A Trip to Maharashtra...
On March 3-March 17, I will be going on a little trip. My sister and my brother-in-law are taking me to Mumbai, where I will be representing the family for my sister's Hindi wedding. Though my sister got married in October last year, this second ceremony is to make it official in India according to my brother-in-law's family. For two weeks, I will see and experience the wonders of India, including Mumbai's zoo, planetarium, and more. My first international trip, and to the city that has in part been made famous by its population of wild leopards no less! I will be bringing back lots of photos from this adventure. I can't wait to share them.
The Dragon Game.
I've been having some fun lately with painting and drawing. My absence has been due to a fun little project that is currently in progress. What is this project? It's something of a game based off House of the Dragon.
How does this game work? To put it simply, I've been drawing dragons, which I name, and people choose the one they like most, "claiming" it as their own. Each dragon is then labeled as belonging to a certain "House" (Usually the person's last name). The person who claims the dragon also gets to choose its colors. The choice of dragon narrows down the available list for everyone else. Thus far, of the thirty-one dragons that have been created so far, twenty have been claimed. Eight have been painted, with many more in-progress. Even I have claimed a dragon!
These are not commissions, but done for fun. The participants get the files of their dragons to print out and frame, while I get to practice my painting skills.
So, without further ado, I will be posting the painted dragons here, on Facebook, and on Instagram. So prepare to met the various dragons of my imagined colony! Dracarys!
Computer Problems
My iMac is not working or even turning on, so until I fix it or get a new one, I won't be submitting much beyond the artwork I saved to my Stash. Good thing I still have my laptop and all of my most important files were backed up to an external hard drive. Even my digital paintings are safe there. Wish me luck in getting my Mac fixed... I need that thing pretty badly.
After weeks of working on it, here is one of many reasons I've been intermittently absent from DeviantArt. Behold, my video on how I painted my 1/35th scale grey Tyrannosaurus rex action figure from the Beasts of the Mesozoic toy line.
Creative Endeavors Offline
I haven't been on DA much since posting my last drawing, but that's mainly been due to some creative endeavors and family matters, such as helping my dad move furniture and heavy appliances as he redecorates his home and helping train his mischievous 1-year-old Australian shepherd puppy, Ellie. I'm also trying to help fellow artist Zavraan with some research, but I fell into a bit of a rut and need to get back to that.
Among other artistic things, I am doing some redesigns for some of the dragons for The Dragon Riders: The Crystal Hearts. This bunch of redesigns is largely to make them more expressive, and focuses solely on their heads. The body designs are largely perfect as is, but the heads of some dragons needed to be more grounded and capable of displaying emotions like joy, anger, sadness, fear, and more. Others needed some adjustment to make them more menacing; particularly the more villainous dragons. I also made some adjustments to the saddles, such as having them be riveted to the dragon's scales, rather than using straps, or through ring-like piercings that are no more painful to a dragon than to a human getting an earring. It also needs to be said that these saddles enhance the sense of unity between dragons and riders because they are as two halves of the same whole, and that dragons willingly let these saddles be adhered to them as a testament to their bond with their partners
In addition to this, I am indulging in a new painting project: I bought a 1/35th scale Beasts of the Mesozoic grey Tyrannosaurus rex figure, which I will be painting in the colors of a Cuban crocodile. To that end, I bought a whole bunch of modeling paints from the AV Vallejo line to properly give this dinosaur color. This video will be going up on Youtube once completed, and I'll put the link in a journal here so you can watch my creative process if you want.
Suffice to say, If you don't see me much, it's due to creative projects like these that I will share later on.