2015 Illustrations

Now I did an awful lot of illustrating in 2015 including two short storybooks and over thirty-one ink drawings for the Inktober challenge – wow!

However, this post isn’t about any of those drawings. Nope these are the other seven illustrations I created in 2015, which included three commissions. I really was having a lucky year for commissions!

I’ll start off with the largest of the set that wasn’t a commission. The below raven was a self-set challenge to draw an entirely black bird with its wings in perspective. I’ll admit I struggled with placing the initial sketch and it took some time to get my head around the skewed proportions. All in all, I think I was happy with the outcome. That said if I were to try a similar feat again I think I will incorporate more colours to blend a black rather than sticking to the true black pencils and pens I have in my sets.

 The Raven - Letter approx. 11 x 8.5”

Waterman ink wash, Micron ink, Prismacolour pencils and Sakura white gel pen on Bristol vellum card.

Speaking of black and white subjects the below rose was a nice little book cover commission for a novel titled Dark Moments written by Emma Brown and published by Darcy Nybo. Obviously the version I am showing here is the one without the typography added.

 Dark Moments - book cover commission – 9 x 6”

Watercolour markers and Prismacolour pencils on Bristol vellum card.

Pure black background added digitally.

The author was very clear about wanting a white rose with water droplets on a pure black background. I worked from a reference photo to create the sketch and shaded it using watercolour markers. Since the markers could never create a pure black background and the version sold was to be a digital copy, I then took the image into Photoshop to create the solid backdrop as required. I am not a great fan of drawing realistic flowers and don’t consider the subject one of my fortes, especially not roses! Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the end result turned out.

Now this below commission is one that I found very difficult to complete.

 Chloe – commission Letter approx. 11 x 8.5”

Waterman ink, Micron ink, Prismacolour pencils and Sakura white gel pen on Bristol vellum card.

It came about because a couple saw my previous illustration of Cat in a Sunbeam hanging in the local gallery. They asked if it would be possible for me to create a similar portrait of their daughter’s cat Chloe. Well of course I just couldn’t say no! Thankfully I had some paper with a similar ink wash. (That ink is one I just cannot find a good replacement for so I guess I won’t be making many more with that wonderful shade of brown for a backdrop.) I had quite a long time to complete the piece but decided to work on it solidly every day for a week and build it up section at a time. Trust me, mottled fur that goes in several directions is a good way to go cross-eyed and lose your place in a drawing! Still it was an excellent challenge since cats are a favourite subject of mine and I knew this was going to be a birthday gift for the owner.

Next up the below illustration is an unusual commission that I rather revered.

 The Mask – commission 6 x 4”

Waterman ink, Micron ink, Prismacolour pencils and Sakura white gel pen on Bristol vellum card.

This is a portrait of a good online friend of mine who asked if I could recreate his photograph. It’s not often I get asked to draw people even though I quite enjoy it and of course I really loved the focal point of the mask. We agreed on a price and size ahead of time as one should and I was away! I really enjoyed playing with textures for the background of this and walked him through every evolution of the illustration to ensure he was happy with the progress. Once the drawing was complete I popped it in the mail (and crossed my fingers that it made it to the US!!). He was so excited to receive it and very pleased with the final product– hooray! :D

On an entirely different note … the below is a requested image from my beloved husband. He had been asking for the longest time if I would make a portrait of one of his feline characters so I decided I would surprise him with a full illustration just like those I had previously made for my sister blog of Black Wednesday Isle. Well you knew there had to be at least one story related sketch in here!

 Eyl’Yti – character portrait - Letter approx. 11 x 8.5”

Watercolour markers and Prismacolour pencils on cartridge paper.

This fellow’s name is Eyl’Yti (pronounced eye-lit-eye). I didn’t go so far as to make a fictional interview with him since I am no longer making portraits for the other blog but my hubby was happy with my rendition of his character none-the-less.

This next one below is one of those little scrat sketches that I thought was really interesting and I’m certain no else did!

 

Unyielding – 5x4”

Parker, Indian and Micron ink plus gold acrylic paint on Bristol vellum card.

Beginning as a leftover sheet from the Inktober challenge I got really into the idea of time as a concept. The little figurines being examples of how we perceive, use or misuse our time. I like questioning if we are reaching, escaping, waiting, holding on to, letting go of or simply just watching our time pass us by. Yeah I can see why this concept was a weird one lol. I still really like it as a personal piece but that might be because I love pocket watches more than anything else!

Now I know it isn’t xmas right now at the time of posting but since this was one of the last illustrations I created in 2015 it made sense to end this blog post with it.

 Season’s Greetings – 4 x 5”

Waterman ink, Micron ink, Prismacolour pencils and Sakura white gel pen on Bristol vellum card.

It’s just a fun little sketch that I wanted to make as an alternative to all my previous ‘grumpy’ Sharlene over the holidays sketches, oh and yes to add in our adopted cat Pudding too. So a very happy season’s greetings from the 2015 cartoon version of me and the cat! ^_^

2014 ACEOs

Once again I made a LOT of ACEOs in 2014, 71 of them by my count – wow!

So to present them this time, I have tried to group them in a semi-logical order. Yes, this post is going to be quite full so I will try and not swamp you too much!

I got a bit more experimental this year particularly since I had been gifted some very neat acrylics including iridescent paints and my favourite a little tub of phosphorescent acrylic. *squee* Phosphorescent for those that are not familiar with the term is glow-in-the-dark, UV (black light) reactive paint. I am a sucker when it comes to anything that sparkles or glows. 

I was also interested to discover what effects could be created using this medium since in natural light it is almost clear and I liked the idea of having aspects hidden in the art that could only be viewed in total darkness. I don’t feel I achieved the hidden aspect part well but I did have fun and was pleased with the below four pieces that I made. Each is shown with a photograph taken next to my UV/Black light lamp, because yes I already had one just hanging around even before I got the phosphorescent paint!

The top two here were created on paper while the bottom two were painted on ACEO sized woodblocks. The top left is the outlier of the group and thereby by default more interesting because I worked on a Bristol vellum card using watercolour markers, pen and coloured pencils as the base before applying the paint. Top right was all acrylic on a Strathmore illustration board, it’s titled ‘the Ibegon,’ with reference to the green tendrils; this is a fictional, carnivorous plant I created for my narrative so while the visual subject of the art card is the skull the underlying idea was about the plant. And I do love my puns, the name, ‘ibegon,’ is meant to be pronounced ‘eebegone’ as in ‘he be gone,’ which is what happens if you step on one of these, maybe then they should have been ‘you be gone’ -Oh I can hear the *groans* already lol.

 Back to the art, the bottom two woodblocks in this set were slightly different. The skull was painted onto pure wood and the moon had a canvas surface laid over the wood. Interesting to see how the acrylics worked on each of these.

Onwards then and another experiment I tried this year was collage. I was working toward the theme of first anniversary and as soon as I realised that the first wedding anniversary is represented by paper, clocks and string I had my goal. I’m not certain about how successful the two pieces I made for this theme were but it was an interesting thing to try. Also discovered that I make twice the mess with glue than I do with paint and ink xD Oh well.

Back to my regular mediums; below are the other ACEOs that I created using paint in 2014. There are a few oil ones here but again I was mostly testing out the new acrylics and having some fun ^_^

Of course I continued illustrating and made many illustrated cards too. I would say that my art falls into two styles which got coined by the proprietor of the local gallery/coffee house as ‘cute and creepy.’

So, yup, I do cute and creepy and love both realism and fantasy.

 I’ll start with the realism ones. I will say that Hyper-realism is great to witness but I don’t think it’s something I would want to achieve (not sure I even could!). I prefer to work in a way that allows the viewer to know it is art and not a photograph or reproduction. Hyper-realism artists have an awesome talent but I like a little splatter in my own work and the art I buy.

I use photo references for all my ‘realism’ pieces and consider them as good practice to learn more about the subjects I enjoy painting and illustrating.

Fantasy pieces are always fun; I never quite know where they will go. The freedom! Ah and argh, freedom to use all I have learnt from realism and twist it any way I choose is great but then it’s also frustrating. Sometimes too many options work against me! Still I feel more alive when creating fantasy pieces even if they don’t always turn out quite as shiny as the realism ones.

Ah yes, you knew it was coming; something that involves my narrative yet again. You know the one, that one I have still not finished writing after eight years or so lol. Well book in me or not I have had fun drawing the characters from it especially during those times when redrafting and writing got far too tiresome. It is a bonus for me to be able to switch to art when my writing brain falls over.

Below then are ACEOs I made using some of my original characters. They are subjects I love so these tend to come out quite naturally. I found photo references for most of my characters by searching up the face shapes I could ‘see’ in my head and then used those as a base to draw from. Since I created head-shot portraits for my characters I can always look back at those when I want to make a new piece of art based on any one of them. Of course I have my favourites and there are some that work better in visual format than others.

One great bonus this year and a happy note to end on is that I got commissioned by my sister-in-law to create two ACEOs of her daughter named Liv. She gave me several photographs to work from and explained that, at that time, Liv was obsessed with slugs and snails. Liv would bring them in from the garden in her hand like a special present and would sit and watch them. These are Swedish slugs too so a bit more yellow than the ones I grew up with. I thought this was an excellent challenge! She was very happy with the final pieces, as was Liv who was utterly delighted to receive the art in the mail ^_^

On top of all of that another person was very endeared in my little drawings of Liv and her slug. That person was a local author and publisher named Darcy Nybo. Darcy decide that she liked the drawings so much that Liv should be her character named Emma Jean for a short story she had in mind. In 2015 we worked together to create the short story, ‘Emma Jean Finds a Friend.’ Although I guess I should save that for the 2015 post.

Well I hope you enjoyed this rather long entry and look forward to telling all about the short stories Darcy and I worked on in 2015 that made a young girl in Sweden a star without knowing it!

See you next time :)

2014 Illustrations

 2014 turned out to be quite the interesting year for illustrations. Or maybe random would be a more fitting description.

I certainly think my skills improved throughout the year which I credit to the previous year’s practice creating miniatures. I was amazed how much that practice paid off and think it shows when I switch to larger illustrations. This year I also happened to create the smallest illustration I have ever made so let’s start there!

Fellow artist Sea Dean introduced me to this niche little movement of postage stamp art. The operation is run by Friends and Faux https://friendsandfaux.wordpress.com/info/ and the idea is that each artist creates an original piece of art, the size of a postage stamp, in the allotted spaces on the reverse and then mails it forward to another artist until all the slots are filled. Once it is complete the postcard is returned to Friends and Faux to be displayed. Below is my teeny tiny addition to the postcard I was sent followed by the postcard as it was when I sent it off to its next destination.

Lion Cub postage stamp

Watercolour markers, Prismacolour pencils and Sakura white gel pen on Bristol vellum card.

Postage stamp, approx. 0.9 x 0.6” (or 2.5 x 1.5cm)

Friends and Faux Postcard ready to be mailed!

Next up is a piece I started in 2013 but never quite got around to finishing, that is until January 2014 when I decided I really must put the final touches to it. Completing the below magpie was very satisfying especially since it had been on my ‘to do’ list for quite some time. I’m not sure why but I really like magpies (aside the awful noise they make) and had wanted to make a larger illustration of one for quite some time. I also wanted the challenge of attempting to draw wings in perspective and boy was it a challenge. I was pleased with how this turned out and it was also well received among my peers.

Even better this image ended up being selected for use by Darcy Nybo in her short children’s story named Emma Jean Finds a Friend, fantastic! More on Darcy and story illustrations later though since that didn’t happen until 2015.

Treasure Seeker

Waterman ink, Prismacolour pencils, Micron ink and Sakura white gel pen on cartridge paper.

Letter, approx. 11 x 8”

The below illustration was created for a monthly competition set out by Colored Pencil Magazine. I recall agonizing over this illustration for a very long time. It took well over a week of short (3-4hr) drawing sessions to reach completion. Oddly, once I decided to draw the line and call it done, I was quite dissatisfied with the final. I think this occurred purely because I stared at it for far too long and because I compared it to the many other artists who drew from the same image. After a time, I grew to love it and now believe it is possibly my best realistic cat portrait to date!

One honour was that Colored Pencil Magazine bumped me into their advanced category instead of adding me to the beginner section as I had specified. I chose beginner because it is very rare for me to work purely in coloured pencil and nothing else. Hey-ho they obviously assumed I was a pro with this medium! Best of all this kitty was matted and framed and has now found a new forever home. I’ll admit I was a touch sad to see it go but also ecstatic to know that the buyers fell in love with the piece – there is no greater accolade as an artist. ^_^

Cat in a Sunbeam

Waterman ink, Micron ink, Prismacolour pencils and Sakura white gel pen on Bristol vellum card.

Letter, 8.5 x 11”

Below is one of those pieces that just seemed to sit on my desk forever. True it is a fairly complex layout but somehow it always got put on the back-burner. The reason for this is probably because I had so much else going on and I knew that this piece could wait. Yes, it’s another story related image! I quite enjoy creating layouts so it was a lot of fun trying to design what a section of the central part of the main city would look like. The large block on the left that has a diamond pattern is part of a huge spiral tower. The diamond shapes are meant to be slotted together pieces of vibrant green glass that shimmer when they catch the sunlight. I’m assuming they don’t reflect enough light to start any fires!! I do hope to eventually colour this layout, perhaps digitally but hey that might take another three years.

Draygun City Layout

Prismacolour col-erase pencils on cartridge paper

Letter, 8.5 x 11”

The below three illustrations were created for an Erotic art show. Now ‘erotic’ would not be my usual choice of subject but I thought it would be interesting to give it a go. I decided not to do anything too risqué, so don’t get your hopes up lol. Racy art really isn’t my thing and of course my mind went straight to my fictional characters. Since I nearly always draw the figures of my characters before I clothe them I figured it wouldn’t be too difficult to do a few shirtless examples. I chose men over women because I figured more artists would draw women and popping a few men in there, even cartoonish ones might balance it out.

We were also asked to add a one-line statement for each entry so I decided to get artsy and make a short poem for each one which I will include under the pictures. Also, yes, these three characters were purposefully designed to look similar to one another.

This first one below is actually a print from one of my original ACEOs that I first created for a theme week challenge in one of the ACEO groups I belong to. I think the theme was either roses or valentines but can’t quite remember. This image was the catalyst for the theme of my ‘erotic’ pieces and dictated which other two characters I would draw. I’m not sure why I decided to take this route because I’m not well practiced at drawing flowers and roses aren’t something I revere trying to render.

The character’s name is Adeth and the print was created using Hahnemuhle fine art paper then embellished using watercolour markers and Prismacolour pencils. I decided to recolour and re-edge the whole image to make the colours more vibrant than the original so that it would better tie in with the rest of the set.

Roses are Red

Embellished Print, Watercolour markers and Prismacolour pencils on Hahnemuhle fine art paper

Letter, approx. 11 x 8.5”

Statement:

Roses are Red and Adeth is blue,

This poet’s hand outstretched

In hopes you approve.

The below character is named Luk. I decided to add a bit of magic into this one with the telekinetic floating rose petals. This character is meant to look a bit sickly, mean and um, well strange since he isn’t the most balanced of personas. I imagine being in Luk’s boudoir would make anyone feel uncomfortable, including him lol!

His World

Watercolour markers and Prismacolour pencils on Bristol vellum card

Letter, 11 x 8.5”

Statement:

Fragile beauty and broken grace,

A fading flower reflects this space,

Stay here he beckons and my world embrace.

Another weird one; the below character is named Kale (yes like the vegetable) and he’s a few to the left of sanity. What I really wanted to capture with this piece was a piercing gaze which I think I achieved. I imagine locking eyes with this character to feel quite intense as though he is looking right into or through you.

Awakening

Watercolour markers and Prismacolour pencils on Bristol vellum card

Letter, 11 x 8.5”

Statement:

Bright night of jagged thorns,

Twisted vines at breaking dawn,

Light once lost, ever scorned,

Awaken now to new ties formed.

Sadly, the show ended up being cancelled due to lack of interest. This last piece however did make it into a different show to which I attended the opening. I recall it was winter and utterly freezing outside so I had on a huge purple duffel coat with my fluffy hood drawn tight to a close. The second we stepped into the gallery I roasted in that coat because it was a packed out with people! I’ll admit I was surprised just how many folks turned out to see the art on display that night and being nervous just made me sweat even more intolerably – argh!

Glad to say I did get to speak to a few of the patrons despite the fact that it was difficult to hear anyone above the chatter. I was asked by one person what the roses meant in ‘Awakening.’ They wanted to know the significance of the vines being threaded through his arms. To this day I don’t have a great answer to that question beyond, ‘he’s an insane and sadistic character that self-heals.’ It was an answer that got a look of intrigue that’s for sure!

Anyway, that’s all from me for this entry, see you again next time :)

2013 Illustrations (Part 2 of 2)

Well hello again!

As promised the other half of the illustrations I made in 2013

So this allotment is all the fantasy work I did this year. Plus a few interpretations of my husband and myself because it's always good to keep up on conceitedness :P

These images flow in a random order and don't fret we're not THAT conceited (I hope)

Starting off then with the four Wyvern - these are some of my first ACEO art cards but I'll save talking about that for another post. Size aside I named each of these as Renma (red, top left) Roen (green, top right) Ruso (blue, bottom left) Raska (yellow, bottom right)
It seems I  care about my fictional pets :P

This was my attempt at drawing bioluminescence. Some odd colour and medium choices made to finalize this one. I don't think I capatured my aim but there is some good chiaroscuro (light v dark) happening despite my mistakes.

This was a fun drawing I made for charity. My fixative screwed me over because it came out all brown >.< Once that happened I cried (a lot) then I realised that it actually gave the piece a really nice old timey feel. So yes I pretended that the old time 'brown' was intentional - it wasn't lol.

This is just one of many random character sketches I made. I like this one because of the cropping I chose. This isn't cropped after drawing - I wanted most of the faces to be clopped in half. This idea  was interesting because the action is mostly in the arms and hands and you can't see the people very well. A few mouths, eyes and clutched hands made this a good sketch. Shame I never did anything with it after this. 

So this one (above) I clearly took to the finale. The lady with pink hair is named Caryf and the boy on the ground with bird wings is named Dhei. (In an ultimate cheesy way their names translate from my fictional language to night and day) The big red damsel is younger and named Nai (yes Naiad like the nymphs) Artistically this picture was made for me to test character heights. Of course I had a lot of fun posing these three and designing their clothes but it's difficult to write about characters that are very different to one another - making a picture...nope - making a picture didn't help!
Two little sadistic fae in charge of a big bug is exactly how it sounds.

The biggest and best thing I did this year was my book!
I self published this short and dark poem.
It took me a long time to illustrate - the text was added later using InDesign.

So this is a cutie illustration I made for valentines.

This one above was to see how many elves I could get on one Letter sheet. I think I got plenty with many personalities showing.

Ok *Ahem* the above is my character Kale who I like to draw a lot. He is naked in this version because I got annoyed at how many naked women were being presented for the same challenge. I hid the naughty parts to PG 13 the image and I also had to consult on 'how should I draw water?'
I have to giggle that my main concern ended up being the water and not the nude.

Girl in grey was another created from a Coloured Pencil Magazine challenge. I liked the limited tone.

This was just for fun. Jethro features as a character in my writing. The shorter guy Hvidsten is very grumpy. In this scene they are a bit lost in the middle of nowhere - I love how happy Jet is and how annoyed Hvidsten is.

Ending this on a sweet note - another piece of valentine art I made.

The short and tall of us x

2013 Fictional Character Portraits

As promised more character sketches, there are so many! I guess I had a lot of fun with these though I suspect I should not have drawn every little bit-character I decided to give a name.

2013 was my last glut of fictional character portraits. A few stragglers have appeared as time has marched on and I am sure more might appear in the future. Not quite as many in this post as the 2012 Fictional character post but I will still drip-feed them as best I can. 

As stated before you can read fictional interviews with these characters on my sister site here: http://blackwednesdayisle.blogspot.ca/

My fictional interviewer however isn't the nicest of fellows :P 

Above we have a re-imaging of Jet (top left) who is based on my husband and also top right the character my mother-in-law invented. 

Top right then is a character named Bea who is based on a polar bear. The lower two are a fox named Sable (left) and a drow (dark elf) named Alanor (right) who is the aunt of Tomor O'Mahryn. I thought Alanor was important to draw because she is the sole female figure in Tomor's life and Tomor, despite being a terrible romantic, does play quite a large part in my narrative.

Above are two characters that were created in words by friends of mine.

Both have separate forms they can transition into. 

The top character named Nico is pretty much an atypical lycan. He is a wolf lycan but there is nothing in my narrative that fits the werewolf stereotype of changing into a wolf upon a full moon. Nico can alter his shape to be the right hand wolf form as he chooses, no moons involved.

The bottom character is named Aeric and he is what we call a Fachin. This is one type of fae in my narrative. This particular type of fae are able to grow feathers, or rather a feathered mane. If you want a better visual reference for this just think of Howl from Myazaki's film Howl's Moving Castle.

An almost purely eleven four pictures above. The top two are brothers to my main character Dirzryn and they are drow by species. Though Dirzryn's brothers don't feature in the story I felt compelled to draw them. The lower two are different species which aside skin colour is also apparent by the ear shape. Lower left we have Zak who is technically a fae but Ven-Faer type fae are very closely related to elves. Lower right the girl Dioxa is what I would term a 'metal' elf or what we would call in-tale a drek. Our elves are categorized in name by elements and all the species names start with the prefix 'dr' which means 'of,' ergo drow would mean 'of fire' and drek would mean 'of metal.'

I have only two major languages in my story - so of course the one the fae and elves use is unnecessarily complicated :P 

A mixed bag in this four-set. Top left is a character named Saffron who is an elf of Drenma (earth) variety. Top right is yet another drawing of Aeric and his fabulous feathers. Bottom left and you might be wondering why that picture is so very tiny compared to the others... well that character named Tarene is an imp so she is very small and almost without hair. Bottom right we have Xio - I am never drawing spiders again! >.< 

Last up for this entry we have a mostly fae allotment. Top right is Nenigin, he is brother to the ludicrously red Naiad and also visually based around a damslefly. Bottom left is not a fae but rather a goblin named Hite (Hee-tay in pronunciation) Again I designed the ears to help differentiate species.

Last up then are top right Dhei (day in pronunciation) and lower right Karyf. These two are both fae of different types. Dhei has bird wings as opposed to insect wings and the two are devilish together!

Well that's all for this entry, hope you enjoyed browsing ^_^

2012 Illustrations

Since most of my illustrative time in 2012 was dedicated to creating fictional character portraits I only have a handful of other illustrations from this year. Or four to be precise so this will be a rather short entry. Oh also did I just say that these were not story related illustrations? 

I lied again, two of them are :P

Ok so this one above is not story related but just a random drawing of an iguana I tried to fancy up a bit. He was a fun splatter type of illustration where I added the subject after the background. Upon seeing this my aunt told me that the iguana should be named Jasper. So Jasper he is.

 

Original characters Lire and Keir. Yep this one is story related.

I wanted to draw something a little dark and who better to draw than the aptly named Keir for ‘a little dark one?’ I have quite an affection for drawing Keir even though he is the youngest of all my characters and cannot speak. Maybe his lack of words lends to better visuals.

This one above is also story related but I wanted to switch away from my ‘Sharlene looks gloomy,’ Christmas posts and find out if I could fit many characters on one sheet at a time. I decided to use hero type characters and forced them into angel/elf fancy dress. 

Obviously I had to make our sour main protagonist in the middle and make him disdained by the whole event. Plus, it was fun to put a xmas hat on top of Hvidsten ushanka … yes he is still wearing it even underneath the silly Santa hat. Hehe.

Oh yes and there was that not-so-small matter of getting married in 2012! :D

Well of course I had to illustrate us in our wedding gear with the beautiful backdrop of Kasugai gardens in Kelowna where we held our ceremony (and I possibly kissed the groom a bit too passionately in front of friends and family LOL) *Ahem* Still this was the most beautiful setting for a ceremony with running water and all the acer trees display wonderful autumnal colours.

It was cold I will admit – I was also almost late and yes I nearly tripped over the huge biker boots I chose to wear under my glorious blue gown…well that bridge had moss on it and was slippery! All in all, one of my favourite memories so how could I not create a bit of art to commemorate the day? A very pleasant experience and good place to end this blog post too :)

2012 Fictional Character Portraits

Now I probably don’t need to make a post about these here on The Glass Spire since they have a whole blog of their own. (See: http://blackwednesdayisle.blogspot.ca/)

However, 2012 was the year I really worked hard on trying to visually bring to life each of the characters from my novel. Heh – see I said way back in 2014 that it wouldn’t be long before I mentioned that on this blog again :P

I'll try and drip feed the images because there are a lot of them.

So for this post and this blog I have stapled together all the fictional character illustrations I made in 2012. If you wish to learn more about each one you are welcome to read Black Wednesday Isle. As for the process of creating so many faces, well I always had an idea of what each would look like (even those described/gifted to me by contributors) and I would often go on net hunts looking for people with the ‘correct’ face shapes.

As you can see some were also based on animal studies. Drawing one per week for two years meant I ended up with a huge collection.

It’s always easier to draw with a reference. It is not always easy to find a reference photograph that matches the picture you see in your head. A few times I had to Frankenstein eyes, mouths and face shape references together to get closer to the face I had in mind.

Written cues from other writers who wanted to help with the project were great but I didn't always get it correct on the first try.

Also dealing with such a wide variety of characters and specifics made it very challenging.
For example we have six types of elf and six types of fae, two types of 'cyborgs' (ok they are not cyborgs but it's the best easy reference I can give you in a short post) An innumerable amount of what are currently being called ords who are the closest to human beings in this fantasy. And also many types of anthropomorphs, which are humans crossed with animals - which I also chose to do in three different ways.
I have half-written a species compendium to try and keep track of who should look like what depending on 'x.'
Did I mention I like a challenge? :P

Anyways all those shown in this post are ones created in 2012 - I made just about as many the following year and they are are all Letter sized illustrations.

I’ll admit it was difficult but also great fun and I will upload my 2013 creations on this subject here in a later post.