Self portrait

I completely forgot about this piece. It was done a good few weeks ago to relax and to practice. When I was in school I absolutely adored drawing people's portraits, and I haven't done one since (which is...going on 8 years ago now!!!!!!). I thought it would be a good idea to do a self portrait, as I'd probably need one for when I eventually set up my own online portfolio, and I absolutely hate pictures of myself.

Surprisingly I did this one quite quickly, in about 4 hours or so. I used photo reference, and cranked up the brightness and contrast to simplify the shapes so that it was quicker to paint.



This one was also a really good practice for blending tones with a sharp contrast (i.e. white to black), and I really enjoyed it.

:EDIT: I found one of the WIP's for this piece, just to give an idea of how it was painted.



I pretty much went from right to left, which is quite unusual for me. I recall colour picking for this, purely because I didn't want to spend ages on it, as at the time it was close to assessments.

Portfolio so far

I don't know if this link will work as I haven't published my site yet, but this is what I have so far. It doesn't look like much yet, and a lot of stuff is all over the place. But I've had a good play around with different templates, and this is the one I eventually settled on.

I want to make a header image to insert somewhere on the home page, and move the self portrait to the "about" page. The home page will probably be where I list any news, what I'm doing, where I am, projects, etc.

I'm loving all the different types of galleries I can create, and the fact that there isn't a stupidly low image limit.

Very, very impressed with wix!

It doesn't seem to cost much either to upgrade your account, and there are lots of different packages to choose from. If I upgrade and pay roughly $14 a month, then my site would become wix ads free, I could use my own domain, and have unlimited bandwidth. Plus you get 14 days free. Definitely something to consider if I can afford it.

London Expo

If all goes to plan, I'll be attending the London MCM Expo this May. I'll be going with two other friends and setting up a table where I'll be able to sell my art. I know this is going to be after the assessments for this project, but I thought it would be a good idea to show what kind of thing I plan on selling.

I'll be doing prints of my digital art, but I also want to do some traditional one off pieces that I could perhaps sell for a little bit more. So each time I start one, I'll log it's process here, and how much I plan to sell it for, how long it took, etc.

This is the first one so far, a Sun Cheetah, an old species of mine. I plan to do quite a few of these "portraits" in the style of this and this, but I also want to do some full body pieces, and things like cards, bookmarks, etc.



So far this is only the base colours down on the sketch. I'll be going in with coloured pencils to do more detail in the fur later on today. Unsure on the background yet; I was thinking of a sun set on a savannah, but then I thought some greens might contrast well with the golds and oranges. I'll do some experiments before committing to either idea. I'll hopefully have this done in the next two days, and then I can start on the next one.

The Night Watcher

I started this way back in July last year, and I did post the initial WIP shots on last years PDP blog. I was looking through my old files yesterday when I stumbled upon this. I remember I put so much time and effort into it that I thought it would be a sad waste to not finish it. I believe I finished it off in about 2 hours, and I'm really quite pleased with it. I know it has it's problems, but it's the first time I've ever tried to digitally paint a night scene, and it wasn't as difficult as I imagined it would be.



Another piece for my portfolio ^^

Wix

So I've spent the last three and a half hours or so trying to get my head around Wix, a free website creator. I'm not over whelmed in a bad way, it's just that there is so many options to choose from (which is actually a very, very good thing!). The editor is fantastic- you have a huge range of basic templates to choose from, which you can then edit further to create your own website that is completely unique to you. Although I haven't gotten very far yet, I have had a play around with a few templates, and I'm very impressed with it so far.

I can't believe it's free either; it looks and feels incredibly professional, and I'm really looking forward to getting my own site up and running.

The last thing that would complete it would be if I could buy a domain for it, so I'll have to do some research and find out if that's possible.

A new commission

About 2 weeks ago I received another commission from Kilo, this time for a detailed character portrait.

I thought it'd be a good idea to put my progress so far on here, and explain what I have done so far, and what still needs to be done. Kilo wanted him to have a facial structure somewhat similar to Orlando Blooms, and so I used this reference as a very rough guide.

First rough sketch, lots of errors but the basic idea is there.


Cleaner sketch, the mouth and jaw aliment was fixed at this stage.


Rough base colours.


And this is currently where I am with it. Struggling quite a lot with different hues, and I think it's looking quite flat at this stage. I plan to hide the colour layer and sort out my tones and values first in grey scale and go from there. The jaw line is also really bothering me in this one, so I need to go back and fix that too.


This character is © Kilo112205, and may not be used by anyone without her permission. Similarly, the art is © to me, Rachelle Fryatt and may not be used, changed or distributed anywhere without mine or Kilo's permission.

Business cards

Another thing that I want to create is a business card for myself that I can hand to people. I've heard good things about Moo, which I'll be trying out as soon as I can. I'll also be on the search for other ways of making cards, and would love to do a set with different designs on them.

I'm going to create a specific piece that I can put on the card, I'm not sure what yet, but I do know that it needs to be as eye catching, unique and interesting as possible.