This was one of my fastest oil paintings, completed in just six hours from start to finish. The video shows the full process, from the first brushstrokes to the final soft details of the moth’s wings. I hope you enjoy watching the process!

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Using oils allowed me to build up layers of rich color and refined details. The video takes you through the full process, from the first brushstrokes to the final details. I hope you enjoy watching it take shape!

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As I continue to delve into the mystical realms of dark fantasy, the creation of ‘Haunter’ emerges as a personal exploration of contrasting themes and a challenge to my artistic boldness. In this artwork, I hoped to capture the haunting beauty and tortured expression of a ghostly pegasus and bring it to life using chalk pastels. I chose this medium for its delicate, ethereal texture, which starkly contrasts with the haunting and tortured essence of the image.

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Working in oils allowed me to build up rich layers of saturated color to achieve the otherworldly atmosphere I was shooting for. The video shows the entire process, from the first brushstrokes to the final details.

Check it out and let me know your thoughts!

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1. There should be a sexy “Seducer”
2. There should be an “Altar to the Stars”
3. It should be able to be cropped for a horizontal cassette, and/or a square CD/lathe-cut
4. It should have that ‘awesome’, ‘old-school’, ‘orangey’ look (I don’t think orangey is even a word, but… you know).

ILLUSTRATING FOR A VARIETY OF DIFFERENT LAYOUTS

Initially, I spent most of my time thinking about how to create a piece of art that would work in a variety of different crops, including vertical, horizontal, square, and even circular and triangular. To ensure the finished art would work in all of these layouts, I lightly drew a bounding boxes (square, rectangular, circular, etc.) that overlapped each other on the same piece of paper. Then I sketched the artwork directly over those boxes, keeping the focal point and important elements safely within the edges of each of those shapes. This ensured the figure and altar would never be cut-off if the art was cropped. Check out all the different shapes that work:

EXPERIMENTING WITH FOCAL POINTS

Based on the subject-matter and the star shapes that would be in the altar, I knew that I wanted to create a piece with lots of graphic shapes and symmetry in it (squares, rectangles, circles, stars, etc.). Red is an obvious choice for passion and excitement, but how could I tame those raging, fiery reds and keep the piece provocative … What does it mean to be seduced? It’s intoxicating and dreamy. You can only be seduced when a burning desire is coupled with some hesitation. How does a seducer ease that hesitation? She draws you in slowly and carefully, enchanting you with her confidence and poise.

Posture was everything here. I purposefully broke with the symmetry of the rest of the piece to give her a relaxed, snake-like sway. Her head tilts upward and she pushes her chest forward, beckoning you into the painting and daring you to be seduced. I wanted to paint a woman who was powerful, mature and sexy. She had to be a figure with some height, so I made her quite tall (I believe she is about as many heads tall as a male figure would typically be), and I decided not to shy away from giving her a big pair of (ahem) assets? In fact, I decided to place the focal point directly in the center of her chest, using it as the starting point for the entirety of the rest of the drawing. In this case, all roads lead to cleavage.

Figure Reference

This piece wasn’t without it’s struggles. The initial drawing was created from three different references. The main figure reference I used was a much more mature woman than I ultimately planned on painting, but I liked the vibe she gave off, so I definitely wanted to mimic her posture. I used a handful of paintings by other fantasy artists for skin tone reference. The boobs are an extreme exaggeration over that of the original figure, and I decided to re-position her hands in the drawing. In doing so, I overlooked the size of her hands which where GIGANTIC (Trump would be jealous). Thankfully, my good artist friend (Juan Ruiz) lets me bounce drawings off of him, and his good eyes caught this (and her slightly smallish head) before I proceeded into the painting stage.

I definitely chose to paint it at too small of a size. All of that tight line work in the altar and pillars was extremely difficult to paint and much of it had to be done with tiny little brushes and tiny amounts of paint. If I had to redo this piece, I would double, or even triple the size. I believe doing so would have saved many hours of effort.

I had a pretty clear vision for the lighting upfront, but I didn’t have a very clear vision for the colors that would be found in the middle-ground (specifically the front of the altar and the staircase). As a result I repainted this area several times before I found the right transition from the golds and reds into the cooler blues and purples in the foreground area. I’m not sure if this was something I could have planned for in advance. I think it was one of those trial/error experiences, but I have considered doing digital color mockups in the future. It’s hard to say if these would save more time, but they would certainly save paint.

It feels good to wrap-up this piece. I got to try-out some new techniques, dabble in a more graphic/surreal approach to art, and I learned some things about checking my own work, sizing art appropriately, and planning color. I am really excited to see it on the final Cassettes, CDs, Lathe-Cut Disk, and T-Shirt!

The post Experimenting with Focal Points and Illustrating for a Variety of Layouts appeared first on Wailing Wizard - Art by Rebecca Magar.

The ice kingdom is faithfully guarded by giant armored mammoths and their fearless riders. These powerful creatures patrol the snowy hillsides instilling fear and inspiring wonder for all of those who encounter them!

Originally, I visualized this painting as something regal and powerful: A composition with tall elements (towering peaks, an obelisk-inspired ice castle, and a stately mammoth). With that vision came ideas about experimenting with light, shape and sensation – keeping the piece simple in some ways (with one central subject and minimal background elements), but also giving a hint of unease with the fragmented blocks of light in the mountains, trees and foreground shadows.

The initial sketch of the mammoth was done somewhat hurriedly and came-out with a angry expression, but during the process of painting, the face ended up changing to something more gentle (and far more realistic). It occurred to me that there was something of a sadness in her eyes and somehow that seemed to change the mood of the entire painting (for the better). I’ve been very aware of my own weaknesses in conceptualizing imagined pieces … Specifically a lack of meaningful composition, a need for stronger/more creative lighting. There’s another area of improvement that recently came to my attention as well … Brushwork.

The stroke of a brush and the texture in the paint can be used with so much more intention than I’ve ever attempted to use it with. I recently read an article from one of my favorite websites – Muddy Colors, about adding contrast to your work. It never occurred to me to use brushwork to do so. Naturally, I set-out to apply this new knowledge to the mammoth artwork, intentionally leaving some parts of the main subject-matter fade into the background with larger/looser strokes, and allowing the creature to ‘fall apart’ as your eye moves away from the face and head. For me, this literally meant stopping myself from painting because it is in my nature to be a perfectionist and I over-paint everything.

The castle also uses sharper lines, but it seemed best to avoid using dark shadows or high contrast here in order to prevent it from overwhelming the main subject. I didn’t find the trees especially necessary for the piece to be successful, but they where conceptually meaningful, so I chose to keep them very subtle. I’m glad I included them because they added another level of interest.

I can’t say with certainty that I made all the right decisions. As with every piece, I’ve already found mistakes and things that bother me, but at least I can describe with some certainty my reasons for making the choices I did. Thinking through my work in this way has been so important for my own creative process and personal growth. If I have learned anything from this piece, it is probably that I really need to exercise my drawing skills and seek more outside opinions as not to overlook glaring issues before paint is laid down. In the future I’ll seek criticism at every stage of my work, as I feel I still need this valuable input from my piers.

The White Mammoth was created using oil paint on wood panel and was illustrated for one of the 2020 Shadow Frost Music & Arts Festival posters. The pine trees are meant to be a subtle nod to prior Shadow ‘Woods’ fests, while the castle is representational of the new Shadow ‘Frost’ Festival’s indoor location in Frederick Maryland at the Clarion Inn Events Center.

You can pre-order the poster and t-shirt at: https://shadowwoodsproductions.bigcartel.com

Oil on Wood Panel – 18″x24″ – Completed in 2019

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You can hear one of the songs from their last release, Sci-Fi/Fantasy in the speed painting video above. If you like it, you should check them out on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/Bookofwyrms/

The process for creating this piece was pretty straightforward. I cut-out a piece of illustration board, to size, at 11×17 inches and then coated it with acrylic gesso. After transferring the drawing using graphite paper, I got straight to work with oils. I did change-up my process this time by mixing all of my colors ahead of time. The upside to doing so is that I was able to work much faster. The downside is that I wasted a LOT of paint. I think next time around I’ll have a better frame of reference for how much paint to actually mix.

A side note: Premixed paint definitely requires good storage. I was able to use these paints for 3 weeks by storing them in the freezer in mini containers with caps (purchased at an art supply store), but I was starting to get some dry spots in the darker colors by the time I did my last sitting. I think any longer than 3 weeks would have been too long for them to be usable.

After completing the artwork, I flash dried it in front of an area heater and scanned it into my computer in pieces (it was too big to scan as a whole). Then I reassembled the pieces in Photoshop and created the final Poster Design using Adobe Illustrator.

I’ve said this before, but I’m a VERY slow painter. I think I clocked about 30 hours on this painting and another 4 to 6 on the drawing (believe it or not, that’s record time for me). Speed, and having adequate time to dedicate to making art at all is a constant struggle for me. I love doing this, but I often find myself questioning the purpose of it all, and am perpetually frustrated and discontented with my own work.

I want to do better… I want to be good at this.

I don’t know what that actually means, or if I’ll ever feel like I’ve actually ‘gotten there,” but lately I’ve found myself really tired and dejected. I’m taking a break from commissions (and maybe from art altogether) for a little while.

When you really love something, by default you give it the power to crush you. Passion is a heavy burden, and I feel like I’m slipping under the weight of it. I need to rest (lest I be crushed to death!)

As always, thanks so much to everyone who has supported my efforts. You have no idea how much it means to me

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This illustration extends Cultic’s “High Command” album cover story by placing the king and his horse at center stage. Other themes from the album artwork are also carried-over including the battle axe, flail, and armor designs.

I’m going to share my process for creating this piece because it required a different set of digital skills and extra work than the process I usually use when I scan a painting and prepare it for print. I’m hoping this information might be useful to someone.

I worked in pen/ink on a white background initially and tried to keep large areas of white and black because this artwork will ultimately be screen printed in one color on a t-shirt (screen printing becomes significantly more costly with each color you use). A screen print has it’s own unique set of challenges and the way artwork is printed is very different from how a typical 4-color print is produced. It is important to create artwork that has heavy enough lines and enough clarity to print well.

The final ink drawing can be seen here:

After completing the drawing, I scanned it into Photoshop at 600 dpi to double the image size from 10″ to 20″. I always scan my art larger than I need it because while it is always possible to scale artwork DOWN, you cannot scale it UP without it becoming blurry. Professionally printed artwork is printed at 300 dpi, your desktop printer usually prints at 150dpi, and images for the web are generally displayed at 72dpi. Given these numbers, you can see that just because the artwork looks OK on your screen when you expand it, this does not mean it will print clearly. It is very important to never stretch an image to be bigger than it originally was if you plan on printing it.

If you scan your art at 600 dpi this effectively doubles the size (since 300 dpi is normal printing resolution). I wouldn’t suggest going higher than 600 since the image quality will start to become distorted and blurry because the scanner will not be able to reinterpret the image. These numbers can be confusing to people sometimes. For instance, you might wonder, “if I give a 600 dpi image to the printer, won’t it just print at 600 dpi?” The answer is no. It will never be printed at higher than 300 dpi. So if your printer asks you for an image that is 6 inches wide at 300 dpi, you can either give them a file that is 6 inches wide at 300 dpi like they requested, or you can give them a file that is 3 inches wide at 600 dpi. These two files would effectively be the same size.

To be honest, this step didn’t really matter for this piece, because I ultimately ended up turning it into a vector anyway, but it’s still a good rule of thumb to scan big!

In Photoshop, I used a “Levels” adjustment layer to play with the contrast until I had solid blacks and whites with good clarity. Then I separated the white onto a layer of it’s own and erased the white in the background. In this particular scenario the shirt will be printed in white ink that is on a black shirt. So the black is not part of the print (it is just the shirt color coming through the print). The only layer/color I actually need is the white.

Photoshop Levels Adjustment Layer

White Layer Separation on a Transparent Background

After separating the layers, I hid the other layers and added a color overlay effect to the white to make it black (this is a temporary step). Then I saved and closed the Photoshop file and opened my Illustrator program.

In illustrator, I created a new file at the same size as my artwork. Then I placed the Photoshop image into it. After placing the image, you can use Illustrator’s trace option to trace the artwork (this is the reason I had to make the artwork black first). Illustrator’s trace functionality will take the artwork and vectorize it by turning it into editable paths. After you trace (and then expand) the art, you will have it in vector form, which means you can scale the image to any size you want without it becoming pixelated or blurry. It also turns everything into an object that you can redraw or edit as you see fit (note, this only works well on layers that are a single color, or on artwork/images that are fairly simple: complex images or photographs do not trace well and are difficult to vectorize).

Illustrator Image Trace

At this point (in Illustrator), I changed the color of the traced artwork back to white, drew a semi-circle of white behind the art and added a border around the items that bleed out of the circle so that they don’t disappear on the black shirts. Finally, I added the Cultic icon into the banner and the Cultic website URL below the rocks. This baby is ready for print!

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It has taken a year and 6 months to finish the High Command artwork and album. My husband and I started writing the music and working on the illustration for this album so long ago that it seems like a distant memory. It has been an active and ongoing project, but given our other obligations it has taken most of our weekends (and most of our free time) to put this together. We have put so much of ourselves into Cultic, and when I listen-to (and look at) the final album, I can hear and see Brian and myself in it. It really is an inspired collaboration that evolved organically between us.

Let’s be clear… Any warm-hearted feelings I have about this project are just that. At its core, Cultic is about power, control, domination, oppression, and all the things we love (dragons, kings, castles, battles and sorcery) … I wouldn’t call it a reflection of our softer side, but it is definitely an extension of ourselves.

This cover art really tells the entire story of the music that will be contained within the album. It is my hope that when we release this album, the sound, lyrics and visuals will all come together to create a complete story (and more importantly that people will get it).

We’ve coined the term “black-death battle punk,” to describe the Cultic sound. You can hear a sample of the music in the speed painting video above. If you’re into it, you can follow us at culticband.com, on Facebook, YouTube, or Bandcamp. Look for the full album to be released this summer. \m/

The Long and Arduous Process of Design

In its infancy, this piece felt weak and uninspired. There were so many points where I considered burning my sketches and the entire project sat on the shelves for an extended period of time while I worked on writing music and my other commissions. It’s somewhat of a miracle that it ever made it to the point of completion, but, I’m glad I ultimately decided to see it through.

High Command Sketch 1

This initial sketch felt empty and disjointed. I did have a concrete plan for the color scheme right from the beginning (muted browns, blacks, greens and rust colors). I was sure it would need to use a classic palette because the subject matter is somewhat over-the-top and I didn’t want to lose the seriousness of the piece. Sadly, I wasn’t thrilled with the drawing, so I put it aside for 8 months.

High Command Sketch 2

A few months ago (after making immense progress on writing and recording the album) I revisited the drawing. I had planned on tossing it completely and starting over, but Brian convinced me to reconsider. Instead of scratching the piece, I decided to fix it.

I knew it would need to fit into a square format, so I brought the dragon closer to the king and brought the castle in tighter as well. The dragon grew-up in order to dominate the scene, but I still didn’t feel like the piece was badass enough. The dragon was too cute and the whole scene fell dead without weapons, soldiers and activity going on. So, I reworked the dragon and spent a great deal of time doodling the final battle scene.

I knew I needed to plan my light and dark areas to bring the composition together and I knew it needed more depth overall. Adding the characters in the foreground helped to create the illusion of depth I was shooting for, but they also helped to complete the composition through use of lighting and shadows. With the foreground in place, I could envision the shadowed areas encircling the entire piece and creating a vignette with the lighter areas focused behind the dragon and the king. I think this circular motion is what brings all of the elements in the piece together, while the lighter areas help guide your eye to the focal points.

High Command Painting Progress 1

I opted to do an underpainting on this piece because I felt it would be necessary to test my lighting scheme, but also because it gives the painting that continuous, warm undertone that I was aiming for. Ultimately, I painted-out a few things, painted-in a few things, and ended up with the final maelstrom shown below. As with every piece, I’m sure I’ll find things in the future that I wish I could change, but overall, I’m happy with this painting. It took a total of around 80 hours of work to get it to this point, but every second was worth it. I feel like I learned more from this piece than anything I have worked on, and it is so exciting to see the whole Cultic project come together.

The post New Album Cover Illustration Completed for Cultic appeared first on Wailing Wizard - Art by Rebecca Magar.

This interview was just published on their site and I am excited to share it! I would like to extend my gratitude to 1create for sharing my story (thank you!).

My husband just kindly pointed out to me that I spell ‘peers’ wrong. Hopefully you’ll also get a kick out of my bad grammar.

You can read the interview on their website: https://1create.co.uk/behind-the-art-7th-edition-with-rebecca-magar/

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It has been 8 months since I posted the initial sketch for the Cultic album cover. Cultic is a “Black-death battle punk,” band that my husband and I started last year. We’ve been steadily writing music and working on recording a full-length album, but the artwork has continued to fall to the wayside. It’s typical for my own projects to get stuck in limbo, but I’m making this a priority because we’re so close to having a finished album (and because I need a break from commissions for a bit so I can let-loose some of the pent-up inspiration in my brain).

I’m actually glad I had to wait so long to work on this piece. It allowed me to take a second (and third) look at it, and I ended up reworking the piece multiple times. A part of me wanted to be lazy with this one. When I initially drew it, I knew it needed to be a bigger scene with lots of activity, but I wasn’t feeling keen on drawing an entire battle and I was afraid to take-on something this complex. If this drawing wouldn’t have sat for 8 months, I probably wouldn’t have overcome my disinterest – so, I am glad that I got to stare at it and feel guilty for a while.

High Command Sketch 1

This initial sketch was ok, but, the drawing just wasn’t ‘there’ yet. It felt empty and disjointed. However, I did already have a concrete plan for the color scheme and had imagined the final piece being painted in a muted browns, blacks, greens and rust colors. I think I just instinctively knew it would need to use a classic palette because the subject matter is fairly over-the-top and I didn’t want to lose the seriousness of the piece. Sadly, because I wasn’t thrilled with the drawing, I put it aside for 8 months.

High Command Sketch 2

A few months ago (after making immense progress on writing and recording the album) I revisited the drawing. I had planned on tossing it completely and starting over, but Brian convinced me to reconsider. Instead of scratching the piece, I decided to fix it.

I knew it would need to fit better into a square format, so I brought the dragon closer to the king and brought the castle in tighter as well. The dragon grew-up a bit in order to dominate the scene, but I still didn’t feel like the piece was badass enough. The dragon was too cute and the whole scene fell dead without weapons, soldiers and activity going on. So, I reworked the dragon and spent a great deal of time doodling the final battle scene.

I knew I needed to plan my light and dark areas to bring the composition together and I knew it needed more depth overall. Adding the characters in the foreground helped to create the illusion of depth I was shooting for, but they also helped to complete the composition through use of lighting and shadows. With the foreground in place, I could envision the shadowed areas encircling the entire piece and creating a vignette with the lighter areas focused behind the dragon and the king. I think this circular motion is what brings all of the elements in the piece together, while the lighter areas help guide your eye to the focal points.

High Command Painting Progress 1

I opted to do an underpainting on this piece because I felt it would be necessary to test my lighting scheme, but also because it gives the painting that continuous, warm undertone that I was aiming for. I have only actually started painting the clouds in the background, but I am feeling really good about the direction this piece is going.

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I’m really excited to announce that the voting has wrapped-up for the animal themed deck and my birdies have been voted-in!

Congratulations Rebecca!

We are very excited to let you know that you have been selected to have your artwork featured in the final Animals Playing Card deck! We had over 78,000 image votes from our members and your artwork was one of the top-rated images submitted for this project.

You are a very talented artist and we thank you for participating on this project. As compensation for your artwork and efforts, we will be promoting you in various marketing efforts and providing you with one free deck that features your artwork. We will also be paying out a small commission to each participating artist after all project expenses are paid. Additional compensation details will be shared during the next phase of the project as we gather some final information from you about your artwork.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Next week we will be sending out another e-mail to you with additional details and next steps. You will be asked to confirm your acceptance into the project, provide a title for your artwork, your contact information for deck shipping and digitally sign an artwork release, so we can use your artwork for the project. You can expect to see this next e-mail around May 16th.

To view the voting breakdown and which image was selected as the winner, visit the upload page: https://www.artwanted.com/ps/playingcards/

Congratulations again for being chosen and we will be in touch with you next week.

— ArtWanted Staff

Voting should will commence for the Fantasy deck on May 16th, and ultimately a Kickstarter campaign will be launched for all three decks! You can learn more about the project, submit art, and/or cast your votes here: https://www.artwanted.com/ps/playingcards/

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Rarely does something give me as much joy as seeing this cake show up in my Facebook feed did. Happy birthday Nick!

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I recently misunderstood a commission request for a t-shirt design and completed a full concept drawing for it that cannot be used for its intended purpose! This probably sounds like a really bad mistake and a great waste of my time and efforts (especially given the fact that I spent 4 days planning and executing the drawing and it took two weekends to accomplish), but I have my reasons for feeling relieved…

While I was working on this piece I felt especially strongly about the concept, and as it progressed I KNEW with absolute certainty that this was going to be a very strong design, that it would translate really well onto a shirt, and that there would be a lot of people who would love to wear that shirt. I’m not being cocky about this either. Honestly, I entered into this project feeling a lot of uncertainty, but sometimes magic happens and you can’t really take credit for it, but you can’t deny that you had something to do with making it happen. As I shaded-in the last puff of smoke, I couldn’t help but think, “Man, I wish this design was actually for me because I think this would be one of my better sellers, and I like this.”

In the end, I felt a mild sense of disappointment when I realized my mistake, but right now I feel a lot of excitement about finishing this project and putting my own logo on it. The initial drawing has been getting more feedback and interest online than anything I have posted to-date, so, I know I need to see this piece through to the end and get some prints, shirts and other products put up online (who knows, it’s possible that someone might be interested in purchasing licensing in the future too).

I generally put a lot of time into each individual piece of art, and it may not seem like the initial payout is all that great, but when I maintain my own ownership and rights to use the piece, it is more valuable to me in the long-term because I can continue to sell prints and merchandise over a long period of time. With a single illustration, I am able to collect the commission or licensing fee, sell the original artwork itself and (assuming the original licensing agreement allows for it) I will have a never-ending stream of prints and merchandise to sell online and at events.

Of course, there will be times as an artist where you will want to take commissions that are a one-time deal and probably aren’t initially very lucrative because there are lots of other reasons to do illustration work… You might do something because the potential exposure is more valuable than the going price, or you might choose to do the work pro bono for a good cause, or you might be doing work for close friends out of love. I’ve also done work for free just because I REALLY love the project and want to be a part of it.

In the future, I’d love to blog more about the long term value of artwork and how to build your portfolio, but for now, I have to get back to my day job!

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Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining! I am glad the band was patient with me though!

Some of the things I did differently:

• Worked on multiple concepts before choosing one
• Worked fairly large (this piece is 18″x24″)
• Worked with Oils instead of acrylics
• Did a full underpainting
• Repainted some parts of the piece that I wasn’t 100% happy with

I don’t think art works very well on a schedule/deadline. Some pieces might take 10 hours, and some might take 200 hours. You just have to paint until it is right. I do hope I will eventually be able to pump out pieces a bit faster. I’m trying really hard to be objective, but I can’t tell yet if these changes have improved my work at all. I guess all I can do is keep moving forward and pushing my limits as much as possible.

Thanks for following me on this journey! If you like the speed painting video above, please take a moment to subscribe to my YouTube channel  here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP-o2ijhmpWQzh7G5ElrGyg

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It’s ideas like these that remind me of my own artistic downfalls. I tend to put myself in boxes and create stories about what I can and cannot do. Art isn’t meant to have boundaries and when I let myself become too weighed-down by ideas of normalcy, I work more rigidly…. I know this rigidity shows in my work too.

What I’m really striving for right now is more fluidity, experimentation and risk-taking. I need to literally sit back and take in the bigger picture. Being approached to do a commission of a Giant Succubus Space Faerie might just be the perfect elixir.

I spent a few hours doing ugly doodles that probably don’t look much like art, but at this point I was really just working through compositional possibilities and trying not to overthink the execution. There were some layouts that worked but didn’t make sense for the project, some that definitely did not work, and one layout that I quickly established as the best choice even though I continued to work on additional ideas.

It was clear at this point that I could start to expand on this concept. So I began work on the final drawing. I checked my initial concept and reworked parts of it by loosely applying the rule of thirds, and creating a layout that would work in a vertical, horizontal or square crop so it can be fit into a variety of possible designs (the most likely format being square).  I wanted it to feel really dynamic, so I chose to purposefully push parts of the character in, and out of the frame and I tried to leave good ‘unimportant’ space below and above the focal points where typography could overlap the artwork without taking away from it. Finally, I started to hone in on the details about who this character is, adding horns, a third eye, scales and demon-like faerie wings.

The goal here was to see the broader picture of design before I become too caught-up in the smaller details (like scales). I feel like I am learning.

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I hope everyone has a fantastic holiday season, and I’m looking forward to what next year will bring!

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I’m finally making progress again on the Seasons of Sacrifice project. I was doing a lot of meaningful doodles and planning, but I kept running into the same brick wall. I felt like I wasn’t having the breakthrough I really need in order to start producing more interesting compositions.

This piece started out simply enough… a doodle on a piece of paper with a dude and a bird on it…

It was ok, but I didn’t love it… In fact, it reminded me too much of my valkyrie painting. It didn’t feel exciting enough for what I was trying to convey, so I kept doodling … and … eventually I had a little breakthrough:

This was definitely it! I didn’t even bother to finish the doodle. I went straight to a finished drawing because I fell in love with this idea. This concept felt like a breakthrough to me. This drawing has pushed me beyond my comfort zone (which is what this entire project is really meant to accomplish). I’m hoping to transfer the drawing onto a wood panel tonight or tomorrow so I can start painting this weekend! The title for this artwork will be, Harbinger.

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This piece is titled, The Promise of Death. I opted to take my own reference photos this time around and worked on a handful of unfinished sketches before finally transferring the drawing to a wood panel. This piece took approximately 18 hours total (including sketching) to complete, making it one of the fastest paintings I’ve produced to-date.

You can view the artwork on my portfolio page here: https://wailingwizard.com/portfolio/

Here’s the reference pics I took using my handy husband:

Here’s The Promise of Death finished artwork:

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