Reckless Deck ArtOrder Challenge

 

"Guardian" - watercolour and digital

This painting was done over the holidays for the Reckless Deck ArtOrder Challenge.  For this contest, you had to create a character using a random set of Reckless Deck cards.  Each card has an attribute on it, so when you randomly pick a few, you can get any crazy combination of words to inspire you and generate ideas for characters. This is the set of cards I got (by clicking a link on the contest page):

 

I started to come up with ideas of a Guardian angel character.

Below were my 2 fave thumbnails which I then colored.  I hasd some crit at this point and then had to choose which one to do. I started to develop the one on the right but ended up changing my mind.

Once I committed to the one on the left, I took some reference photos and did a final drawing on watercolor paper and got painting.

Finished watercolor:

The watercolor painting was a good start. I scanned it in and did some changes digitally to the color, lighting, and whip.

I received more crit at this point and made some final tweaks and here's the finished painting:

"Saying Goodbye" Watercolor Process

Happy New Year! It's time to get in gear after the holidays and post some things. Do you have any New Year's resolutions? Here are a few of mine:
-  Do more drawing and painting from life
- Work on a series of paintings (more info once I get going)
- Continue working on my personal project (blog post to come soon about this)

Anyways, on to this ink and watercolour painting. I painted it back in November and I did the ink drawing for Inktober.  My goal was to just have fun with it and experiment with colour.

Here's the ink drawing I started with.  I left the back trees pencil so they would stay faded.

Here's a sped up version of the painting process:


When it was done, I scanned it in and did a few tonal adjustments digitally.