I have a new addiction which is speedpainting! Picking a random subject and giving myself a max of 1 hour to draw something. It is nice practice and has a very different approach than my other drawings. It feels more free to just try different techniques and shapes. I’m just getting the hang of it. A few:
New drawing, the koimaid 
ImagineFX.com has this weekly drawing contest (similar to the CHoW at conceptart.org) and the subject was “the far east”. I wanted to draw something exotic to really emphasize the “far” part I love the Koimaid! It is a small aquarium though… Here is an animated gif I made of the progress of this drawing. I sketch it out really roughly, then start to paint the details in. After a while I switch to colour. I keep playing around with the proportions and colours untill the very end. It’s what I love about photoshop, you can change everything anytime you want
Technically this isn’t a sketch maybe, still I drew this is under 3 hours. It is the Roman general Pompey, who forged the first triumvirat (a pact of three powerful men) with Caesar and Crassus during the first century bc. :p I drew him because of his recognizable portrait. Also I wanted to practice folds. Since I studied Ancient Cultures, I’m thinking of combining this knowledge with my current knowledge of drawing and make a series of portraits of famous and less famous historic figures. We’ll see how that goes (thumb shows full size image)
I’m working on a couple of drawings that are set in a student party (more info on this project later 
). These are sketches for the different characters that will be on the party. It is really fun to design these different types of people because the’re so recognizable!
Happy Newyear! For Christmas I got the Jason Chan art tutorial “Quick Sketch” from my boyfriend. I wanted to try his techniques immediately and drew this. Tentacles are easy and fast to draw, and girls are popular, so it’s a winning combination :p. It took me twice as long as Chan’s work (around 5 hours) but hey, I’m just practicing.
For the front cover of our Comiket Artbook (see news for more info ) I first didn’t really know what to draw… And I only had a few days to make a finished piece. I started out with this drawing:
But it just didn’t work, the face was off and it would take me too long to finish the city in the back. It wasn’t surprising enough either. So I completely threw it away (kill your darlings!) and sketched an new design:
I wanted to combine the softness of a girl with the cold metal of the “future”, which was the theme of the book. While working on the drawing I felt I needed to put in a little surprise (the drawing was going to be folded around the front page, so the left part would be on the inside of the book). That is where I added a second focal point: the dragon.
I want to make a full version of the armour one day, I have some nice ideas of how the dragon shapes would be incorporated in the whole outfit.
I’m making concept art for a friend. She is working on a game called “Empire of Cyr” and asked me and Ward to design the characters and environment. the Empire has an asian atmosphere and so I made several thumbs of different asia-inspired costumes. I really enjoy doing this project!
See the rest:
And here some sketches and thumbs for Cu Chulainn, one of my newest drawings. I really struggled with the weapon, but finally went for the spear because it was more dynamic and fits the topic more Cu Chulainn is a Celtic hero, and the story goes that sometimes when he was fighting he would go berserk; his looks would turn into that of a monster and he would be extremely vicious. In this drawing you see him right before he turns berserk, his eye starts to glow red and blood drips from his hair. The crow you see in the top left symbolizes his death. In the myth, when Cu Chulainn died in battle, a crow landed on his shoulder.
Here’s the work in progress for my latest illustration: Harem! Had some trouble with the colouring because it became to orange/red, but luckily in photoshop you can use color layers to fix that problem.
I explored my computer and found a lot of old but interesting drawings I never bothered to finish :p I put them together:
