Side Glances in the Garden

Digital painting, comic style: Crissy (young woman, short purple hair, big round glasses, bellyfree leather armor, braces, cape) and Paula (young woman, short turqoise hair, short turqoise hair, toe nails painted in rainbow colour, finger nails in lesbian Pride flag colour; she's wearing some kind of green leaf-like loincloth that only covers breasts, lap and butt, green braces, turqoise wrist bands, a pink shell band at her left ankle, golden neck band, pointed ears) in a wildly grown garden with an old well in the center and a sign "Wishing Well; 1 Coin)"; Paula is sitting on its edge, tossing a coin on a string over her shoulder, Crissy in the foreground, skeptically looking at a coin; blue day sky with birds and petals in the background.

Another … well, I don’t want to introduce my PaintLog with „Another week went by“ but I think, you catch the tone. I’m really looking forward to my vacation planned for mid to end of August.

Last week I mentioned another of the Arcryla City Summer Fantasy Festival general prompts that almost was finished. In the beginning of the past week, I finally was able to share it.

Side Glances

However, before I’ll start with that one, I’d like to draw your attention towards the entries to my Moonlight Magic DTIYS challenge.

There already have been some beautiful art pieces. Please go to Instagram to the hasthtag #Kritz200 and give them some love!

Digital painting, comic style: Samandra (left) and Raven (right) in sideview (hip height) back to back in front of a bright full moon; Samandra being a young woman with brown skin and gleaming yellow frackles and spots, neck long red hair, wearing a grey apron-like dress held by some ropes as straps, needles tucked into the of front part; Raven being a young woman with light rosy skin, short white hair in sidecut, combed to her right half of the face, wearing a golden brown dress, tied with a rope in the middle and a necklace with an amulet, the left hand is the hand of a pink frog; there are magical threads coming from Sam's hand, weaving a pattern in the air and gleaming blue circles and runes hovering above Raven's right hand; both are ecompassed by a shiny yellow light; added to the background are flying yellow blossoms; text: "Draw This In Your Style; #Kritz200; Celebrating 200 followers (thank you all so much!); Details see next slides + captions".

Secrets in the Garden

As soon as the general prompts and the setting of the Arcryla Citiy Summer Fantasy Festvial were announced, this image came to my mind with the wishing well and Crissy and Paula approaching it in their respective very own style.

Paula tossing the coin on a string of course is inspired by all those cartoons depicting characters exactly doing this with all kinds of machines, may it be vending machines, gaming machines or just the mechanism of the entry lock to a public bath room.

Althought I don’t know, if this ever worked with any of these machines, I’m sure, it can’t fail when tossing a coin down a well shaft. – Leaving aside the if a wish actually will become true when pulling the coin back on a string afterwards.

Crissy, not believing in superstition or anything supernatural, is sceptical, if a coin actually can fulfill wishes. Of course, she knows that they are in a fantasy realm and she has experienced magic. So, her critical mind is exploring the possibility that it may work. But she is overthinking, whereas Paula doesn’t bother at all, she just goes for it.

The easiest part of this painting at the same time was the one that took the most time. There are enought references to paint Crissy and Paula. I actually took the one from the second main challenge prompt (that itself was taken from the Phone Call painting earlier this year) to paint Crissy and the fantasy version character sheet to draw Paula.

But, you know, the more details the longer the shading process. Therefore, it took several days to render Crissy. Plus: Half way through the lineart process, I noticed that I draw Crissy’s right hand the wrong way around.

Background and foreground were a one to two days work but most of them were last-minute decisions and a lot of experimention. I didn’t have to think about the grass on the floor right from the beginning, it already was in the initial image in my mind. The grass in the foreground also came quite intuitionally, blurred of course.

Still, as I started the rest of the background for a short moment I was lost. Should it take place on the festival ground? As another showplace of the festival? Then I (re-)discovered that I’ve got some nice tree brushes, oh, and brushes for leaves (for bushes), too.

In my first attempt, the trees stood that narrow to the well that it was hard to spot that Crissy is holding a coin in her hand. Trees and bushes already has been blurred but luckily, I was able to shift the ones in the left part of the painting further left without doing any harm.

Next issue was that, now that the place evolved to be „a hidden garden“, I had to get a shadow over Crissy. Normally, I would have done a clipping layer above the Crissy folder and filled it with black with an opacitiy of perhaps 5-10 %.

However, by coincidence I realised that the multiply effect creates an even more shadowy, err, shadow. After noticing this, I experimented with a leaves brush in the same manner to get a nice leaves pattern. Initially, it didn’t work the way I thought (by erasing part of the shadows) but in the end I was quite proud of the result.

The next problem was that the sky looked so empty (sounds familiar, huh?). I didn’t want to dig out the petals in the air again, at least not as only „air filler“ but I rememered a painting that got added some birds in the sky to make look it better. So, I searched for some bird brushes and I found some. I had to choose between flocks of birds and only a few ones. I chose the letter ones since together with the petals, they are not only dividing the sky in handsome bits, they are also leading the eye from Crissy to Paula in the background.

And as last problem, I had to answer the question „Overall blur or no overall blur?“.

I did an overall blur over the painting, but in comparison, the non-blur looked better. Since the foreground already has been blurred and so has the trees and bushed in thebackground, there was no further need for even more blur.

Secrets in the Garden

After entering a hidden garden, they discovered an old wishing well. While Crissy – a strong believer solely in physics and stuff – still being skeptical about whishing wells at all, Paula had her very own approach to it.*

*Artist’s note: For some moments I also considered to put the text into the painting (party to also fill the sky), but after adding the birds and petals, it just didn’t fit anymore and it wasn’t necessary, too.

Moon Dancers

Moonlight Magic (II) | A Familiar Face
(DTIYS Kritz‘ 200) | (Main challenge prompt 3)

Another week went by, another weekend is almost over. On the every day’s life front there is nothing new, I’m just looking forward to my vacation in three weeks.

At least I could host my DTYS by now, finish the third main challenge prompt and I’m almost done with another of the general prompts.

Moonlight Magic (II) – The Background

As promised last week, today I want to take a closer look at the background of the Moonlight Magic DTIYS painting.

The full moon you already know from the „Weaving Magic“ painting should be background again, even bigger, even shinier. I got several full moon brushes but they all are looking like I cut the full moon out of a photo or something alike, whereas I wanted to be painted in my style again.

So, the full moon brush just served as reference layer for a clipping layer on which I followed the colors and shadows to create „my“ moon. To distuingish my OCs better from the bright moon, I added another yellow glow.

Well, the painting was big enough to add the announcement text of the DTIYS, too. However, this led to the problem that without the text there is definitely too much space in the upper half. I tried to fix this a little bit by adding the flying petals.

Although this worked in some way, it’s still a lot of space that isn’t filled and draws the attention from the two protagonists of the painting. Therefore I also did a cut version of the painting.

I like this a lot more and somebody said, it looks like a scene right out of a movie. Tbh, I can’t disagree.

Leaving the background behind, I also added tome text sheets to the DTIYS. The first one describing the terms of the challenge, the other two giving information about Raven and Samandra.

You by now get to know what Sam actually did with Raven’s amulet in the „Weaving magic“ painting. Following this, I also had to update the character descriptions on the subpages and (som e of) the paintings showing Raven in frog form.

A Familiar Face

Yesterday, the third main challenge of the Arcryla Citiy Summer Fantasy Festvial took place. This time we had to do a collab challenge, randomly picked by the admins. I did a collabd together with _ghostbam00zled_, featuring his OC Raven (painted by me) and my OC Crissy (painted by him).

He also did the background whereas I added the people in the foreground since I found a handy brush to do this. Additionally, I laid a blur over the background and added some glitter.

It was nice to be forced to draw an OC I wasn’t familiar with. There were enough refernence pictures around but I struggled a little bit with the colors of the clothes. Plus, I first didn’t really know what to make of this white vesty thing around the taille since the reference pics only show Raven’s upper body. Same applied to the trousers.

Another challenge was to adjust the style so the two OCs don’t look too different. Therefore I had to do the lineart in black, not in the darker tone of the base color as usual.

I also had to shorten the narrative POV text regarding Crissy so both POV text’s lenghts are more or less even. The long version (in comparision to the one you’ll find below) is this one:

„After the encounter with the mangogoes (and after she took the water bear shaped one with her), Crissy arrived at some kind of dancing area. Before she could retreat – and despite her lack of dancing abilities – she felt dragged into the crowd. Suddenly, she realised that the guy she was dancing with was Raven. She’d seen him one time or the other back in Arcryla City and had been fascinated by the mechanism of his mechanical wings. She didn’t dare to tell Paula, though, fearing she’d wanted to try them out by herself. The wings didn’t seem to be around today, instead there was another threat: She had to dance in public!„

A Familiar Face

After the encounter with the mangogoes, Crissy arrives at some kind of dancing area and before she can retreat she feels dragged into the crowd. Suddenly, she realises that the guy she is dancing with is Raven, the merchant with those mechanical wings which Paula surely would love to try out by herself. The wings doesn’t seem to be around today, instead there is another threat: She has to dance in public!

From dealing with customers all day Raven heads out and ends up with a crowd dancing! He is pulled to the center realizing Crissy is right next to him feeling a bit embarrassed. To lighten the mood raven dances and encourages Chrissy to join along!

Enchanting Moonlight

Moonlight Magic
(DTIYS Kritz‘ 200)

Tbh, I miss the home office. We still are allowed to but to a smaller extend. I notice how much less energy I’ve got after one day in the office with all the community travel before and after. This also affects my art creating process, I just can’t keep my planned time schedule anymore because of … zzzzzzz.

Still, I finally finished the painting I created to host the DTIYS I planned to celebrate 200 followers on Instagram. There are still preparations to be done before I can host it, but at least I can give you early access to the painting. It features my two main characters Raven Frogfeet tale.

Moonlight Magic

Perhaps I chose those two to catch two birds with one stone. I created them a short time before this year’s Mermay. I always wanted to continue their tale as soon as possible but every time something else interfered (and I only managed to draw the unicorns for Samandra’s Fabric Journal). So, the 200 followers event is a welcome opportunity to draw them again.

It’s the first time I draw them in sideview. This always feels a little bit weird because it creates an unfamiliar shape that at the same time is supposed to be recognisable as the same person. Regarding Sam, I think, I managed this quite well. Regarding Raven, the sidecut was an additional challenge.

Before I started drawing, I actually thought of switching places to avoid the strands that fall over her right half of the face. However, this is a challenge, to me too. So I kept the first approach.

I placed Samandra’s salamander tail in the center of the foreground because I one more wanted to show her „ability“ to change back into a salamander. Same should apply for Raven who occassionally turns into a frog. But because she cannot do magic in frog form, the hand conjuring the light runes couldn’t have been in frog from. Therefore, I added the second hand.

As for the magic, I finally came up with the light rune magic for Raven. It’s similar to the glyphs and their combinations in The owl House but she can conjure the runes by herself in light illusion form. She still has to combine them and first she has to find them and to learn the combinations. Apart from this, she – in theory – will be able to conjure nearly everything.

Honestly, it tool me a while before I came up with a fitting type of magic for her. And then I noticed, it was right before my eyes all the time, since she already conjured light runes in her very first painting, by accidant, though. I remember at this time I already wanted to paint them gleaming blue but it didn’t fit into the (given) color scheme.

Digital painting, comic style: Raven, a young woman with short white hair in sidecut, barefooted, wearing a simple golden brown dress and a necklace with a raven charme, sitting on the floor (terracotta tiles); in front of her a tipped open jar, pouring a red puddle between her feet, next to it a tipped wooden magical staff, throwing light towards the puddle, creating several circles with magic symbols in the air; more jars and a broom are standing or lying on the floor as well as an open book (pages down); she is in front of a storage rack (left to right, top to bottom: 1st row a small chest with a frog ornament; a jar with something black and one single eye, several tilted scrolls; 2nd row books; 3rd row a wicker box with several magical accessoirs, tarot cards, keys, feathers; a kettle, several jars), the area between Raven's legs and her face is well lit, the background is dark but the details are visible; my Instagram nick in the background of the painting.

This said, it’s no coincidence that the light rune magic also resembles the hex magic (especially the portals) of the show Arcane. Sam’s fabric magic on the other hand are supposed to resemble some threads weaving tissue. Only quite late in the drawing process I noticed tht the threads also form a shape reminding of a heart. Well, I left it that way because it isn’t that wrong, it fits for reasons not to be mentioned yet.

As for the background … I will come back to this one next week – when the DTIYS will be hosted.