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| The four swords derivative of actual middle-eastern blades clockwise from the upper left are a shamshir, a shotel, a yataghan, and a scimitar. Naturally I've greatly embellished these weapons creating for myself a sheer amount of shading work worthy of eyeball combustion, but in the end it was worth it. On a more technical note, this picture was absolutely massive in terms of resolution, layer sets, and subsequent file size. Even with my system resources (which are more than decent) this image was the stuff of grinding refresh rates and 5 minute save times. On the upside however, the high-rez final product lent itself better to making the desktop versions that I like to provide, 7 of which are 1920x1200px resolution. I decided to put up the widescreen monstrosities, band-width sapping as they are, to accommodate my own brand new 24" flat screen monitor. A word of advice for artists who like me are always looking for more screen real-estate in Photoshop- remember that the Wacom is relative to total screen size. A smaller movement on the stylus traverses a larger physical area since the screen is larger, causing the Wacom to feel way too sensitive. This actually took some getting use to after the monitor upgrade, but it's fine now, thankfully. |
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| Right now I'm working on a number of concepts, none of which are turning my crank enough to bring them to the next stage. This is one I did more for kicks (something simple and fun to get away from the bigger concepts that dominate the brain when planning a totally finished piece). The rare times that I draw for fun and relaxation (career minded as I am... I suppose) I often gravitate toward more whimsical designs involving deities, demi-humans, mythical characters, and the like. This is a prime example- a sexy (ya, I said it) dragon lady posturing herself as if to say "make another Conan movie, if only to see more babes in steel bikinis". I couldn't agree more. |
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The subject of this piece is none other
than Countess Mircalla Karnstein, better known as Carmilla.
Arguably the most famous female vampire Carmilla is the subject of
Joseph Sheridan Le
Fanu's novella of the same name (Carmilla). Published in 1872
the book Carmilla is widely believed to have inspired Bram Stoker
in his writing of Dracula, while the character of Carmilla is
herself is said to be the basis for Lucy (also from Dracula).
As a fan of both works I personally believe both these theories.
Incidentally, any notions of Bram Stoker having been influenced by real
life tyrant, warlord Vlad the Impaler in his creation of Dracula,
are based heavily on the hollywood film which deviates a great deal from
the book (and is a great steaming pile in comparison). In painting this picture I made a point of staying true to Le Fanu's description of Carmilla. The story's narrator Laura talks at great length about Carmilla's fine dark eyes, thick dark hair, and delicate features. In fact the author describes Carmilla in a way very akin to Tolkien's description of such characters as Arwen and Galadriel, in that he defines her beauty as being unearthly and beyond compare. Le Fanu's personal vampire lore as he conveys it dictates however that contrary to superstition the vampire, in this case Carmilla, is of healthy color and lacks the ashen pallor often associated with the creatures. As a creative person myself, not to mention one interested in vampire fiction, I have my own ideas about these things, and took the liberty of making her a bit more pale than I imagine Le Fanu had intended. Other than that she's spot on, right down to the beauty mark on the side of her throat. Carmilla has been a favorite character of mine for quite some time, and I felt that with some newly acquired methodology I finally had the technical skill to do this character justice. This was a long time coming, and I am very pleased with how this turned out. |
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| games such as Lineage, etc. On a side note: I'm very particular about the message I send with regards to a character being portrayed. For instance, in this picture I made the business end of the armored bracers appear just a bit bulkier and gauntlet-like, so as to inform the viewer that Carlotta is in fact wearing armor and is not say, a cyborg, or anything of the sort. This is my very first truly painted piece, and with all things considered I'm pretty satisfied. |
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| This update marks the conversion to my new site design. I wasn't satisfied with the old one because of issues with navigation and simple aesthetics. Varying monitor resolution and browser compatibility were also major problems (ie: it worked stellar in Internet Explorer 7 on a 19" monitor, but not on anything else). So this time around I designed for both IE and Mozilla and catered to multiple resolutions, and I'm pleased with the result. It probably also helped that I finally updated my web design tools, since up until now I was using a version of Frontpage Express as old as the internet. So anyway, here are some wallpapers portraying graphics used in the old design in addition to the new Valcadia.com logo (which keeps the wolf motif similar to what I've been using in my logos for several years and in my insignia for about the last 2 years). |
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| This is another instance of a picture that was supposed to be 'quick and fun' to make up for the over elaborate process of a previous piece, and while this pic didn't end up being quick, it was nonetheless fun to work on. If the last couple pictures I've worked on have taught me one thing (or rather reinforced something I'm painfully aware of) it's that you can never have enough ram... And here I just added a gig. lol |
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| I decided to mess around a bit with a more painterly style than what I usually use, and came up with this sultry looking satyr. You can tell I'm not used to full-on painting in photoshop so some aspects of this pic are a bit better refined than others, but I guess it worked out ok over all. Why do I suddenly have the urge to cell-shade my pictures? Heh. |
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| After messing around for a bit too long on some over elaborate artwork I felt like doing something simple and cute. I figured a cat-girl sitting in a tree picking fruit was just the thing. . . Since this was a more simple picture, I took the time to try some different color schemes. |
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| These are a few illustrations I started during game development and finished later on. There are four individual pieces of character art and one group shot. Taken from fairy tales and Greek myth, the characters portrayed here are Medusa, Artemis, Red Riding Hood, and Rapunzel. |
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| This update includes artwork of Jenosa Arma (Scurge:Hive). I made this pic when Play Magazine expressed an interest in the character for Girls of Gaming 4. There are 2 images in this update. The first is the original art, and the second is the version that appeared in Girls of Gaming 4 (pg14). |
