Maggievillustration

There were a couple of changes while doing the Hummingbird painting. I did the linework again so that the lines looked a lot smoother. Then it came to the colour, I was having difficulty picking the colours. At first, I wanted to do a pastel colour palette but that didn't look right, or a green and blue but I didn’t like that either so I went with my favourite two blue and purple colours. I also wanted to add little bits of yellow and orange so that it didn’t look too blue. I also decided to remove the bees because they were not working in the painting. 

This was the first final look of the painting. I got some feedback on it and decided that I should remove the petals which didn’t work. They are too big and they take away from the bird. 

After taking away the flower petals I was really happy with how it looked. The leaves and the bird both work together, it didn’t need anything else. 

I also added more yellow to the bird as well so that it didn’t look so blue. In the end, I am really happy with the final look now. The leaves in the background work really well and I don’t think they distract too much. The bird is beautiful.

The horse painting is finished, yaayyy!! I took a little break from the animal paintings, but now I'm back to finish the next four! All four animal paintings are available as metal prints on Displate.

https://displate.com/maggievillustration 

I tried a different painting style with the horse painting. I have been learning about and practicing doing cell shading so I sort of wanted to try it out on this painting. I also added an overlay layer which makes the horse pop a little. The overlay layer is a new thing I am trying out to make my illustration pop or add a little life into it. 

I am not 100% happy with it but I can’t keep changing and editing because it was getting me nowhere. I thought it was best just to leave it and maybe one day I can do a better version of it. It still looks pretty and beautiful. I really love the sky background, it’s my favourite part and I like how the horse turned out she is very cute. 

I finished the elephant painting yesterday and was really happy with how it turned out. I think this was the easiest out of the three to paint. I used a few textured brushes in photoshop - the trees I used a foliage brush for the leaves and used different shades of green. 

For the elephant and sky, I used textured gouache brushes. I tried to really pay attention to the light and shadows for the elephant, the reference photo was really helpful doing this. 

Here is my progress on doing the painting: 

My two animal paintings have been published on Displate!! You are able to purchase both paintings as metal posters. They can be printed as Medium (17.7 inches x 12.6 inches), Large (26.6 inches x 18.9 inches) and Extra Large (35.4 inches x 25.2 inches). 

Also when you purchase a Displate they will plant 10 trees and every purchase on Displate supports an artist. 

If you love both paintings and would love a metal poster for your wall just follow the link to purchase. Also here is a link to my profile if you are interested in following me

https://displate.com/maggievillustration

Thank you so much for following my blog and supporting me in my journey, it means a lot to me!! 

https://displate.com/displate/905800?art=5c8916201803a 

https://displate.com/displate/905793?art=5c8916201803a

Here is the final version of the Octopus. For the Octopus I chose my favorite colour purple and thought the turquoise blue colour worked really well. It was challenging doing this illustration because I tried doing two different colours but it just wasn’t mixing well and the background wasn’t working together with the colours I had in mind.

So I decided just to have fun and started playing around with different textured brushes and worked with the purple and blue only. It worked out really well in the end. 

This is my final edit to the turtle illustration. I love love love how it turned out. There were a few challenges with picking the colours, I had to test out a few blue combinations but I think the ones I have work together. 

I’m currently working on the line art for the animals. I've been using photoshop to do the line art because I can correct mistakes and fix the proportions. It’s been a little challenging doing the lines, they don't come out as smooth as I would like them too but the more I am doing it the better it’s getting. 

So far I’ve got 4 done, 4 more to go. 

My two favorite are the Hummingbird and the Turtle so far. 

These are the sketches I've done for the series. I chose to do Animals because I haven’t drawn animals much and it would be great practice. Animals are also popular subject as posters. The style I'm considering doing is to ink the sketches and then do cel shading. I’ve been researching some tutorials on youtube to learn more and get some tips on cel-shading.

This week I designed an earth fairy character. The final design wasn’t what I had planned in the beginning however, I think it turned out really well. I sketched it out on A4 paper and painted it using Gouache paint. It’s my first time using gouache, it was tricky at first but it was really good practice for me.

Here’s the sketch below. I would have changed the flowers in her hair, I could’ve made them go all around the bun. I would have also made her smaller so I could fit her shoulders.

These are just a few rough thumbnails I did to plan out the painting. I originally wanted the girl to be holding a succulent-plant but I couldn’t get a nice pose for it. There was another thumbnail sketch where it was a portrait and her hair was flowing with the wind. It was one of my favorites which is what I chose to go with. 

Here are just a few more rough sketches of the character. 

This is a colour test I did in photoshop. It was really fun to do and it gave me an idea of what the painting could have looked like. I did change some of the colours in the end like the hair & flowers.