Ouroboros - personal logo

My friend Orius asked me to design a personal logo for him a while back, and now I've finally made some proper designs for him. He wanted an Ouroboros (serpent) together with a triangle. It had to be slightly minimalistic and sleek. Not too much ornaments and fluff. I figured that making it look kind of like shiny metal would give the symbol a modern and minimalistic touch, so that's what I went for.

The images below are sketches, made with a mechanical pencil, a black drawing pen and a little bit of auto contrast in photoshop. This is as far as we have gotten. Orius seemed to be pleased with them, the only thing that needs to be changed is the head of the serpent. It looks too dragon-like. Other than that the only thing remaining is a little bit of photoshop and illustrator and it'll be done.

Fig 1: This is the one we decided to move forward with

Fig 2: This one I made as a second choice in case the first one didn't work out.

I have to say that I like both logos, but I agree with Orius that the first one was the best one.
I am looking forward to finishing it, but since I'm so busy with Uni it could take a while.

-Anita Night

Advanced Individual D&D Project, part 2 - Moodboards

I have recieved a lot of wonderful art briefs to work with thanks to Jon Schindehette, the art director over at WotC. He has been really helpful and I still can't believe how lucky I've been. So a big thank you is in order.

Putting that aside, I wanted to talk about my progress. I have not done a lot as of yet, but the little I have done I believe to be important. Before one can start a creative process one has to figure out where one is going. So A nifty thing that I usually do (this is what they tell you to do in Norway on the illustration course) is that I create a moodboard.

What is a Moodboard?
A moodboard is a simple but effective tool. It is almost like a mind map, but with images instead of words. In a moodboard you paste in pictures of colours you want to use, environments, people, costumes, notes or whatever will inspire you and help you to figure out what it really is you're going for. You should of course never copy what you use in your moodboard into your art. It is strictly for inspirational and personal use only. I'm posting one of mine beneath this text to give you an idea of what I mean.

I've written some quick notes on what the artwork should contain, added pictures from the 4th edition Monster manual for reference purposes, and then I've added some race description illustrations from the 4th edition Players Handbook, mixed in with some ethnic or traditional clothing and  and faces. I still need to add some pictures to describe the environment so it's not quite finished, but I believe you get the gist of it.

Until next time, have a good one(whatever a good one might be)

Anita Night

Advanced individual D&D project part 1

All right, So I'm going to be doing an advanced individual project for uni, and since I could choose my subject I chose D&D. I wanted to work with character/class designs, environments, equipment designs and spell descriptions.

My teachers are very skeptical, they are afraid I won't have any text to work from and that it will all be my imagination and nothing else. It will not, not if I have anything to say about it.

My hope is to be able to work from old D&D art orders, and do my own interpretations. As of right now I have no idea how it will all work out. I only have until December to finish and might have taken on too much, but hopefully I'll work it all out. I thought that I would post my progress on the forum.

That way I can keep track of my own process and those who are interested could comment on my work or ignore it. Whatever pleases, right?

So hopefully this will be the first in a series of posts about my ongoing project.

The progress wil be posted here and on my page over at the artorder forum:
http://artorder.ning.com/profiles/blogs/advanced-individual-dampd

Shaman of the underdark

Drow in the underdark, final sketch.  I'll be doing this in color in Photoshop, it'll take some time though so don't hold your breadth :p

I'm not completely happy with the face but I am pleased with the fact that there actually is an environment around her. I am slowly but surely winning the fight against the dreaded background :p

Doodle-do

Just a little doodle/sketch I did during the summer. 

I think she looks mean, or maybe she's just very tricky/clever.

A little practice image on painting skin. I find that selecting the right hues and geting the right textures is very hard. So as they say practice practice practice.  I did enjoy working on it, and decided that I should just keep working on it.
There are some flaws in the anatomy. Her neck is a little long, the irisesare not the same size. One ear is slightly bigger than the other although it doesn't show. I am however very pleased with the nose, the way the skin looks, the hair and the jewellery. It was all good practice and good fun. Next time I'll try to make something more dynamic. Someone in combat or something.

I just purchased the ImagineFX fantasy females special edition and have found myself being enormously inspired. Even though I had to pay something close to 34$ for it since it is only found in select kiosks here in Norway and is special import.

Anyway, back to the picture. I've titled it "Concubine". That's what she looks like to me. I was going for something else but she changed during the process and I realized she was meant to be a concubine. The maharaja's favorite or something like that.

ARTundressed

Ok, si it's been a while since I did some self-advertising and I thought that it might be time to do so again. Luckily I didn't have to search for long for something to do, I didn't have to search at all. 

I recieved an e-mail a couple of days ago from a lady who thought that some of my erotic/porno art might be suited for an art competition named ARTUndressed hosted by Erotic Signature. I was really skeptical to begin with. You never know when someone is trying to hoax you, and get away with your money. So I got my fiancé to check it out, because he's good with that kind of stuff. And what do y'know they checked out. So I decided to sign up for the competition. The entry fee was  20 $ per image, and a handling fee of 4,95 $. Since we're in the middle of moving to England money is a little tight so I only entered two illustrations. Hopefully they will be accepted, and hopefully (fingers crossed) One or both of them makes it into the coffee table art book.

The winner has the opportunity to win 2500$ or something like that. I don't expect to win at all but it would be nice to get some more illustrations published. If you want to check out the competition then just go to: www.eroticsignature.com
Here you can read the guidelines for the competition, check out the prizes, or peak at some of the entries. Deadline is 15. August.

I'm surprised to find that my erotic art is as popular as it is, I've sold some originals already and apparently prints might be desired by some. I guess it's true what they say, sex sells :p