The Dream Keeper - an ImagineFX art challenge!

Yes, this is yet another step by step picture show of how I create my art. This time it's a piece made for an ImagineFX forum challenge. The brief was simply "Dream Keeper" and this is what I came up with:

Keeping it short and sweet this time around.

Until next time,
Anita K. Olsen Støbakk

Art Nouveau Mermaid - Step by step Illustration

Here's a little bit of a tasty treat for you all. I've been working on it for a little while. It started out as a tattoo design idea, I haven't decided whether or not to add a Art Nouveau "halo" around her upper body or not. I quite like it the way it is so I'll be experimenting with it a bit on my spare time I think.

Anywhoot here is a short and sweet step by step of the creation process.

1. The original pencil drawing:

2. The digital line art:

3. Flat color and home made texture:

Hope you enjoyed it!

Until next time,
Anita K. Olsen Støbakk

Contact: anitaolsen.illustration@gmail.com

Website: www.anitaolsen.daportfolio.com

Art of Drawing Anatomy by David Sanmiguel - book review

I recently purchased a new anatomy book, and since I am usually on a tight budget I had to find something that was very affordable but of good quality. I bough this specific book on www.play.com for 12 euros or something like that which I thought was quite the steal. I bought it because the only anatomy book I had in my possession was not very good and filled with mostly exaggerated super hero like images. It was not very helpful to be quite honest. This book however was infinitely better. Is it one of the best ones out there? I haven't got the faintest idea as my experience with anatomy books is somewhat limited. I will say however that I personally like it a lot. It has all the basics covered like the concept of ideal anatomy, but also goes into detail, naming the bones and the muscles of the body and showing you how to foreshorten limbs and things like that. I found it immensely helpful and realized that I should have bought a new anatomy book a loong long time ago.

I would recommend this book to beginners and intermediate artists. It is easy to read and has lots of illustrations in it that explains the text and concepts of drawing the human body. I think it has a lovely production quality. I wish it had come as a hardback instead of paperback, but that is just me being picky. In general this is a beautiful book of good quality.

Below you can see some simple photos that I have taken of my copy of the book.

Until next time,
Anita K. Olsen Stoebakk

Contact:
anitaolsen.illustration@gmail.com

Website:
www.anitaolsen.daportfolio.com

Oslo Medieval Fair - a journey back in time!

We all love going to fairs and festivals am I right? Well I love it at least and last weekend I attended the wonderful Oslo Medieval Festival in Oslo Medieval Park. I found it to be a lot of fun and a great source of inspiration. I also got to taste candy apples for the first time in my life. It was delicious and I'm a bit upset that I only had one of those bad boys (or should I say bad apples, wink wink)
The festival also turned out to be an excellent opportunity to get some great reference photos of garments, items and fighting poses. Below you can see some fun photos from my great day out with my beloved husband. And should you see any photos in this post that would be of good use to you as a reference photo feel free to use it!

Swords *hearts*

Books *hearts*

I guess I'm not the most stylish of archers but I hit the target at least!

My husband on the other hand looks like he was born with a bow in his hand...

Historically correct armor lecture!

Medieval musicians

Battle demonstration by the group Vikverir! So much great stuff!

Hmmm...I don't think I'm the most terrifying of soldiers...

Knights in shining armor *hearts*

I finally found a cloak that fits my height! I'm fairly hobbit sized and normal length cloaks end up kissing the ground when I wear them. As my husband so aptly pointed out, I definitely looked the part of a hobbit in this *sniggers*

Oh yes, and due to an acute case of the stupids I got a sun burn on my feet that Saturday as I had chosen to wear open sandals all day long at the festival and it had not occurred to me to put sun block on them.

Well that was everything for now! Hope you enjoyed my little blast from the past!

Until next time,

Anita K. Olsen Stoebakk

Contact:

anitaolsen.illustration@gmail.com

Website:

http://www.anitaolsen.daportfolio.com

The Octopus Tea Emporium - New Illustration!

I was once again burning that midnight oil when I started to doodle on a piece of very inexpensive printer paper when this little fellow emerged from my imagination. Isn't he a mass of tentacle gorgeousness!?

I'm actually very seriously considering to tattoo him on my back or something like that. Anywhoot enjoy my work in progress picture post, and feel free to tell me what you think of Mr. Octopus and his tea emporium!

(c) Anita K. Olsen Støbakk

Until next time,
Anita K. Olsen Støbakk

Contact:

anitaolsen.illustration@gmail.com

Website:

www.anitaolsen.daportfolio.com

Dripping Lips - Illustration

I've been really into Vampires lately, I think it has to do with the fact that we're playing a fucking awesome Vampire the Masquerade campaign right now. The concept is so cool, and dark and gritty and extremely hard, but because the Storyteller(my dear husband doesn't like to share his plots on the web I have to keep my tongue, sorry.)

Anyway This recent obsession with vampires has inspired me to write a short story about my character. She is a girl from the pre -Victorian Era who got shipped of to a sanatorium by her family and suffered countless indignities and pains. She got turned into a Vampire by a Malkavian who rescued her from the asylum and exacted revenge on her behalf. For those of you who don't know what a Malkavian is, let's just say these vamps are koo koo for cocoa puffs! You can find them in the 20th anniversary edition of Vampire the Masquerade (which is totally the best version of the Vampire RPG's)

Getting to the point, after writing my short story (which you can read and listen to here!) I felt the need to draw something vampiric, or at least bloody, but with a clean and contemporary feel to it so I started sketching on some glossy bleeding, dripping lips. Just got to love them.

(c) Anita K. Olsen Støbakk

Until next time,
Anita K. Olsen Støbakk

Contact:
anitaolsen.illustration@gmail.com

Website:

http://www.anitaolsen.daportfolio.com

Pirates! - no, not the x-rated kind...

Hahaha one has to have a little bit of humor right? Well as you have surely noticed I've been doing a lot of pirate stuff lately. It all began with the decision to start a new blog about books and writing and poetry where I could write reviews and share some of my own written work. I always have a lot of difficulty trying to figure out what to call my blogs, but this time I came up with quite a fitting name I think - The Literary Pirate!

I love books, I love pirates and have a bit of a head on pirate like approach to the whole concept of writing so all in all it was quite appropriate.

When I had a name for the blog it of course needed it's own swanky header so I designed this little piece of fun:

(c) Anita K. Olsen Støbakk

I also decided to add some eye candy for my book reviews so readers could easily see what I thought about a book with a glance. Also it adds a bit of fun to it all. If it's one thing I've learned it is that pictures are essential to a successful blog! 

So I use these "emoticons" to label my reviews depending on how much I liked or disliked them,
clever right ;)

You can visit my literary blog here: www.theliterarypirate.blogspot.com

Until next time
Anita K. Olsen Støbakk

Contact:
anitaolsen.illustration@gmail.com

web portfolio:

www.anitaolsen.daportfolio.com