Woo! I finished my newest design and I'm very pleased with it. I'm thinking of calling it "The Celestial Dragon".
It's HUGE.
So enough about work! LOL! (Umm...that's funny because I don't really think of it as "work" in the traditional "oh crap I have to go to work & I hate my job" sense. Me = very freaking lucky, I know.)
I sent a few packages out...one to![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ramblinsuze (happy birthday, girl!), one to moonphased, and tomorrow I'm sending out something to rumdiculous. Suze's is for her b-day but the other two are "just 'cause" things. You know...just because I can. :-)
And, in other news, in spite of the fact that I've been crazy-busy with my art, I decided to completely re-vamp my fish tank. I'd call it a wild hair, but in reality I found it obscene to be spending an inordinate amount of time playing "Fish Tycoon" when my own real aquarium looked like a nuclear disaster had befallen it.
So now it's very pretty. Everyone looks quite happy except for my big old Raphael catfish who wants to know where all his beautiful filth went. I'll take some pics and put them in here later this week, because I am SO proud of all the tropical lovely.
*smooch* Love you all. :-)
It's HUGE.I did it in a few colors because there was so much going on and so many different parts that I felt it needed at least three colors. My original plan was for just two (red and gold)...hah! That wasn't any good, so I added the black...and THEN I drybrushed on some wonderful metallic blue that I mixed myself because it needed something to show off the carving of the scales. That stone inlaid in the center is blue goldstone (which is really more like a deep purple) & is flecked with gold. I know that's a LOT of busy color, but really that's very traditional and it looks just like something I might've seen in Toronto at that Chinese lantern festival I went to, so I'm really grooving on all the bright & shiny.
Here it is from the front. I know it's not precisely symmetrical but that's ok because the asymmetry adds motion.
From the side you can really see all the 3 dimensional elements I added on.
Fun! The snout is much more dynamic this way. I considered backing it with some black suede but I kind of like looking through it...it almost looks lacy and delicate.
So yeah, been busy. I put a lot of time into this one. It'll probably surpass Medusa as my most expensive mask. I think it'll be a show-stopper though. Can't WAIT to spring this one on the general public. :-) Next, I want to do that Frost Dragon.
In preparation for the Frost Dragon, I purchased some new blue paint and I am IN LOVE with it. LOVE. I practiced on a regular dragon mask:
The picture doesn't quite catch how very blue this whole thing is. Blue blue blue! I love blue. Not just any blue though; because I am an artist I have a favorite shade of blue. Ask a regular person what their favorite color is and they'll say red or green or something like that. Ask an artist and they'll say Napthal Crimson or Hooker Green...lol. MY favorite blue is Pthalo Blue. Technically, that's pthalocyanine blue. There's a pthalo green, too (sometimes called "peacock green" by non-artists), which is my second favorite color. Pthalo blue though...it just makes me happy. No matter how concentrated or diluted it is, it's always vibrant. The ocean at that white-sand beach in Costa Rica was a dilute of pthalo blue (hence all the love for Playa Conchal...DAMN I wish I could spend a few hours there right NOW).
So when I went looking for some blue paint, I found that Liquitex was now offering the pthalo shades and I grabbed 'em! They're the concentrated colors too, which means they mix REALLY well with metallics & bases. I picked up some nice aquamarine too, which tends towards purple IMO. So the base color on that dragon up there was aquamarine (that's the color on the nose & eyes & horns), with silver accents drybrushed and a mix of pthalo blue & silver drybrushed on the scales. I used that same mix on the Celestial dragon mask too...it's just such an awesome color.
Here it is from the front. I know it's not precisely symmetrical but that's ok because the asymmetry adds motion.
From the side you can really see all the 3 dimensional elements I added on.
Fun! The snout is much more dynamic this way. I considered backing it with some black suede but I kind of like looking through it...it almost looks lacy and delicate.
So yeah, been busy. I put a lot of time into this one. It'll probably surpass Medusa as my most expensive mask. I think it'll be a show-stopper though. Can't WAIT to spring this one on the general public. :-) Next, I want to do that Frost Dragon.
In preparation for the Frost Dragon, I purchased some new blue paint and I am IN LOVE with it. LOVE. I practiced on a regular dragon mask:
The picture doesn't quite catch how very blue this whole thing is. Blue blue blue! I love blue. Not just any blue though; because I am an artist I have a favorite shade of blue. Ask a regular person what their favorite color is and they'll say red or green or something like that. Ask an artist and they'll say Napthal Crimson or Hooker Green...lol. MY favorite blue is Pthalo Blue. Technically, that's pthalocyanine blue. There's a pthalo green, too (sometimes called "peacock green" by non-artists), which is my second favorite color. Pthalo blue though...it just makes me happy. No matter how concentrated or diluted it is, it's always vibrant. The ocean at that white-sand beach in Costa Rica was a dilute of pthalo blue (hence all the love for Playa Conchal...DAMN I wish I could spend a few hours there right NOW).
So when I went looking for some blue paint, I found that Liquitex was now offering the pthalo shades and I grabbed 'em! They're the concentrated colors too, which means they mix REALLY well with metallics & bases. I picked up some nice aquamarine too, which tends towards purple IMO. So the base color on that dragon up there was aquamarine (that's the color on the nose & eyes & horns), with silver accents drybrushed and a mix of pthalo blue & silver drybrushed on the scales. I used that same mix on the Celestial dragon mask too...it's just such an awesome color.
So enough about work! LOL! (Umm...that's funny because I don't really think of it as "work" in the traditional "oh crap I have to go to work & I hate my job" sense. Me = very freaking lucky, I know.)
I sent a few packages out...one to
ramblinsuze (happy birthday, girl!), one to moonphased, and tomorrow I'm sending out something to rumdiculous. Suze's is for her b-day but the other two are "just 'cause" things. You know...just because I can. :-)And, in other news, in spite of the fact that I've been crazy-busy with my art, I decided to completely re-vamp my fish tank. I'd call it a wild hair, but in reality I found it obscene to be spending an inordinate amount of time playing "Fish Tycoon" when my own real aquarium looked like a nuclear disaster had befallen it.
So now it's very pretty. Everyone looks quite happy except for my big old Raphael catfish who wants to know where all his beautiful filth went. I'll take some pics and put them in here later this week, because I am SO proud of all the tropical lovely.
*smooch* Love you all. :-)
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