Clownfish Mermaid - Original artwork

I absolutely love mermaids and sometimes I just feel the need to draw them. This time around I wanted to draw a different kind of mermaid, one that would stand out so I decided to give her a clownfish tail and some punky looking black hair with orange stripes.
This piece took forever to finish because I am still not used to working in Corel Painter 11, but I'm learning and getting better as I go.

(c) Anita K. Olsen Stoebakk

You can see more of my work at www.anitaolsen.daportfolio.com

Regards,
Anita K. Olsen Stoebakk
Anita K. Olsen Illustration

Flat Battery - Not what it sounds like!

Sooooo I had some time to kill this weekend so I decided to participate in one of the forum challenges over at ImagineFX.com. The challenge that really caught my imagination was challenge #329 "21st Century Warlock.  I immediately had an idea of what I wanted to do.

The brief was as follows:

Magic is not only alive and kicking, but has also embraced the use of modern and near future technology. Show a warlock for the 21st century using both magic and technology to perform a magical ritual.

Now before we proceed I will clarify what a Warlock is precisely. A Warlock can be defined and is defined in some dictionaries as an oath breaker, a male witch practicing the dark arts or simply a magician and a conjurer. Because the challenge was to create a 21st century warlock I thought why not make the Warlock a woman, equality and women's rights and so on are very modern and 21st century. Now all I needed was to add some gadget or technology to the image. I already had the idea that I wanted a cell phone in the image. Everyone has a mobile phone and it's almost like a life line to the rest of the world. Most people feel naked without their phones. So what if the warlocks phone had died when she really needed it and she didn't have the ability to contact the rest of the world magically? Would she perhaps try to recharge her phone by pouring magical energy into it? How would she do it?

A ritual often demands some kind of symbol scrawled on the ground, a spell or some kind of arcane ingredients. I considered what a modern woman might have in her bag, and thought that in a tight spot perhaps a female warlock could use lipstick to scrawl symbols and pentagrams on the ground for a ritual. 

I really liked the idea of it and went to work on the image.

Below you can see the process from sketch to finished image:

Until next time,
Anita K. Olsen Støbakk

contact:
anitaolsen.illustration@gmail.com

website:
www.anitaolsen.daportfolio.com

Happy customers, happy illustrator!

As a response to my special offer for parts of March and April I got quite a few commissions and have therefore been hard at work trying to make my customers happy. I've recently finished up three different original character portraits, where two of them where of the same character as imagined by two different customers.

Seeing as all the characters were male I had quite the challenge on my hands as I usually do females and certainly not orcs, but I am not the one to shy away from a challenge and I know I did good. The customers were very pleased and in the end that is what matters!

Below you can see the results of my commissions, do enjoy!

Character (c) John Gunnar Kristiansen

Want to commission a character portrait for yourself?
Drop me a line at anitaolsen.illustration@gmail.com

Want to see more art?
Visit: http://www.anitaolsen.daportfolio.com

Until next time
Anita K. Olsen Stoebakk

My 5 egregious omissions in Fantasy Literature!

Today I am getting my geek on for real!

I was very entertained and inspired by a recent post made by Zachary Matzo over at Fantasy Faction.
He wrote a list of the top 5 fantasy reads he hadn't read. I thought it was a fun twist. He encouraged people to make their own versions of the list and since I love making lists (yes, I am fully aware that this makes me seem a bit odd), and since I do love love love fantasy literature I've decided to follow his lead and do a similar list.

Please don't hold this very sensitive information against me, I'm only human after all (unfortunately, if I had it my way I would be an elf..or no wait, a vampire..I can't decide.)

This is me..deeply considering the implications of being an elf or a vampire

My top 5 egregious omissions:

1. A song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
- I know I am terrible. I should be hunted with pitchforks by angry villagers, but in my defense it's not really my fault. I tried reading it when I was 14 or 15. I couldn't afford buying the books so I had to borrow them at the local library , and every time I tried borrowing the damn books they were not available or I would get wait-listed. So there, blame my local library, not me.

2. The wheel of time- Did you think this list would be getting less embarrassing right about now? Well think again. I have tried and tried to read this entire series. I've gotten as far as to book 4 or something and then nothing. For some reason I just can't get past the fourth book. Once again blame my public library. Not to mention that each time I try to read it again it's been so long since the last time I read it that I have to start all over again. Maybe if someone gifted me with the entire series, maybe then I would be able to get through it (hint hint)....OK, not funny yet...


3. Sandman
- Like Mr. Matzo I have never really read the sandman comics at all. I have one comic about the character Death that I purchased by happenstance once, but I never got around to actually buying the proper Sandman series. Which is kind of annoying, considering I've read quite a lot of Neil Gaimans novels.

4. Alice in wonderland- To me this one is a bit like swearing in church. I can't really believe I haven't read this one at all. I've seen the movies, I know the story well, I even dressed up as Alice for Halloween one year (in a dreadful wig, that I will not be showing any of you any time soon). There just isn't any excuse.


5. Anne McCaffrey
- I have never read Anne McCaffrey either. I bought one of her novels at a used book sale, it's been sitting in my shelf collecting dust for at least 7 years. I've never opened it, I just bought it because it had a dragon on the cover. Alas I got sidetracked by Maggie Furey and her Shadowleague trilogy. What can I say, the cover art on Fureys books just spoke to me in a way that the McCaffrey covers never did. I'm a sucker for good art..and considering my profession I guess that piece of information was a bit obvious...

So there you have it, my top five egregious omissions..Please do feel free to share yours with me or with Mr. Matzo over at Fantasy Faction!

Just to make up for that awful list, here is a short list of literary awesomeness that I have read:

The Belgariad by David Eddings
The Legend of Deverry by Katherine Kerr
Sheepfarmers daughter by Elizabeth Moon
The collected works of Raymond E. Feist
Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson
Lord of the rings, the hobbit and Silmarillion by Tolkien
All the Harry Potter books
Dragonlance by Margaret Weis
Shadowleague by Maggie Furey
The Dark Matter by Phillip Pullman
Shannara trilogy by Terry Brooks
Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind
you get the picture...

currently reading the Malazan book of the fallen  series by Steven Erickson, book seven, Reapers Gale.

Until next time
Anita K. Olsen

website:
www.anitaolsen.daportfolio.com

contact:
anitaolsen.illustration@gmail.com

Personal development (draw this again)

Yes today we are talking about personal development, but not of the emotional kind.

Today I am focusing on the development of technical skill. Personally I am never truly 100% pleased with my artwork. I won't allow myself to be, because the moment you do you become complacent. My goal is to  keep learning, keep improving and keep working hard for as long as I live. I love to learn and I have always strived to become a better artist, or a better person or a better, well everything. So naturally every once in a while it is nice to see how far you've come.

Below you can see two images. The first one is an older illustration of mine. I made it a couple of years ago, and it was one of my first completely digital illustrations.

This week I decided to remake it in the spirit of Deviantarts current "draw this again" contest. The whole point of the contest was to choose and old image from your own Deviantart gallery and draw it again. I thought this sounded like a great challenge for me, and it would also allow me to see how much my skills had improved since I made the original Illustration.

As you can see the two illustrations have the same original design, but the details and the colors differ vastly.
I decided to create a greater contrast between the background and the pendant. In the first version the pendant had a golden color very similar to that of the background and seemed to blend in with it a bit. In the new one however I feel that the pendant pops more. Also the new version is more polished, and neat. The details are more refined and there is actually a proper background. In the original version I got the feeling that the necklace was just floating in thin air, but in the new version it is placed on a background of silk. This gives the image more visual interest and puts the necklace into context, it actually belongs somewhere now.


I could probably bore you with more details, but lucky for you I won't do that.

What I am going to do is encourage you to try this experiment for yourselves. How far have you come in the past two or three years? Have you pushed yourself? Have you been slacking? If you have improved vastly was it because you had a goal to do so or is it more happenstance? To find out do the challenge ;)

Until next time
Anita K. Olsen

website:
www.anitaolsen.daportfolio.com
 
contact:
anitaolsen.illustration@gmail.com