'Comic Book Portraits' - Grant 479

Trying more new things with this one. So I'm not too familiar with comics, so why not throw in something I don't know anything about with some graffiti. That part was actually really fun, and it's on my list of things I'd love to learn. The rest... umm, I don't know how happy I am with it. It's much better than it started out, I kept making the lines thicker, and that's really helped.

'Comic Book Portraits' - Grant 833

This is a bit different for my 'comic books,' but I want to try a whole bunch of different styles, so it's about tie I ventured out. I found a neat fan-made poster for Green Lantern (which, unfortunately, I can't find again for you) with the code in the background, all in different shade of green. It looked pretty cool, so I did a take on it in Air Force Blue.

This one changed a bit from when I saw the poster it was based on to the final version - I didn't get the photo I wanted and had to improvise, and originally I was going to have a bunch of Grant's nicknames - there are two on our platoon, but decided to go for full hero-mode on this one, so I put the Air Force motto in the background instead.

B&W Garter - getting the technique now

Here's my second try at using charcoal and oil paint. I learned quite a bit from the Horses experiment a couple of days ago. I did fewer layers, and after the first two I simply put down a layer of glazing medium and then drew into that (instead of the other way around). Much of the detail and most the actual lines stayed in the paint. I then scratched out some of the charcoal, which added more detail. You can see it in the close-up:

I'm really happy with how it turned out because you get enough information to really read the different textures, like the lace, but it has all the softness of the charcoal mixed with oil paint of the first painting.


This painting is for sale on Etsy.

Lantern Festival

I've had the photo this is based on in mind for something for a long time now. Coincidentally, I've also wanted to try out pastels on black paper ever since I started rewatching Batman: The Animated Series and found out that was how they did the backgrounds.

This was fun just to to work on colour and composition, rather than to strictly follow the photo or work on a portrait. I simplified the background and emphasized the diagonal running top right to bottom left in order to get more movement in the piece. I used stronger, more vibrant colours for those lanterns, but in more contrasting colours to make them pop, and finished them to higher degree then the peripheral lanterns, which I also covered in blue in order to mute the colours that were already there. The one thing I'm not sure of is if I just get another soft white pastel (what always happens to them?) and highlight the light in the middle of the lantern more.