Spirit Sight

Ah my, Sue was bad last week. No blog post. Sorry about that folks. I am chalking it up to spring fever. It was quite nearly warm enough for me to start on my yard work last week but then it snowed! Although this is typical weather for Michigan this time of year, it never fails to give my neural network a short circuit when it happens. Hence the lack of a blog post.

This week I am leading off with a piece that I did for a newly released Dragon Storm card called Spirit Sight. This piece looks good on the card but it's considerably better when viewed in a larger size; there are several things going on in this image that look best when seen in the size below. This art represents the world as a spirit walker sees it. All shamans see ghosts, but most shamans can turn this ability off; spirit walkers cannot. For them, the spirit plane constantly intrudes on reality, giving them a unique vision.

Follow up on Earlier Post

Good Morning folks. We're seeing some spring temperatures here and they are fine. We're also enjoying a couple of sunny days, which is a nice break from all of the spring rain and snow melt that has been turning the ground to mud.

Below is a follow up to a post I put up late in 2008. That image was a gray tone drawing. This one is the digitally colored version of that piece. I love the romantic mood of this one. It also evokes thoughts a spring, which is appropriate for late March. Enjoy.

Boojum's New Character

Good morning folks. Here's a commission for Boojum. It's his newest DS character. He gave me a rough sketch with a very nice pose, which I used for reference when I did his piece. It gives the figure a lovely sense of movement. Thanks Boojum!

Cross Stitch Commission

Good afternoon people. I am home from the TGIF cat show in Indy and I am getting back to work. I want to share a new type of commission that I completed at the show. This is a black and white version of an existing art work of mine called Dress up Two. A patron asked me to draw this on a piece of cross stitch canvas that she had mounted on a frame. She intends to finish this in cross stitch. I gave her permission for personal use of the image, similar to the kind of permission I give folks who hire me to design tattoos. I also suggested she go to my site and have a look at the color version of the image there to get an idea of what colors to use on the final piece. This was a lot of fun to do and I hope to take more commissions of this sort in the future. Based on what I learned from doing this piece, I should be able to do cross stitch commissions similar to existing pieces, or even completely original designs.

Feline Duo and Friends

Good morning, people. I am leaving this afternoon for a cat show so it's an appropriate time to post one. It is a digitally colored portrait of Brady's cats. Thanks, Brady! I think it turned out nicely; I especially like their friends in the background.

WIP sketch

Hello. Here's a peek at an ongoing project I'm working on today. It is a sketch for a digitally colored piece that I am doing for Marshakat. This was 'penciled' on my tablet, a technique that I am gradually learning. It's taking a bit of time to master this tool. Among other challenges is getting used to the tablet's smooth surface which is very different from paper. There's no tooth to grab my drawing stylus and I'm used to feeling that when I sketch with pencils on paper and board. With time, I assume I'll get used to this. I'm already more comfortable with it than I was a couple of weeks ago.

My first Email Catch up Post

Good evening, everyone. Tonight I'm trying something new. Those of you who have corresponded with me via email are likely aware that I can be quite slow getting back to you. I regret this but I haven't been able to find a way to improve my response speed without missing art deadlines. This post is an attempt to find a new way to respond to a number of email messages at one go. If it works it will save me a lot of time and allow me to respond more quickly. Here it goes.

1. D Bachelder
See the pic above for a revision of her expression. What do you think?

2. Marshakat
I'll have your revised pencils posted by next Friday and I'll email you a link as soon as it is done. Would you mind if I posted your sketch on my blog?

3. Kelley Jones
We're having our back and forth, warm and cold weather in Michigan. I am looking forward to spring. Lynn's emails are getting through; I'm just slow. With luck, this method will allow me to get back to folks more quickly. I will definitely be at Marcon and would be delighted to see you there. Babies are fun to draw. Also, there will be lots of Dragon Storm games at Marcon, so it's a great show to attend if you want to play.

4. Lynn Allen
It's cool to hear that you found the beads. Thank Amber Fox for me. Will you be at Marcon with Kelly? If so we can meet there. I've got a crazy schedule for weeks ahead, so meeting at a show will work best. Imshar and Blue will have many Dragon Storm games to choose from if they can make it to Marcon. If that show doesn't work for you, Furry Connection North, in Novi, is coming up at the end of April and we could meet there.

5. Justin J
I'll post your piece with color modifications this week. Thanks for the jpeg with notes--it's complete and will help a lot.

6. Brady
Your piece is on my schedule for this week. I'm looking forward to starting it.

7. Kithrak
Thanks for the excellent scan of the piece I did for you at FC. The address for my page is artbysvc.com.

8. Alkali
Email! Where's my email? Stop laughing. Just because I'm slow at replying to emails doesn't prevent me from nagging you when you're tardy. ^^

9. Pete H
Visit this link.

TomTom and M$

If I start blogging about M$ I will never stop. This article says it all.

10. Pete H (again)
Purchasing and integrating studio tech is and interesting challenge, when it is not a pain in the back of your lap. Luckily for me I have a tech wise husband who handles this task for me. Unluckily for you, this means that my personal knowledge of scanners is fairly limited. For everyday scanning--the kind I do myself--I use and 8.5"x11" $100 Cannon scanner. My scanning computer is a MacBook Pro and my scanning software is VueScan. This combination works fine for pencils and back and white images.

That's it. Whether I used this to answer your email or if you are a regular visitor checking my blog, I would be interested in hearing what you think about using my blog to catch up on emails.