Unholy Paladin Studios: New DevilSaint character, Charon!

Hey everyone!

 Those who've been following the story development for DevilSaint may've seen this one coming; but here's finally a finished illustration of the river Styx ferryman and part-time familiar for Phobos, Charon.

That glorious craggy bastard.

 Check out the SUPER-HIGH-RES version on my DA page!

 Character description and other stuff after the jump!

Portraity things, part 2!

Hello again!

 Sorry for the delays in posting; just been super-busy lately... and I hate to waste a post just to provide a smidgeon of content.  Go big or not at all!  So anyhow, here's another batch of sketch portraits for your viewing pleasure!

Not bad looking for nearly a million years old.

Portraity things!

 I was bored the other day and decided to color in the sketchbook page with the portrait of Adrian I posted a few days ago; since I didn't bother to put down clean lines on a fresh piece of Bristol board, I decided to do the coloring in a similarly sketchy style.

 Weelllll... the result ended up being quite a bit cooler than I expected.  I then decided that I was going to start making this a thing, and did some more of other characters!

Prince of Hell and of glam-rock.

 More characters after the jump!

What's on my desk: 9/24/13

Hello!  It's about time I did another one of these, so here's a look at the sketches that're on my desk at this moment.

Totally convincing as a priest there, Adrian.

What's on my desk: 9/4/13

Hello!

 It's time I share some of the stuff I've been working on lately!  Though I haven't had much time to do completed illustrations, a good buddy of mine, Craig Scott, has been doing this "one sketch a day" thing and well, darn if it's not an awesome idea.  So, I figure I'd do the same.

 Content after the jump!

Wings of the Phoenix

 Sorry for the lack of updates over the past week or so, but I have a very good excuse.  First part of the excuse being the AMAZING new Dynasty Warriors 8; such a good game but damn it for being so good it takes up much of my free time.  Other excuse being that I've been working on finishing this illustration:

Not the character you'd expect to have such a tattoo, but it just makes her all the more interesting as a protagonist.

  Productive use of time?  I'd say so!  :D

 Explanation of the symbols and then a walkthrough of the WIP after the jump:

What's on my desk: 7/9/13

 In between layers of drying watercolor on the recently-posted Richter Mitchell and Phobos illustration, I've been starting on the sketchwork for the next piece, one of his younger brother and later main character, Justin Mitchell, with his Deity, Deimos.

Unholy Paladin Studios Tutorials: How to build a picture with a light table

Huge drawing is huuuuuuge.

 So, you want to build up a very complex illustration, and you want to make sure that everything, both foreground and background, is absolutely perfect before committing them to the same piece of paper?  Or you're just not wanting to mess up one element of the picture while working on another?  Or perhaps, the final project is simply going to be on a larger piece of paper than what you're sketching on?

 Today, I'll be covering a technique using one of the most useful tools in a traditional artist's arsenal, the light table, in order to accomplish all the above.

Queen of Chaos

A new illustration of Enyo I just finished last night:

For this illustration, I wanted to go with a slightly more "artsy" approach. Since I didn't like the angle her left leg was in in the original sketch, I decided to draw her whip in her hand, and use said whip to make a border for the image. I worked out well, I think. The entire illustration, like my previous piece "Fabulous Night," uses my method of doing all of the colors with watercolor paint and then going over everything with colored pencil.

The part that took the longest amount of time was designing her card. orz

"Fabulous Night"

During the time I had off from work, I was able to get this painting done:

This piece showcases a LOT of new techniques that I've picked up through my recent lessons... as a result, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. Also, for my first time trying to draw the Moon, I think that turned out well too. It seems that I'm getting the hang of fashion, as well.

Materials used (and in order, too!) :
Bristol board
watercolor paints
markers (Prismacolor and Sharpie)
colored pencils (Prismacolor, and a couple of Rose-Art)
oil pastels

I don't know quite how Blogger will go about resizing the image, but on my DA account, I've added the option of downloading this in wallpaper size: This picture on DA

The painting was inspired by the song "Masquerade" by Kaya... the title of the painting actually refers to the secondary title of the song.

DevilSaint parody comic #1: Sexy Beach

Terror of the Deep

Here is a new painting I just completed, entitled "Terror of the Deep," of my character Galatea engaged in battle with some fishmen.

Of course, the "terror" to which the title refers is actually Galatea herself, rather than the monsters she's fighting... :D

Some newer sketches

Hello!

I've got some newer sketches done recently, to try out a slightly more realistic and detailed style than what I'm accustomed to doing. The thing I had begun to realize about my art is that, while the coloring and finish are generally good, the underlying drawings sometimes tend to be somewhat lacking. And so, I practice. With the larger sketchbook I had gotten for this purpose, it tends to be somewhat difficult to get the entire picture onto the scanner; and so there are parts which had to be left out... and there are also the occasional shadows caused by the paper being pulled away from the scanner's surface.



The first picture is of the first main character of my DevilSaint series, Richter Mitchell. I really wanted to show the details of his mechanical arm, as well as the type of expression he should be making as a somewhat serious, but well-humoured character.



The second one is of the co-star of the series, Heather Dawes. In this one, I wanted to experiment with expressing varying levels of "softness" as well as practicing curves a bit. I also detailed up the armor on her left arm and made some minor adjustments to things which were bothering me.



Finally, the last one is of Adrian Kadmon, the series's titular character. The effect I was going for here was that of a tremendously powerful, sweeping slash; portraying him as using his body weight to counter-balance the sword. There are a few directional movements which still look a bit odd, but overall I feel pretty good about this one.

Nemesis in berserker devil form

Want to see a spoiler for the later parts of the Anubis arc of my series, DevilSaint?

Yes, that is a devil form Amanda Owens, also merged with her Nemesis Deity. Anyone who knows the connection between her and Justin, Justin and Adrian, and Nepeta's backstory should be able to figure out what triggered this. :D

On a sidenote, painting is fun.

SUCCESS! A good drawing!

Here is what I've accomplished as the result of my new outlook on drawing:

It is a new picture of Ares; I figured I'd draw him since he's one of the major characters in DevilSaint and I haven't drawn him in a while...

I think this one turned out pretty well. I was able to properly portray a sense of "mass" on him, which had always been difficult for me to do.

Must get back to basics art-wise

I've just realized while looking through my sketchbooks that the poses in many of my recent drawings have been somewhat uninspired as compared to some of the stuff I was doing while I was doing the Trooper Blaze comic series.

Granted, the stuff that I show to everyone here may be okay in terms of the poses, proportions and such, but to be completely honest I only post on here maybe 1/3 of the finished pictures I produce, and for every picture I finish there are at least 10-20 that never get past the sketch phase.

Truth is, I'm too much of a perfectionist to really enjoy my own work that much anymore. Trooper Blaze was a comic I never really cared that much about since it was such a short story (spanning only a few weeks rather than years like DevilSaint). However, the lack of concern for how it turned out meant that I was also more willing to be "looser" with the way I drew everything in that one. The less I stressed over the end result of each drawing, the better it would turn out. I was experimenting a lot more, and this often led to unexpectedly good results.

I suppose the fact that I was allowing myself the luxury of enjoying the artistic process ultimately showed through in the finished pictures.

My current way of thinking as an illustrator is that I'm trying to create drawings which would look best as covers, profiles, or standalone images; rather than the really dynamic stuff which really pops on a comic page. If I could figure out a healthy balance of loose planning and sketching, with precise detailing and finishing, then I have the potential to consistently create truly good art.

I suspect that my current mental inflexibility may in fact be due to the nature of the jobs I've held over the past few years, and the loss of one of the most supportive artistic influences in my life... though it seems selfish of me to put such blame on events in the world around me, it is rather the impact they have had on me which I am pointing to as merely a factor, not the entire cause. I'm not quite that selfish...


I believe that I must rediscover the fun of drawing again... but this would probably benefit from being more inspired in real life as well. Working in an office for so long has really killed my creativity.

Main character, EGA-style

Hello! I'm working on a new experimental project right now, of drawing each of my main characters in different types of fashion, the first of which being Justin Mitchell in EGA (Elegant Gothic Aristocrat) style.

I'm pretty happy with how this sketch came out, as it is quite a departure from my usual style.

Something old - Nemesis's final weapon

This is an old drawing of Nemesis's final weapon, the "Vengeful Phoenix Goddess." I designed it back when I was really into Dynasty Warriors 4, what with its overly stylized weapons and all... So you can see that there are several parts of the shaft that don't quite make sense in the overall "flow" unlike most of my other weapon designs. It is, in fact, for that very reason that I have not posted the thing... However, after seeing how successful my other two weapons I've posted over at DeviantArt have become (the "Godfire Dragon Blade" and especially the "Soul of Hell" ), and also I still rather like the forward half of this weapon, I decided to go ahead and put it up on the intarwebz for everyone to see. :P

It is interesting to note that on this one, since the primary blade is now comprised of energy (similarly to the aforementioned Godfire Dragon Blade), there is some more stuff added to the forward section to compensate. Also, though it's quite small in the picture due to foreshortening, you can see the blade from her first-form weapon used in place of the counterweight... perhaps making the weapon more of a voulge than a naginata.

New title for the series

Since the new year is meant to bring about positive, refreshing change, I have decided to take a huge step in my main series that I have been contemplating for quite some time: I'm changing the title. Since I have more experience as a writer now, I know a little more about what kinds of titles are more effective in a work... plus, with the new attitude and look of nearly every aspect of the series I felt that the title was long due for an overhaul as well. The old title, "Unholy Paladin," was one that was named for the role played by the main character, Adrian Kadmon; but it lacked the catchiness that one would expect from a title. Plus, most people are uncomfortable with the word "Unholy" and unfamiliar with the term "Paladin," except for the D&D freaks.

And so, without further ado, the new title that I've decided upon is:

DevilSaint: "lamierina del caduto"

It has a much nicer ring to it, since he main title has less syllables, plus it's easier to remember and just plain sounds cooler. It's the kind of title that really gives the impression of an epic series, yes?

And one more to finish out the year with!

I saved my best one for last! :D

This is my character Heather Dawes with her Deity Enyo. The guitar she's holding is actually my own Yamaha RGX612A (though it's kind of hard to tell from the back of it lol ). This one took a long time to complete, as I had to redraw the entire picture several times over because I simply wasn't happy with how any of the sketches were turning out; then I picked out the parts I liked out of each of the four sketches and used my light table to ink a composite of those things. I am very happy with the end result; I'd say this is probably my best illustration this year!

So, looking into 2008, I hope to be more productive as an artist, and continue improving at this rate.