Laura's Art Dump!

[thatlauralass]

Hi everyone! I've decided to document all the artwork I make for neopets as of now, so this should be fun!

Also here's my art tumblr. All the work I do here is original/traditional in nature though, so you won't find any of my Neo artwork there. I might post some stuff up on my personal tumblr though (the link to which is on my art tumblr).

 

 

I'll start with my Beauty Contest entry for my Tuskaninny:

 

[Angeló]

brilliant ... and welcome back to TDNF :)

 

looking forward to seeing more of your awesome art here :)

[Bibii]

*Whistle* You have my vote ♥ So elegant :3

[Dashana]

Omg. That is the best art I have ever seen -- ever. I'm definitely voting for you in the BC. <3

 

You should take requests maybe. Maybe.

[dawnshine]

Love this! Would definitely vote for that feller when the time comes.

[light_star2]

Well done! Your Tuskaninny looks really good! I wish I could dray like that! If you want, I'll vote for you on the next beauty contest! Just post the link for us! =)

[thatlauralass]

Thank you so much everyone! ^_^ I'm all bashful now, haha. I'll be sure to put the link to the beauty contest entry up when it goes live on friday!

Dashana - Haha, maybe! I'll consider taking requests or art trades once I'm less busy at university. :)

[tinti]

Holy Kau! He looks so real! Definetly voting for you!

[thatlauralass]

Thank you so much! c:

I'm considering doing another piece for the art gallery or another of Toreil for the pet spotlight, so I'll post that here too once I'm done with it (probably won't be until the weekend).

[Angeló]

is Toreil a play on the name Tauriel ? ..

 

that Elf girl in Desolation of Smaug

[Aquamentis12]

Wow, very regal looking pic! From that look in his eye, I'd say he knows it too. lol Good job! ~_^

[thatlauralass]

Angelo - Nope, that's purely coincidental. I didn't even make that connection until you mentioned it.

 

And thank you, Aquamentis! hehe.

 

The beauty contest'll be starting today at 12pm nst! ^_^ I'll post the voting link here.

 

Also I've posted my art tumblr link in the first post, so feel free to check it out!

[tinti]

Good luck! *Thumbs up*

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[Aquamentis12]

 

Your vote has been cast for Toreil

Best of luck!

 

Nice Tumblr btw. You're a very skilled artist. :)

[neyokoma]

Holy cow, Your artwork is Beautiful. I Look forward to seeing more :D

[Snowbell]

Wow thats beautiful what tools/software did you use? I really love your art style and color shading!

[cartoon_dreamer]

That's really beautiful, I love your colour palette. Are you drawing by tablet or traditional means? Or a little of both?

[thatlauralass]

Thank you everyone! Sorry I was afk for a while, I've had a lot happening. Graduated, moved home, got a job, the works. :laughingsmiley:
Snowbell & cartoon_dreamer: I start with a traditional sketch, before colouring it digitally in Photoshop CS5 with my little bamboo fun tablet. It's really nothing special, but I'm hoping to upgrade soon. :3

 

Anyway, here's a recent piece I did the other day to get back into the swing of things.

 

[Aquamentis12]

Hey, life happens. ;) Sounds like you've had a lot of living going on. XD Nice new pic! I really like the way you colored it! To me it looks like colored pencil, or something like that, but with NO whitespace like regular colored pencils can leave. ;) Though while there's no whitespace, there's a similar textural feel when I look at it. Very interesting! :) Is that an effect/option in your art program?

 

Congrats on graduating and the new job! :D

[Kate Walsh]

*wishes she could draw well* :worried:

 

*hides overly amateur Neopet sketches*

[thatlauralass]

Aqua - Thank you! c: I added a layer of noise just to give the picture a little texture.

 

Kate - Well, like most things, the more you practice then the better you'll get. ^^ You can't improve without drawing on a regular basis.

 

 

Here's a little skewiff digital painting I did for a challenge. The aim was to do a fully digital landscape; I'm not good at fully digital art just yet and I only had a timespan of 2 hours to do it, but hopefully with consecutive landscapes I'll be able to improve. :) By the end of the challenge I should have 5 landscape paintings, and hopefully there'll be an improvement by the end of it.

 

[Aquamentis12]

Nice! It strongly resembles a traditional media watercolor piece, imho. And you did it in only 2 HOURS?! Wow! Did you add some noise to this one as well? Or is that the file format's compression adding some of those odd pixels?

 

The more I see how realistic the digital paintings I've seen can look, the more I'd like to get a tablet and learn some of this digital art stuff. MOST of what I color and/or animate, I sketch, scan and then color with the mouse in my truly ancient programs. XD Do you know of an art program out there that's got a really user-friendly interface by chance? I DO like my Paint Shop Pro 6, (I also bought 7, mostly for Animation Shop 3) But I doubt the new tablets would be even remotely compatible. I'm kind of surprised my scanner/printer works with them actually. LOL I'm grateful that they do work together though, because otherwise I'd have to go back to drawing EVERYTHING by mouse. lol Like back after my previous scanner died until I got this all-in-one. XD

[thatlauralass]

Ahh, yeah I can see how the background especially could look watercoloury. ^_^ Haha yeah I did, I'm playing around with the noise filter a lot at the moment. I might try something else on my next one, though.

Honestly I think the most user friendly program I would recommend starting with is Paint Tool Sai. I had it for a while and the lineart you can create with a tablet on that thing is just sublime. A couple of completely free, simple programs to maybe check out to get used to layers, etcetera would be Artweaver or Open Canvas (just search them and they should come up), if you don't want to spend any money on Sai. Photoshop of course is a king for any kind of digital art, but it's crazy expensive. I used to have Paint Shop Pro but honestly after trying Photoshop elements, PSP just seems old and clunky to me.

 

You can pick up an A5 tablet from Wacom (I wouldn't recommend any other brand) for as little as £35; so yeah you should look into it or put it on your bday wishlist. ;) I got mine for my birthday when I was... 13 I think? And I've had the same tablet all this time. I'm thinking of upgrading when I next get paid though.

[Aquamentis12]

Ahh, yeah I can see how the background especially could look watercoloury. ^_^ Haha yeah I did, I'm playing around with the noise filter a lot at the moment. I might try something else on my next one, though.

 

Honestly I think the most user friendly program I would recommend starting with is Paint Tool Sai. I had it for a while and the lineart you can create with a tablet on that thing is just sublime. A couple of completely free, simple programs to maybe check out to get used to layers, etcetera would be Artweaver or Open Canvas (just search them and they should come up), if you don't want to spend any money on Sai. Photoshop of course is a king for any kind of digital art, but it's crazy expensive. I used to have Paint Shop Pro but honestly after trying Photoshop elements, PSP just seems old and clunky to me.

 

You can pick up an A5 tablet from Wacom (I wouldn't recommend any other brand) for as little as £35; so yeah you should look into it or put it on your bday wishlist. ;) I got mine for my birthday when I was... 13 I think? And I've had the same tablet all this time. I'm thinking of upgrading when I next get paid though.

 

Paint Tool Sai, Artweaver and Open Canvas? I'll look it up sometime tonight then. :) I've heard Photoshop is expensive. Hundreds-expensive. x_x　I saw some screenshots of the interface once, didn't know what most of it even was. lol Even though I have PSP 7, I stick to PSP 6 because the interface is simple and effective. 7 has a few more filters and picture tubes though. And I like that I can MAKE Picture Tubes if needed in either version.

Have you ever tried GIMP? I know an Illustrator who uses it for still images and for animations. Her skill is incredible in both. I was wondering what you think of GIMP? I like to have feedback on items from more than one person if I can. ;)

 

PSP 6 has layer functions. My last animated sequence I had to make 82 of them for one Master File for an animation project I'm working on. ;) So I'm familiar with Layers at least. XD

 

OK, a Wacom tablet. Does the SIZE of the tablet really matter? And would I be able to say.. trace one of my sketches with the stylus on the tablet and copy the fluid or curving lines of my sketch into the digital file? I'd like to use both digital and traditional media, so that's a question I've wondered for a LONG time. XD

 

LOL Sorry for all of the questions. It's been awhile since I talked or asked anyone about other programs and I seem to have rekindled some excitement over learning about other programs out there. ;)

[thatlauralass]

Haha it's not a problem; ask away! :P
Yeah, Photoshop is in the hundreds; over a grand for the latest version straight from Adobe too, I believe. I was very lucky that a friend of mine already had CS5 for Mac, so it didn't cost me much. I won't be upgrading that anytime soon though. .___. Gosh golly.

I've not actually tried GIMP; Photoshop has animation capabilities on it, although I've rarely ever used them. Maybe that's something I should set a project for in the future! There are a couple of other programs I want to try like Illustrator and ArtRage; I think I have demos of them from a digital art magazine I had subscribed to kicking about so I'll really need to dig those out. Who knows; there might be a copy of GIMP hidden away in one of them too.

 

I don't believe you can really get anything smaller than A5; if you could I wouldn't though. I've never tried a larger tablet so I can't compare, but I've never had any problems with a small tablet and all the digital art I've ever shown has been made using my little one. I do hear from other artists that a larger tablet means you can draw a lot more freely, without having to zoom in and out and whatnot, but again, it's never bothered me because I've never known any different.

 

I think it very much depends on the type of tablet, but I know that mine doesn't work through paper. What you CAN do though, is if you have a scanner, just scan your sketch in, open it up in your art program, throw a new layer over the top and trace it that way. :)
You can get a couple of really quirky products that enable you to transfer sketches into digital format, for instance the Wakom Inkling (£60+) allows you to simultaneously create a digital vector of sketches as you draw them (I have one but I've not fully explored it's capabilities yet).