Dark Souls

As I might have mentioned I like my video games and have sunk a good few hours into the game Dark Souls.  It wasn't to my liking at first, its a punishingly difficult game that requires a more careful approach than my usual button mashing, at some point though it clicked and I was hooked.

The other thing I love about it is the aesthetic of the game, its a medieval fantasy setting but with some unusual twists, particularly in the enemies.  I have drawn the characters of 'Smough the Executioner' and 'Ornstein the Dragon Slayer'.  These are two bosses the game throws at you to fight at the same time, its tough but the feeling when you master the timing and defeat them is pure satisfaction.

Totoro

Like a lot of the most fun pictures I have done this started out as a quick sketch.  I wanted to use up the last page in my sketchbook and I liked the picture so much I ended up inking and painting it.  It is of course Totoro from the fantastic film 'My Neighbour Totoro' by Studio Ghibli.

Redbubble

I have been toying with the idea of selling some work for a little while now and after a little research, I have decided to try the site Redbubble.  For anyone unfamiliar with it, it is one of several web stores that you can upload artwork to.  They then print it on to a variety of media and sell it on your behalf taking a percentage of the sale price.

This is very much inspired by a designer friend of mine Marie who asked me to do a T-shirt design for her earlier in the year, this started me thinking seriously about getting some work out there for folks to buy.  There is a link to some of her work in the sidebar (Tees D'Lacey), it's well worth a look, she has an online shop on the way also.

There are 6 designs up just now with more in the pipeline.  My plan is to do small runs of pictures each with a different theme or style.  Here are a couple from this first series, I am tentatively calling them 'Mechanimals' until I can think of  a better name, suggestions are very welcome.

And of course a link to my new and shiny online shop.

http://www.redbubble.com/people/gmackay/shop

Please have a browse and as always feedback and or criticism is always welcome.

The Fisher King

I have always liked the phrase the fisher king without knowing its meaning, when I finally looked it up it was too good not to draw.

The wounded king is charged with guarding the holy grail but at some point has been injured in such a way he can no longer fight, nor can he father children to continue his task.  Left without purpose he spends his time fishing and awaiting a miraculous cure.

I have used pen, watercolor paint and white gel pen on 300g card.

Alphonse Elric

I went a bit mad for anime a few years back, I don't really watch much now but I can still be persuaded too if something grabs my attention.  One of my favorites was Fullmetal Alchemist and the follow up remake brotherhood, so an illustration of one of the main characters was long overdue.

This is Alphonse Elric who due to some very unfortunate events has no body of his own, leaving his soul trapped in an archaic (and beautifully designed) suit of armour.

Done in pen, ink wash and white gel pen.

Inking Practice

One of my biggest failings in learning to draw has been not finishing work.  This has led to me working with pencil the majority of the time with the occasional inked picture and very rare painted or coloured illustration.  Because of this my abilities with other mediums are not nearly as good as I would like.  My main goal for the future is to rectify this by completing more pictures in ink or paint.  To that end here are a couple of recent inked pics.

Some texture practice.

One of the 30 day challenges that I missed, I had an unfinished sketch which I just couldn't leave behind.  An Irish mythical figure, 'Goibniu the Smith' one of three gods of art.

30 Day Challenge

Every year the good people at Galway pub Scrawl engage in a month long illustration challenge.  Donal the tireless organiser of the whole thing, along with the other talented scrawlers, come up with a drawing brief for each day of the month.  I was introduced to the group by Jay Penn who has been going for some time and they kindly encouraged me to get involved, despite only attending one pub scrawl and living in another country.  This year the challenge was in June and it was my second year at having a go at it.  I had hoped to get a picture done for every day but unfortunately missed the odd one here and there.  If anyone wants to follow the pub scrawlers blog and check out the challenge in its entirety then the link is below.

http://www.galwaypubscrawl.com/

Here is a small selection of some of my illustrations.

Day 1.  Portrait of a family member.  My brother, he wasn't all that happy with me putting this up, being kindle of humble about this sort of thing.  So I hope he can forgive me for doing it again.  Mostly happy with this apart from some heavy handed shading on one eye giving it a glassy look, oops.

Day 5.  Warrior fruit.

Day 9.  Manic Monkey

Day 10.  The blood is the life.  I was a bit off target with this as I think the brief refers to vampires but I went with a picture of the first successful artificial human heart done in red ink.  Missed the brief a bit but I like the result.

 Day 29.  Draw a human/elf/dwarf/halfling.

Day 30.  Anything you like.  I was a little stuck for ideas so went for an illustration of 'The Iron Giant'.  Or as my wife said when she saw it "that looks like a fat iron giant!".

The whole month was great fun, certainly had some ups and downs, drawings that just went well and some which were a struggle from start to finish.  Cant wait to do it all again next year.