Inktober 2018 Day 5

So for all those who know next to nothing about me: I love bugs. Specifically preying mantis and dragonflies cause they are badasses. I’ve been feeling a little bit of art block lately with drawing humans and doing more experimentation into color and digital art, so I wanted to go back to my comfort zone for a bit. This is the result after looking at a whole bunch of “creepy crawlies” that I love so damn much. I will probably add some lazy colors to this at some point just cause I’m starting to somehow enjoy the struggle of it?? Nothing better than a little pain and suffering right? Click for better quality Art © Me

Just some updates of the Beastie I've been working on. I'm so close to being done it hurts. So close. This guy's has been a fun project and learning experience in using ink, so I'm excited for my next project, which is even more detailed. Art © Ari Mortensen

Inktober 2018 Day 9

“Precious”

Water’s precious right?? Not like a certain ring, but I value originality and that was probably done to death this year.

Art © Me

An example fo sone of the many sketches I have in the works. So many drawings so little time. I love working with perspective now tho. Really gives depth to a piece. Im thinking of basing this guy off of roosters or something...

One of these things is not like the other

Taking a break from college to reevaluate my goals and decide if I really do want to pursue art, which I’m definitely leaning towards doing. As such I’m using my time to explore more into what I want to do with my art. I find this style to be much more relaxing than that of my tight linework, but I love doing both, so stay tuned for more stuff in the near future.

Art titled Indegestion

Art © Me

This piece (my baby) right here is my pride and joy of my 2016-2017 school year. She took about 50 hours trying to get the right shades for the fur and greens surrounding the bull, but I would do it again for the pay out. A lot of the reason why it probably took so long though is that the watercolors I was using were crappy, but I didn't want to switch out in the middle of it or risk inconsistencies through the piece in the watercolor texture. So I just made do and struggled with the watercolor paints that I had. I had to use some shades of acrylic paints in order to get the vibrant colors that I wanted, like greens and yellows, and some white for the fur, along with using india ink to get the darks I wanted. Most of it was done in watercolor though. Ah well, live and let learn yet again. This one was most definitely a learning experience.

Inktober 2018 Day 7

“Exhausted”

The letters at the top say “I Am.” You know. Cause I am. All the time. Tried to make this guys eyes look glazed over cause exhaustion makes me feel dead inside.

Art © Me

Inktober 2018 Day 6

“Drooling”

Gotta love some beasts where they have the unfortunate curse of living with their skull bared and their skin in tatters.

Art © Me

Finally someone explains why to do something and not just what to do

I see this kinda advice passed around all the time here is the thing: shading with black will indeed look bad if you don’t know what you are doing. However, telling people not to do things without explaining why is terrible advice.

Shadows are the opposite of light, this includes in colour.

This means that if you have light in one colour, the shadow will be of the opposing hue, saturation, and value.

Unless the object is white, it has its own local colour -  the object’s true colour, how it would appear if the light were pure white.

The colour of the light influences the local colour of the object. so if you had yourself a brown cube and a blue light, the colours would get bluer and pinker.

now the reason shadows do not tend to be black is because pure white light is hard to find in nature.

the closest you will get to pure white light is during a really overcast day and the sun is filtering through the clouds, but even then it’ll lean towards yellow so the shadows will be slightly blue.

During a clear day, the shadows will pick up a lot of bounce light from the blue sky and have a blue tinge. You can learn more about this in this tutorial: [http://artbyriana.deviantart.com/art/Why-shadows-aren-t-gray-321656856]

But! None of this means you are never allowed to use black.

realistically shadows will have a hint of a colour to them, but stylistically you might be going for, say, a film noir look and deep black shadows are needed for impact for example.

The more you know about how light works, the more informed decisions you can make about shading and the more options you have.

If someone tells you that you can’t do something, they’re wrong! you can do what you like!

yes, black is hard to use and if you just mix a colour with black it’ll get muddy, but thats easily resolved by choosing your colours manually - which ideally you want to do regardless bc the computer doesnt have your eyes & cant choose the colours you like

basically if someone gives you some art advice and says you can’t do something, they’re wrong! you can, you just might need to study a little to figure out how to make things work.

I mean for example, people will say you must make your composition follow the rule of thirds and never align centrally, but while the rule of thirds makes it easy to create visual interest, Mad Max Fury Road is a testament to the fact that central composition can and will work if you experiment.

there are no rules in art! there are theories based on reality, this has been a post on colour theory & light theory, but they exist to inform you, not to restrict you.

Do what you like! Trust your eyes, if you think something looks good, then great! If you don’t, then research & experiment until you do.

Also if you wanna learn more abt colour theory, I go into it in a lot more depth over yonder: http://helpfulharrie.tumblr.com/post/131822744966/ http://helpfulharrie.tumblr.com/post/131958395841/