Airbrushing

Axel Williams of Axel Will Airbrushing produced this  bike tank decoration

based on my artwork. Nice rendering I think! I could never get to grips with an air brush, so I have much respect for anyone who can do it.

My original digital piece:

More tattoos from my artwork.

The other day I stumbled across this Templar tattoo, which someone has got based on an image of mine...

And just now someone sent me a photo of a tattoo they had got based on my two angels/skull illusion design, which now features on cards by Eastgate Resource. Keep them coming!

I met the artist Anne Stokes at the Eastgate Resource stand, at the Spring Fair in Birmingham last year, at the NEC. Funnily enough the people at the company had requested fewer of her trademark skulls in the imagery they had commissioned from her for cards, etc. That makes it strange that the first image they took of mine features a great big skull! Stokes is quite famous, and so many people have tattoos of her artwork that a book has been made of it. She has also had lots of products made by Nemeis Now (with whom I've started to have dealings.) I saw some of Anne Stokes' gothic design in a shop in Rothenburg in Bavaria during my German trip last year, a picturesque medieval town with a slightly creepy air, where it seems quite at home. That leads me neatly my sketch of the day, as it happens...

Girl and Horse...

This might serve as the basis for a painting one day, on the theme of the strange damsel who, in Arthurian legend, presents Sir Perceval with a great horse that is really a demon in disguise. A particularly gothic feeling section that obviously struck a chord with me. This reference image was quite close to the image already in my head. It would need to be a nocturnal scene, though.

Daily Sketch 31/12/12

This was drawn from this

Preraphaelites, Grail Castles, dragons, and the treasure of the Knights Templar

On 3 October I went to the Preraphaelites exhibition at Tate Britain in London. A very impressive, very comprehensive exhibition featuring pretty much all the great works by the brotherhood. (So much so that it took up the whole day and we didn't get to see the Edvard Munch exhibition across the river- Preraphaelites win over Munch, it seems.) I made a souvenir slideshow for youtube which can be seen here:

Some of the exhibits were very up my street, especially those with a medievalist flavour. There were some specimens of the Holy Grail (Morris and Burne Jones) tapestries, the complete sequence of which I had seen previously in an exhibition in Birmingham.

Last week (7-13th) I went on a trip to Bavaria. Visited medieval Rotehenburg, which is a mixture of pretty quaintness with a slightly eerie atmosphere, like something out of a gothic novel. especially on a slightly gloomy day.

Also went to Nuremberg, and Ulm, and Blaubueren, where there is a pool of extraordinarily blue water, called the Blautopf, with a mill on it and overlooked on the other side by an abbey. It is the source of the river Blau, and is said to be the home of a water nymph (who pours a pot of ink into it on a regular basis).

Perhaps best of all Neuschwanstein Castle- the fantasy construction of the much misunderstood King Ludwig II.

Was treat to a spectacular glipmse of the beautiful castle above the mist, from the bridge that spans an awesome gorge between the mountains, ajacent. The castle itself contains exquisite murals featuring scenes from medieval legends, including Tristra and Isolde, Tannhauser, Lohengrin and Parsifal (Percival).

Very, very me, once again! And when I left the enchanted castle vanished completely.

On a slightly related note, I have gotten hold of the treasure of the Knights Templar. Eastgate resource have send me samples of the range of Templar-inspired jewelry that I designed for them. I have also seen a dragon. Nemesis Now have sent me pictures of the architectural dragon lamp that I designed for them, and I am very pleased with what they have produced. It has gone down well with the good people on Deviantart, too...

http://dashinvaine.deviantart.com/art/Dragon-Lamp-Nemesis-Now-332331562

Reworking Old Pieces.

I have been looking through my old drawings, from a more than a couple of years ago, and faults which I could not see at the time leap out at me. Most look under-worked, and too light in tone, owing to my phobia of pencils softer than HB, which I've found very prone to smudging in my hands. I made a mini-mahlstick to counter this problem not long ago. I've been very tempted to rework my older pieces and bring them up to something like my present standard. This I've started to do on such drawings as this:


White Ribbon by ~dashinvaine on deviantART

Which now looks like this:


Black Ribbon by ~dashinvaine on deviantART

Whether this activity is a good idea I don't know. It's alright when it involves minor changes, the correction of missed faults and general finishing off, but there probably comes a point after which it would be better to start again. This is especially the case when one is doing things that change the character of the original picture. There is also the consideration that it might be better to leave old works as they were in order to have a record of your progress!

Revised version of Kiss Me Deadly

I was given some advice on Kiss Me Deadly, and have produced this revision. Not dramatically different but there are more contrasted tones in the forgreound and the vampire is raised higher so that their heads are not on the same level.There is also a very faint blue multiply layer added.

Kiss Me Deadly

Yesterday and the day before I was working on this piece for a comic cover, which the client has graciosly allowed me to share ahead of publication. It depicts a feisty red-head called Dawn Keenan who hunts vampires in Dublin. Dublin (where I had a break in 2008) has some good alleys for hunting vampires in (not that I encountered any vampires, so Dawn must be doing a good job), and some quite nice gothic architecture too. The backdrop is loosely based on the Synod Hall Bridge, a nineteenth century gothic revival feature attached to the medieval Christ Church Cathedral in the city.

Hellraiser Comics, Vampies and Egyptians.

Greetings gentle readers. Had a cheque for some chiristmas card design sales in South Africa today, from my agents at Image By Design, which was nice. I'm presently working on some darker stuff, another comic involving vampires for a certain website. Here's a wip of a section of the first scene as a taster.




Here's a sample of the Hellraiser comic I did recenyly on a favour for an associate, which will hopefully have portfolio application... been doing it in between other things and it's finally finished. Should be going online soon.



And here's a glimpse of the Egyptian characters done for a facebook game, quite a cool project to be involved with.


More details

Speaking of facebook game commissions, may be some more pirates on the horizon. Meanwhile may be going to Oxford next weekend, to see the Preraphaelite exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, and maybe check out the Egyptian stuff. Last when there when I was little, and it's all been rebuilt since then.

Some more Youtube videos.

I've made a couple more slideshows for youtube including the one here embedded with all my pictures on a Templar and Crusader theme...



Or if you prefer looking at Goth girls...

Spring Fair 2010.

I'm a bit tired now. I went to Birmingham's NEC for Spring Fair international 2010. Last year I went as a potential art gallery owner, this year as a freelance artist and designer. As usual there were great halls filled with aisle after aisle of stands art and framing, gift and home, greetings cards, knickknacks and fragrant things. Quite quickly I found the stand of Image By Design Licencing, for whom I am doing some traditional Christmas card designs. Met Lucy Brenham in person, which was nice, and had a chat. Soon after that I bumped into my sister Katie and her friend, who were there with their card company Danilo. Looked around some mileage of show, and got a snack. I made a few more contacts subsequently, including speaking to some people from a couple of companies I've beeb interested in working with. They seemed fairly interested in the little portfolio I'd brought along, so hopefully I'll have more to report in the forseeable future.

An interesting day and hopefully fruitful, though I will gloss over (and hopefully blot out) the train journey, and the fun getting the frozen car going from the station.

On an unrelated note, thanks to Elandria on DeviantART for letting me know that some of my artwork was featured in ImagineFX magazine- last month, the one recent issue I didn't buy! I've now ordered a back issue as it will be nice to see how it was presented.

Board to Death

I've just updated my redbubble clothing store with the image 'Board to Death', which was done with gothic teeshirt artwork in mind. http://www.redbubble.com/people/dashinvaine/t-shirts