Samillio (Quick Sketch)

A quick sketch in preparation for a painting. This is a character from that story I'm writing, Samillio. (what? I was brought up with the literature of Brian Jacques, course I'm going to have mice pop up in my own!)
This sketch was just for me to plan his markings and colour scheme from a top-view, after all that's what will be on show most of the time.

Houndoom

My interpretation of my favourite pokemon, Houndoom.
If it reminds you a little of Giger’s Alien design then that’s no surprise as it was an inspiration. I didn’t just want Houndoom to be a Doberman with horns, but something really hellish and bad-ass. Slick black skin, a cruel snarl and a nasty tail is how I would want a real Houndoom to look.

Yeah, I know in the Pokemon games the horns point backwards, but I wanted mine forward in an aggressive bull-like aim. I also have a weakness for white shire-horse fluff on a creatures feet, so that was incorporated too, a nice contrast between the skin.
Also you can see that fire/lava is peaking out of the skin on the back…after all Houndoom is a fire/dark type.

Atlas of Jör and Map of Fëylonn

Looky! I've been map making! Something different, no?


EDIT: 14/March/2012:
Here is a bigger version of the Map of Fëylonn

I had an awful moment when I literally face palmed myself to death. In a previous post I mentioned this piece of fiction I was writing, I just asked myself the question "Why am I writing a sci-fi?"...seriously, Yasmin, why were you? To my knowledge, I have only read one sci-fi novel, Iain.M Bank's The Algebraist, and I did not enjoy it... at all. Don't get me wrong, Sci-fi films rock! But, for me, Sci-fi is better as a visual thing. I love fantasy books! I love fantasy everything! My whole days a literally spent thinking of fantasy worlds... why - for the love of god!- was I not writing one then!
* facepalm No: 5,000,000!*
So, back to square uno. Sigh!

Anyway, I’ve renamed the islands/lands and done a detailed map of the area the story takes place. I've used the Lord of the Rings/Middle Earth Map, The Map from Brian Jacques' Redwall, and the Map from Christopher Paolini's Eragon for reference.
The compass is made out of Quez heads (the species of the main character) with the human symbol in the middle (an orb engulfed in blue flame). Before you wonder, no I did not hand draw every tree, I drew a clump then turned them into a stamp brush.

Carnivine

VIDEO

My interpretation of the pokemon Carnivine. Although the original design didn't have a neck I gave mine one, so it can lunge at prey with a snake-like quickness (in the picture its sort of coiled back into a corkscrew/passion fruit vine ready to spring). I also imagined that most of the time a Carnivine would be embedded, like normal plants, into the soil so that only its protective shell/husk was showing. It can then float to a new destination via methane and hydrogen produced internally.

You can also see that the eyes are like those of a deep water fish.

Inappropriate Imp

"In some of the oldest forests, where man seldom trend, still lives the Garic. A type of fat imp who spends its days smoking, drinking and making mischief. They are also prone to tempt people -and animals- into smoking and drug use, so it can entertain itself by watching your foolery. "

A painting inspired by the ‘Creative Game for Fantasy Artists’ Fantasy Genesis by Chuck Lukacs. It’s a book where you roll dice to get a combination of results to inspire a painting. Here is the book’s official blog where you can see what other artist got.

My results (for the humanoid sheet) was as follows:
Major Form: Bubbles (which inspired the body shape)
Minor: Nuts and Bolts (which inspired the head crest)
Surface: Fungi and Mushroom (you can see he has toadstool skin pattern)
Action: Glow (though the humanoid isn’t glowing himself he will be glowing from the lighting)
Emotion: Laughing.

I don’t know why I wanted this little forest imp to be slightly sinister, encouraging young animals to smoke. I was tempted, at first, to keep with the mushroom theme and have him laughing childishly at a mushroom of phallic-description…but as much as I like the idea of painting phallic shaped mushrooms someone could take it as pornographic, which is not my intention. In the end, inspired by a Watership Down themed dream I had, I plonked a baby rabbit in there... though how the pipe came about is a bloody mystery, haha.

Overall though, I'm very pleased how this finished up. Getting my computers RAM boosted from 920 MB to 1.90ish GB really helped make the painting process smoother.


-----------------SPECIAL THANKS:
*Chuck Lukacs for his awesome book!
* 'Nitsch' for the Baby Rabbit Photo that helped with the rabbit.
* Marta Dahlig’s Grass and Fur brush that appeared in ImagineFX Issue 43.

ACK! The Triangle of Death! It basically represents the composition has been trapped into the lower-right half of the painting leaving dead space in the upper-left. I needed something there to make the composition flow more smoothly. So, with the bright red of the Garic drawing the eye immediately, I have the idea of bright white butterflies leading to the rabbit, which leads back to the imp with the cold smoke. The foreground grass will also help to keep the eye from straying off the screen.

That arm looked a little limp and lifeless just hanging from his body so I moved it to rest or rubbing his belly.

I edited Marta Dahlig's grass and fur brush for something I found more comfortable and then, with circular brush strokes, put a basic grassy texture of grass. With a basic round brush I then put in my own grass blades to break the uniformity and for better control.