. Unfortunately the projects they’re attached to have been delayed, but you can read all about them here as soon as they’re available! Sorry for the giant, horrible watermarks all over these. These images are the property of Thunderhead Gaming and are not available for other use.
Here you can see two new covers following “Raiders of Pertalo,” an early version of a Gargoyle, a Harpy, the coloured version of my previous Karitehe design, a Minotaur, and a brand new monster created just for Thunderhead.
I’ve also been having some fun redrawing more of my old art on my new tablet. On the left is a marker and coloured pencil drawing of the Hindu god Ganesh, drawn for a coworker ages ago. On the right is the new digital version, redrawn as a favour for a friend.
I have been working with a new client on a few projects, one of which is a series of movie reviews. While she’s currently having technical difficulties, the first review will be for Ghostbusters.
And I have been working on my own projects. Here’s a small thumbnail of an experiment that I started while travelling. The full picture is a lot further along than this, and I’m looking forward to sharing it when it’s finished.
Finally, here’s something new for the sketchbook. I quickly grew to hate that last mermaid sketch I did, so here’s a new one that I hopefully won’t hate quite as quickly!
That’s all for now! I’ll be adding these to my portfolio page after work tomorrow, and I should have a lot more to show soon!
I decided to do Inktober this year, and I’m so far behind on it. In my defence, it’s because I was working on an awesome commission instead! I’ll post it when I’m able.
At the recommendation of a friend and thanks to my amazing husband, I now have an iPad Pro which I’ve been working with for the past couple of weeks. I love it! I announced when I got it that I might never draw on paper again, and it’s true – I’ve tried sketching on paper just once recently, and gave up when I found myself moving my fingers to try to zoom in!
It’s not really in the spirit of Inktober to use a tablet (even though I’m very skeptical of anyone who says there’s only one right way to do things), but if the point is to get outside your comfort zone and learn something new, I would say this qualifies. I’m also not doing the usual Inktober prompts, but the Inktober Monsters one:
So here are my first two monsters! For the first one, “Witch,” I decided to do some fan art. I’ve been wanting to draw a Rita Repulsa to go with my Power Rangers for a while. I didn’t use any references until I got to her staff, so some of her costume details are a bit wrong.
My vampire is a Regency vampire, because I’ve been watching some Jane Austen films lately and I really love the style. Plus the dignified, polite evil of Austen’s antagonists makes for a great vampire!
That’s all for now, but I hope to get around to Banshee on my day off tomorrow, with an update on Saturday or Sunday!
This has been a particularly bad week, so sketchbook day is a little late. I should be able to post after work tomorrow.
Recently I mentioned a project that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. Progress on it has been a bit slow, but it’s finally starting to move forward.
I am working on a PDF collection of all-female characters for D&D-type RPG settings. It will provide at least 20 characters with backstories and basic stats, with the characters having obvious personalities, diverse appearances, and practical armour – absolutely no chain mail bikinis!
I’ll have more on the ideas behind the project and my reasons for working on it later, but for right now I’m happy to say that a work-in-progress look at the first character is now available to Ko-fi donors! By clicking the “buy me a coffee” button to the right, you can donate £3 and get access to a private page showing my progress. Just be sure to either sign up with Ko-fi or provide your email in a private message in order to get the link and password!
The current donor page shows progress on my Dwarf Barbarian, and includes the original sketch, the finished line art, and the flat colours. Later I will post the early versions that didn’t work out so well, and I will continue to update as I colour the image. Around this time next month, I will move on to the next character, and the password will change for new donors.
If you have any questions or problems accessing the donors page, please send me a message via my Contact page. I am very excited about this project and I hope everyone else likes it as well! 🙂
I went to Nine Worlds Geek Fest in London this past weekend, and while I had a lot of fun, I’ve spent the last few days recovering from it. Mainly from having to run back and forth between home and Hammersmith, not eating or sleeping properly, and having to work during and immediately after the convention. I’ve got things coming for this blog – I want to write about the awesome people I met and games I picked up, as well as the stuff I’m working on – but I’m going to need the room to stop spinning first. Please bear with me while I try to get back to normal.
I am about 1/5 of the way through a series of sketches that will eventually become my first D&D-themed art book/colouring book, which I intend to make available on DriveThruRPG. Starting next week, I plan to make previews available for anyone who donates via Ko-fi. Please do not make any donations until I post that the previews are ready and explain how to access them. I’m really excited to share what I have planned!
Between commissions, I’m getting back to work on a personal project that I’m very excited about! I plan to make bonus content and previews available via Ko-fi for donors, so if you were thinking of making a donation via Ko-fi, please wait a week or two so you can get access to the new material.
Last week I posted a comparison between fan art from 2005 and a newer take on the same character and concept. Here is the full drawing, with a description to follow.
The character is Ro Rowen from a cartoon called The Zeta Project, which has had a huge influence on my work and my life in general. The idea for this drawing and the original from 2005 came from an episode in which Ro was kidnapped by a group of super-powered terrorists. Due to a case of mistaken identity, they believed that Ro had the power to communicate telepathically with machines, and Ro had to keep up the charade until she could escape. But what if they had been right? If Ro had actually had such superpowers, she would have certainly become a puppet for this group, who would have succeeded in their mission and would have never allowed her to escape.
There is more Zeta Project fan art to come, and new art in general, as I continue to learn to balance my day job with the work I would love to do full time. Meanwhile I have started a tip jar at Ko-fi.com, and added a link on the side. If you would like to help support my work when I get back to a more regular posting schedule, please feel free to make a small donation. It really helps!
I’ve been seeing that meme going around where artists redraw old work to see how far they’ve come. I’d never participated until now, but lately, as other problems have been keeping me away from drawing more often than I’d like, I felt like I needed it. Sometimes it helps to see how much you’ve actually improved, especially when it seems that nothing you’re drawing looks right. I picked a piece of fan art that I did twelve years ago, one of my favourites at the time. It was awful. The influence that anime had on me was still really strong back then.
I’ll have more to say about this tomorrow after work, as well as a larger version of the new drawing.
Vanessa Ellis 