Gallant's Art Blog

Been out of the game too long. It’s been a rough ... 2 years? Here’s an Aratan showing off some threads at the beach I guess! Asymmetrical designs are always great, and I think they might be a major feature of their fashion.

I had a dream last night; a fantasy world with floating islands, a bored princess searching for a purpose, 4ft tall puffins and so, so many conical buildings. Was getting a Chris Riddell or Terry Pratchett vibe from a lot of the story beats. Thankfully, I managed to save a couple of snapshots of my dream before they vanished into the afternoon. I sketched out a few ideas, puffins included. Thankfully I remembered this cutie’s name! Taro, like the cards but not? Also he has a S W E E T  H A T. Decided to flesh him out a bit more. He looks like he’d make a good storybook for kiddos.

Some doodles from today’s stream (13th Jan). Mostly just lines and colours practice. Trying to decide whether I should go for that rough inked look. It’s very defined, compared to just pencil, but I do wonder if my backgrounds will be too soft by contrast. Oh well, I had some fun anyway. ft. @theongoingplague‘s warforged gladiator character Trauma. (top left) Go and follow them if you don’t already. :)

I know I don’t have that many followers yet, but I’m going to be streaming for a few hours anyway; I feel like I work harder with an audience watching me.  I’ll be practicing in Clip Studio Paint, since I’m very rusty because of the holidays. Time to get back on this! http://picarto,tv/GallantHermit Thanks in advance if you feel like hanging out. Seeya there.

A slight break from the usual comic stuff. Hey look it’s a soulless abomination.

Another midtone doodle before I head to work. This time, it’s Vicent charging in to battle, wielding a Ranyali pike. He’s treating it like a sword, still. Anger makes you reckless, huh. Someone’s gonna get hurt, either way.

I am sorry tumblr can you forgive me?

YES, I DO THIS! YOU REMEMBER HOW YOUR BACKYARD BARBECUE GO, THE SMITHS!? VERY GOOD, IT DOESN’T SEEM! I have been obsessed with The McElroys since I saw the creation of Final Pam in Monster Factory (Fallout 4). They make such great content, and all of them have such infectious laughter. So, seeing as it’s Pam’s 2nd birthday (Nov 12th), I thought it was fitting to pay homage to such a funny series. It started as a sketch, but grew wildly out of hand. Approx 5 hours in Clip Studio Paint.

A photo Grae keeps in his pocket when he’s out on a job. Sometimes it’s nice to keep a reminder of what’s waiting for you at home. Niako is Grae’s husband, a Qinatan (more “warlike” and honour-bound race similar to the Aratan) immigrant. He’s an inventor, tinkerer and all-round sweetheart who helped Grae through some rough times in his early twenties. He’s a 2nd generation immigrant, so he’s had plenty of time to adjust to the Aratan way of life. Alixander is their adoptive son, a Capran orphan Grae stumbled across during a delivery run. At first, they spent a while trying to find Alix’s parents, but when it became apparent that they were nowhere to be found, they decided to raise him. Grae and Niako try not to let their ignorance of Capran culture get in the way of anything. They try their best, but Alix doesn’t really care too much for the finer points of his ancestry. He’s usually preoccupied with spinning around really fast or prowling for sweets.

Practicing scenes, and while that’s going well, I figured I’d upload the background I’ve been working on. I’m really trying to cement some ideas in about the types of architecture you might see in Temper, and how each race has their own fashion and art. This is an Aratan residential area, likely designed by one architect. Since Aratan value art and individuality above all else, it stands to reason that their structures are challenging to build, beautiful to look at and incredibly impractical! That said, these structures do tend to have extensive basements, meaning the surface may hide a much larger abode.

Quick style test with the pencils and paint brushes of Clip Studio. Pretty impressed with the brush engine, particularly the watercolour blending. It might take a while before I get it looking pretty though. This is how I imagine the comic might look in future, an emulation of traditional work with some digital stuff for good measure.

Skiks is great at tracking. Except when something doesn’t leave anything to track. This style has really got my creative juices flowing. I’ll not be sticking with the stylised silhouette when it comes to the actual comic, but it’s helping me explore shading in new ways.That 3-tone Copic look is really appealing to me.