I honestly cannot remember when was the last big painting I did in watercolor. And lately, a special someone inspired me this piece with dryads. I thought it would be great to post work in progress of it as I go!
There is about 10 hres of work on this painting so far… and counting! 
OH! I haven’t painted in a while and it feels so great to have something to show!! This is only the sketched illustration, but I can assure you that it should be done by the end of the week. It’s now already inked and half way painted too! The final illustration should be in tones of yellow, brown and pink!
She looks ready to cook something up! Good or bad? That, I’m not even sure myself!
A quick update from me before tomorrow’s blog hop! I’ve been very busy packing my material. I’m also painting my new workspace today. Very exciting! But that also means less drawing and painting time for me. Actually… almost none. I can’t wait to be in August and have a little more me time with my drawing table. I really need it! While waiting though, I’ve managed to finish a sketch. This painting will be huge. The sketch is so big, it doesn’t fit my scanner, so there is a huge crop.
The scan itself is not too great either, but I hope you all won’t mind! It still gives a fairly good idea of what’s to come!
After many requests, I’m also planning the Cheshire Cat Joker card for the Alice set. I really want it to be done before the 13th of August. So maybe I will have something soon! Cross you fingers! 
I’ve been away for a while. Getting my life back together now that I’ve probably been emo for too long. Hope you can all forgive me!
This month, I had to work on Halloween rubber stamp designs, so I was inspired by it I guess when I did this sketch. It’s a little creepy even for me, I think. *laughs* Not quite sure what to put in the background, but once I do figure it out, I’m thinking of painting this one. (Maybe I’ll get some free time tomorrow?)
Last weekend, I was at the G-Anime convention. Turned out that I had a lot of free time, so I managed to sketch a little something!
Since my work schedule is booked until at least the 19th of February (I’m aiming at the 18th, because the 19th is a special day for me!), I won’t be able to paint this little lady until the week after that. So, I am considering doing a Livestream session around the 27th of February to share the progress of this particular piece. Someone contacted me about a month ago to ask if I could do something like that, and I thought why not! I will most likely give more information later one. I still need to find the best setup to do this. But any feedback on this idea is more than welcomed!
I have to be honest, I have been neglecting a lot of things online. Haven’t been around much, chatting, writing, talking much. Is it too late for 2010 resolutions?
I will try to fix this. January was CRAZY! It finished the wrong way too I think. Let’s try and make February better. Lots of things to look up to. But while I am getting ready for a con this weekend, I got bored/stressed/overwhelmed, so I decided I should try and calm down. Writing seemed like a nice way to go.
I haven’t painted in a while, but last weekend, I changed that and picked up a pencilled and inked illustration that had been waiting for me for the whole month and started adding colour. I am not done yet. But if I finish the convention preps fast enough today, maybe I’ll be able to put a few more hours on it. It will be worth it. It’s rather big and complex too. I tried to push myself a little. Hopefully it shows in this one.
And I wanted to share comic book stuff. I figured it would be better to do that, then to stay silent for the next I-don’t-know-how-many months. Yes? I’m note even sure it interests people at all. *laughs* But I kind want to share this project with people because it means so much to me.
The icon is a character from the comic also. I got tired of the sweet little mermaid face. I’m afraid you will have to endure crazy lady Tagara from now on. (or until I have something better)
One of the pencilled pages. The middle panel is not finished, I want to have some background. Nothing fancy, but I just haven’t gotten there yet.
And I’ve been doing a lot of backgrounds on this project. I think I’m getting the swing of things. I scanned to of my favourite background-ish thumbnails (the pencilled panels are not finished yet, but started)
This little sketch kept me awake a good part of the night. Unfortunately, I don’t feel the idea and design are good enough to make a painting, but I still think the sketch is good enough to share. Last night, I wanted (again) to draw/ paint something with a tiger, so I tried to come up with an idea that could work without being too fancy because of the very limited extra time I have this month.
And now back to that comic book project! 
So step 11 is the dragon! I’ve actually scanned a few images to show the progression of the dragon, because this step is really all about painting scales and shading them until they feel right. No real secret here!
And from there, I finished the full dragon and did a few highlights on the scales with acrylics. And that’s it! Painting finished! =D
I was really hoping I would be done tonight, but since I had my life model class today, I didn’t manage to get a full day of work on this. So the dragon is still not finished. But here are the steps for the things I did get done!
Step 8 is the snow. Snow is not really hard to shade. I keep it light, in blue-ish, green-ish colors. What is important with snow is to start with light washes and build up until it looks okay. It’s easy to go too dark and then, it just doesn’t look like snow anymore. I also try to keep the white of the paper and only add the color on the shading.
Step 9, I continue to shade the snow a little bit, but also start the dirt/rock patch. Then I move on to the peacock feathers. From this scan, you can see roughly the steps. I start with the green, then add a little bit of burnt sienna around the “eye”. From then, I do the first light blue wash, and finish with the dark blue in the middle. Once the feather is all colored, I use my acrylics to do highlights to give it a little shine. If I feel the shine is too yellow or bright, I might add a small green watercolour wash to tone the acrylics down.
Step 10, I finish the peacock feathers. Then I continue working on the rock/dirt patch. I added more green to it and also some grass.(somehow in my scan it looks like a bright green, but it’s not really like that when I look at the real painting. I will work to fix this in my final scan) I also do the little crown. I made it yellow and red to make sure it really stands out in the piece, because after all this is the element of interaction between the dragon and the snow princess. It has to be one of the first things we see when we look at the painting.
And now, only the dragon left to do!
Things are going well now! The painting slowly but surely getting done!
We are at step 5 I think now. Well step 4.5 was fixing all the elements I picked up on the final pencils. I tried my best to adjust everything. I will spare you the scan, because there isn’t much of a difference. So step 5 is the inking.
For this painting, as you could notice in the photoshop color test, most of the lines need to be blue, especially for the snow. Snow with black lines…. just doesn’t work for me (I’m guessing it doesn’t work for most people too) The wonderful Meredith Dillman showed me these liquid inks a while ago and it saved me soooo much trouble! Before that, I would actually paint colored lines with a very tiny brush and acrylics. But liquid acrylics can be used with a pen and nib! I use the Liquitex brand.
You can also see my new Tachikawa T-25 pen holder. My new baby! This is again a new wonderful discovery. I used to HATE inking. Never gave me good results. Always had to struggle with the pen and especially the nib. I never realised until a few months ago that maybe the tools were the problem. You’d figure that if it’s the only brand they sell in art store than it must be good! But no. It’s not. Tachikawa pen and especially the nibs make all the difference in the world. I can control my line the way I want to and the nibs are tough. I simply love them!
So after a few hours of inking, the whole thing now looks something like this:
Yup, doesn’t look all that pretty huh? But it’s important to remember that the inks will actually blend with the watercolour I will put over. I don’t mean that the inking will bleed. No. It’s actually closer to when you put one watercolour wash over the other. They multiply together to create a new shade. And somehow, it all works perfectly well. You will be able to see with the next step.
Step 6, the first washes on the background. I’ve started layering a few colors: Holbein’s Cobalt Green, Marine Blue and Peaccock Blue. And I also start to make the atmospheric perspective with the forest. Nothing fancy or definite yet. I let the watercolour do what it wants and I will work from there. I also added a bit of salt to get random light blobs that will also randomise the wash to get textures here and there.
You can already see how the lines of the castle are “blending” with the background. Somehow, they don’t look as blue anymore and mix well with the greenish forest.
Step 7, I continue with the background and make the forest look more “forest-ish” but also work on the castle. I didn’t want the castle to stand out all that much, so the lighting is still muted. I’ve also adding just one light wash of pink-ish red to the roofs. After everything is dry, I too out my acrylics and added highlights to the roof and the walls of the castle, just to make it pop a little.
Next step is the snow!!