Photoshop Warm Up With a Faerie

I don’t know about most digital artists but when I’m working on a digital piece I typically need to work on some kind of warm-up with photoshop before I get skull deep into a more substantial project, say a commission piece or a uber planned out monstrosity. Granted, if I wasn’t a clumsy chick with lousy hand-eye coordination and crap handwriting this sort of warm up might be more optional skill practicing than total necessity for me.

I started working on this sunset faerie back when I got my glorious pen & tablet set from my sweetie for Christmas (complete with a better version of photoshop than I had). A few steps into this illustration I realized hey maybe I oughta try my hand at doing this up as a tutorial while I’m at it. This will eventually wind up as part of a tutorial [which will link from here when done]. Too bad when I started it I didn’t have or know about a proper screen capture tool; and I didn’t know what the multiply layer in photoshop was actually for (coloring line art), despite fiddling with that extensively over the years.

Since I didn’t know how to color line art properly back then I opted to ultimately do this one up as a digital painting. Hopefully I finish this thing up in the next couple of weeks.

One of the nicest things about calling an art piece a warm –up is that you feel more free to really experiment with the thing. The feeling of figuring little things out and working faster than normal is pretty cool, and sometimes you end up with a much cooler piece of art than if you had approached it more seriously at the start.

Who else loves doing digital art? Do find you work better if you do some warm-ups first? Have you ever made your own tutorial, or thought about doing one? Do you prefer coloring your line art or digital painting?

Emerging from Cave of Silence

Wow, I mysteriously felt severely quiet for a few months there. I suppose I’d allowed myself to get burnt out on the internet over the year preceding my silence. Obviously I shall now have to be more vigilant on avoiding that situation now that I‘ve known such silence.

Silence has an unnerving effect on me. And much to my frustration the quiet feeling even extended to my creativity. It was like being a shell of myself for awhile there. Hopefully it will not take too Herculean an effort to bounce back.

Sorta feels like I’m waking from some strange millennial death sleep. Like I should be in the depths of some magnificent beast of a glowy cave.

Naturally this forced me to re-evaluate the ways I’ve been spending my time, and ways I’d been planning to spend my days. Certain areas of my endeavors now seem unnecessarily cluttered. For a bit now I shall run around my online stuffs with some scissors.

Snip. Snip. Teehee hee.

Gimme a Dictionary, Yo!

My kingdom for a good dictionary! Ok, maybe the inner drama queen is acting up this morning. Just a little. But a good free digital dictionary with related resources is a pretty invaluable and crucial resource for a writer.

My personal favorite is the very awesome and useful Dictionary.com. It’s handy for looking up all sorts of things - dictionary stuff, thesaurus, flashcards, quotes, reference, translator and now even a Spanish learning resource. Plus, it’s so simple to use on the fly while toiling away at the computer, in the throes of the muse. Or her sorta hot cousin – the faux muse (“your muse is on break so my analytical ass came to work instead, I’m so gonna make you do math right now”).

They’ve really improved the holy smurfs outta that site since I 1st began using it regularly - back in Spring 2007 when I started my Decadent Angels series. It was dang useful even then though.

When writing hot on a fast paced rhythm, word selection or meaning can sometimes become a hindrance. A burst of what freaking word am I thinking of can quickly unravel into a lost hour of 1st class space cadet proportions, as them pretty word magics suddenly irrevocably drivel out into keyboard drool. Being able to bust out a quick comprehensive reference source, type in a couple of spastic but educated guesses and move about your writing should never be underappreciated.

Of course there’s always the useful Wikipedia. But come on that’s more of a - hey I’ve got an hour block of deep, heavy research time right now - kind of resource.

What’s your favorite online dictionary, thesaurus or reference for quick look-ups while writing? What’s some of your favorite free online reference sources for heavier research modes?

Finding Balance in Discussing a WIP

As a writer something that always makes my brain hurt is trying to figure out just how much to talk about when discussing a WIP (Work in Progress). It may seem like no big deal to discuss it but talking about it could easily take the steam out of the writing. Or make you look like a flake when you have to put it on the backburner for a little while.

It’s not hard to imagine

2010 in Review

First, yes I am aware that this post probably ought to have been done about a week ago. Now if we’re done shaking fingers at me and tsking, on to the look at my 2010.

January 2010

• Started up my website 

Yay Little Drawings

Oh my. 2010 is gone. Best get the small drawings from then posted. I’ll put up half of what’s left now, and the other half next Sketchbook Sneak Peek. Hope you like them.

Skeptical Geisha. June 2010.



I’ve long been into Asian culture etc. Especially Japanese.
[the original available for sale here | stuff featuring this art available here]

Zombie Guy. June 2010.

Will you be ready when the zombie apocalypse comes? Hmm, maybe shirtless hotties are hard to resist even if they’ve half their face blown open & have eyeball noms in their hand.
[the original available for sale here | stuff featuring this art available here]

Angel Nigh. July 2010.



This angel wound up having some steampunk flavor to her. Which is great!
[the original available for sale here | stuff featuring this art available here]

City of the Sea. July 2010.

Sketching this underwater city in blue ink really was a blast. Took the casing off of the pen which had an interesting effect on the way it could be moved/handled. [the original available for sale here | stuff featuring this art available here]

Lady of the Sea. July 2010.



Drew this little red-haired mermaid with colored pencils. She’s a bit more detailed than showed up in the scan.
[the original available for sale here | stuff featuring this art available here]

Distant Gaze. July 2010.



I went pretty detailed & ornate in this small drawing of a lady. She’s got a bit of fantasy look to her. I actually grow to like this picture more & more each time I see it.
[the original available for sale here | stuff featuring this art available here]

The links to the stuff featuring the art or a version of this art will be put in as they become available, which hopefully will be sooner rather than later.

So the other six will go up in about a week. Remember you can order custom little drawings & mini sketches via my services page too.

What do you think? Which of these do you like best?

Evaluation of Doom

Trying to balance home life, art, writing, online shopkeeping & maintaining an online presence is definitely an exercise in lunacy most days. Fortunately, I’ve plenty of experience with madness. And thankfully this is what I’ve wanted to do since the onset of teenager-y trauma dubiously known as puberty. Not that I knew of the interwebs back that far but I knew that somehow a way for me to affordably do all this had to come about elsewise I’d need to start plotting apocalyptic type things as a coping mechanism.

At the start of this year I’ve been just taking some time to look back at what it is I’m doing, and be extra thankful it’s all come within my reach now. Took the 1st week to really evaluate the different aspects of Bent Realm Studios.