Blue Dog and his fluffy tail

(like a bottle cleaning brush)

I really wish I could be a part of more books like this one.
Pretty please ・:*(〃∇〃人)*:・

Book is about children/animals with issues and a Blue Dog that helps them cope (I cried a river while reading it + two lakes while painting the emotional parts)

First try outs of a style. I drew with pencil + coloured in Photoshop. Later on I decided to stick to Photoshop only so that all necessary changes won't be too painful and time-consuming

☆ more pictures under the cut ☆

Daily Sketch III - Day #51-60

No "From my sketchbook" this weekend, sorry guys! The weather was too gloomy to take good photos of my sketchbook :/ But surely someday during this week there will be a pretty sun up on the sky and I will be able to take those photos! Absolutely for sure!

But you still have some pictures to see. Here are next 10 sketches from the Daily Sketch challenge. Some of them weren't shown on Instagram / Twitter / Tumblr - you are the first ones to take a glimpse. Enjoy!

 I've promised you last time that I will give up with sooooo many portraits of the cats so I've decided to give it a try and make some environments. Well, the cat needs to live somewhere, doesn't he?

 That's his bed :)

Promise broken! Damn, this cat just can't stop himself from showing up!

 I've used a blue pencil for this one but I've used it too delicately and my scanner wanted to eat it all up. It was quite a battle to get it back on the picture...

This time I used the blue pencil more firmly (though it's more bluish in reality).

That's all. Right now I'm on my 64th sketch and I'm doing some of them digitally to practice those skills too. Actually, I've created a list of things I want to practice so I won't feel uninspired and won't just waste my time on meaningless doodling.

There's something new in the sketching universe too. Check out @Sketch_Dailies on Twitter - they give daily topics to sketch + retweet best pictures throughout the day. If you're lacking ideas or want to be "forced" to try drawing something out of your comfort zone then come and join the fun :)

A.

From my sketchbook #17

My sketches keep on appearing in an enormous amount. Here are some selected pages from my January sketchbook with the cat character.

 First sketch of him. Looks pretty neat but is quite boring too. So I've decided to make more reference sketches (of wildcats and lynxes).

 Now I was ready to go further. Firstly, I've decided what is attitude and character is like. Then I've tried to show it in those simple sketches on the left. I've chosen a pugnacious and "glamorous" pose - I think it shows his vanity the best ;)

Yes, that's totally him!

Enough of the cat for now. Next week I will show you sketches of the cat's girl companion (which you might have already glimpsed in my Daily Sketch post).

A.

Disguise - Illustration Friday

A new character I've created - a bird girl (no name for her yet, sorry!). You have already seen her in my 23rd daily sketch, that was the first time I drew her.

A.

Daily Sketch III - Day #41-50

This time my sketches has been completely taken over by a Cat and a Girl with long hair. Hope you don't mind - they are a rather cute couple :) I will make something different for the next 10 days, I promise.

 First design of the Cat. Based on photos of my old cat.

 

 Drawing from photo reference - it's a wildcat. My cat (see: picture above) was a half wildcat.

 First design of the Girl. Long hair, long tail, small horns and cute arms + legs.

 Designing the outfit of the Girl. First comes the cape/hood.

 And then the underneath part. A simple dress looks much better than puffy shorts she had at the beginning.

 This sketch captures her personality the best.

 Though I find this one super cute :)

 My mum's cat.

 Back to designing the Cat. I've changed his proportions a bit so he's more recognizable. I'm not sure if this is the final design... However, the "feeling" of him is just right.

"Oh, hey there. You come here often?"

That's it for this time. Now on to the next batch (I will post them on 30th or 31st January).

A.

From my sketchbook #16

I needed to invent a fox family (or rather - one small fox girl + her family). As usual, I started with sketching foxes from photo references to get used to their "structure". That way it's easier to make them more characteristic but still looking like foxes.

Here you can see a scale of their sizes. I've checked how big they can get on wikipedia so my cat character (the fat fluffy one in the upper right corner) is also properly sized in comparison.

That's a fox teenage brother :) The cat will be shown next time.

Next time - my cat character.

A.

Daily Sketch III - Day #31-40

A month of daily sketches! Yay! Now on to the next one :)

Here are next 10 sketches I did + a bit of description if needed (beware, this post is picture heavy!).

I started with splash art (I've described the process in my previous post) and more cat character and his companion. Here you can see all of the before and after splash daily sketches. Colour schemes were randomly chosen via ColorSchemeDesigner.

Day #31

 Day #32

 Day #33

 No natural light photo this time, sorry :(

 Day #34

 Day #35

 Day #36

Here, on the 6th of January, I joined Sketchbook Challenge 2014 - Victoria Ying's and Mike Yamada's idea of pushing one's art further by massive daily sketching. The idea is to fill up a whole sketchbook (A5, 200 pages) in one month. And since I was already sketching everyday I've decided to join :) Why not. It's a win-win challenge, because even if you won't finish your sketchbook, you still make plenty of drawings.

For now on my daily sketches will come from my Moleskine sketchbook but I think I can still pull off some splash art there :) We'll see.

 Day #37

 Day #38 - Sketch of my idea of the topic "time" for Illustration Friday

 Day #39 - That's all I could master for IF this week - too little time! But it looks fine :)

Day #40 - Grandma cat. I need her for my secret project ^^

As previously, I post all my daily sketches + more on my Instagram, twitter and tumblr so don't forget to check up those to see and read more :)

Because of the massive amount of sketches I'm making lately, due to the Sketchbook Challenge 2014, I have decided to share some, or most, or all, with you, here :) They will be posted under "from my sketchbook" tag.

See you next time!

A.

Daily Sketch III - Day #21-30

Here comes the next 10 sketches I did. I have started with two done on my phone and then I had a bit more time so I got back to watercolour ones. Because I adore watercolours :)

To move my brain even more than I do through daily practice, I've decided to do some quick splash art. "What's that?", you ask. Here comes an explanation. First I leave some watercolour marks, dots, splashes, strokes, whatever on paper and leave it to dry. Then I take the paper and rotate it in my hands to see if the shapes formed by splashes remind me of anything particular. It may be a thing (a tree) or just a feeling (sunny afternoon). Sometimes it's hard to see anything, sometimes it's really easy. Try it yourself, just for fun :)

To make things a bit more complicated I use colour schemes randomly selected by Color Scheme Designer - click "random -> randomize palette" on the top menu to see how it works. Some colours it selects are pretty wicked but they always go well together.

Enough of the talking, here are my sketches:

 Day 21 and 22 done on my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 in SketchBook app by Autodesk (totally worth buying).

 Day 23 - painted while listening to The Civil War's new album. It's amazing as always.

 Day 25 - This is a cat character in which I put great expectations. But since it's a secret project I cannot tell more yet ;)

Those "splash sketches" vary pretty much from what I usually do. But, because of that, they are quite a relief to do - no one expects anything particular from them, not even me. Plus, it's really a lot of fun to force my brain and imagination to work harder and differently than usual.

A.