Bandom Big Bang 2010 roundup!

[saint_vee]

I did a mix for Need You Wild by fallintosilence and boweryd, which you can find here. The cover art is modified from an etching I did.

I also did art for two stories--elucreh's Waiting for an Indication and manipulant's Into the Woods.

Here's my art for Waiting for an Indication:




I actually stalked collaborated with manipulant for Into the Woods. I wanted to do more than the three pieces I managed, but I was working in a new style and new-ish medium (again! I need to learn to avoid this for BBB) and didn't have the time.













And then I have tons of in-progress shots for the Red Riding Hood illustration.


On the left are the first sketches I did for any of my BBB art, and on the right is a quick color/medium study.



The final sketch. I then traced this onto the watercolor paper with a makeshift light table.



I started with masking fluid, which keeps watercolor away from certain areas. I bought white instead of colored because I didn't really know what I was doing. Colored would have been better, I think. It really ruins brushes, too--not that I used it with any of my nice brushes, but I still had to throw a few away.

After the masking fluid I did a few washes for the background. In the picture you can see my set up--I used the sponge brushes to get the paper wet. I also have some tube watercolors that I pulled out later on.



Filling out the figures a little more. Spencer's skintone started out way to green--the problem with experimenting.



Spencer has a beard! I also added in his handy axe.



Another shot of my workspace. I dunno, I find this kind of thing interesting. Possibly I'm strange.



I've filled Brendon out a lot more here, and made a horrible mistake with the red on his hands. I managed to fix it later, but ick.



The colors are off in this picture because of the lighting, but I'm including it because it shows me starting to encounter problems again. I hate backgrounds, it's always a struggle to not just phone them in. Part of the problem was that my paper was sort of cheap and didn't stand up well to all the water I was subjecting it to, but I also just didn't have a great idea of what I wanted to do.



And here I've finally gotten it to something I can live with. It's just a few steps away from the finished product.




I learned a lot about watercolor and the specific technique I was aiming for, and will probably revisit it in the future. I'm aiming for something like what Tir-ri does, and I owe most of what I know about using masking fluid to some of her comments. Definitely check her work out, it's amazing.

Comments

[kirin]

Despite the fact that you hate them, I quite like the watercolor background in the Riding Hood piece. Also the negative space foreground trees are awesome. I dig the title page design, too.

[saint_vee]

thanks! I hate backgrounds in general, but only have specific things I hate about this particular background.

I actually totally ripped off the title page design from some old Art Nouveau-period ad. but, uh, thanks!

[kirin]

Hah, yeah, it certainly has that look. Well, it's a well-executed rip-off, then. ;)