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The drawing a day calendar sounds very cool…I will look into that. I mainly post ATCs up on my forum and not always on DeviantArt anymore. I actually have added onto my forum an ATC section where I have a little 4-part lecture class series there on how-to and a listing of my current ATCs.
My forum is here: http://www.watergazersden.com/forum
Feel free to post some of your card there as well.They both were designed with all natural colors, though one more a rusty wolf, and this one more in the tan grays. Here are all three of my winged wolves so far together, so you can get an idea of color difference: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/45801314/
I will probably somewhere along the line do an all-grey one with raven wings, and I’m working on a golden black one now.
That looks pretty killer. Excellent theme. It’s mostly done in airbrush, you can tell. I am looking into getting an airbrush of my own to get that smooth. But what makes me the most thrilled about this auction is that a professional horse painter has gotten ahold of a Windstone and now the ball has gotten rolling along that end of the artistic spectrum…so Windstones are getting out there more!
This one I do need to touch up just a little, and maybe add the cheeky moles my autumn wolf had also…and of course the final finish and I will peralize the wings. I’m really happy with the end result. I wanted to go for the stereotypical gray wolf color scheme on this one. Again, not happy with the photos because the wings got washed out.
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/45785433/
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/45785239/Lol, it kinda does look evil with that shadow! Lol. I also just put on the final coat of gloss so now it truly shimmers. Good thing I only took the pictures with the pearl finish on because now all you’d see would be shine or glare. In person it’s awesome and has richer color. I’m glad you all like him. I will have to make more dragona…but I just want more eye colors first.
I re-photographed after applying the sheen. I don’t usually like to take photos after doing that because of light issues but this particular sculpt looks better photographed now than before: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/45676903/
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/45676777/Oh man that’s totally awesome! I also have a similar personal goal…to create 2 ATC cards per day…mainly as a source of income actually, but still…just about the same idea you got. Awesomeness…I hope we both meet our own workloads.
Try using metallic paints. I find the metallic reds can look awesome, though I have yet to do a PYO in them…and will if the green eye dragons get released soon. Also, try buying a pearlizing medium to mix with your acrylic paints. I do this sometimes too, to make a certain paint shiny. You have to mix it into your paint before painting it onto the PYO. Another option is to seal your sculpt with a pearlizing finishing coat, and then a gloss coating.
When I lived at home with my grandfather before I got married I had a fairly high-end camera. Unfortunately due to my getting married and some of the bad blood that insued, I couldn’t take my camera with me so have to settle for my hubby’s $100 thing. I had gotten used to capturing true color and true quality on my other camera and can’t handle this one at all, though I’m glad you can at least grasp the essense of the colors, lol. Ok, maybe I’m too harsh but I take my art very seriously, and showing it for it’s true quality is what I’m all about. Otherwise, if you don’t show your art and full 100% quality or close-to, what’s the point of doing it?
I’ll get better photos tomorrow in true light. The horns and all claw and bacl acents are silver, not gold…though it looks weird in the photos and shows the colors a bit darker than they ought to be…but you all have heard my camera rants before. Sometime this year I plan to paint about a dozen or so PYOs and buy myself a $400 or so camera so I can get decent shots again. (The best part is, it’s a business expense!) Anyway, I do love this dragon, but then I love most everything I paint and have a hard time parting with it.
I really am waiting for the dragons to get released with green and amber eyes, so I found myself limited to painting this little guy in blues, purples, and greens to match the eye, since going with my original autumn color scheme just would clash too much with that eye. I did adore Nam’s “Seafoam” dragon and I honestly didn’t plan on getting it to look similar, but I think we were using the same color spectrum of paints here or something because once I set on the sea green it just instantly reminded me of Nam’s.
I plan to get better photos of this tomorrow. I never know how these look until I post them on the computer; but in person it’s just awesoneness…and then on the computer it’s a camera fart of Pfffft.
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/45671843/Pewter is totally different…I mainly mean those plastic resin things you find at every Spensors or even some collector stores. They look almost like they are copying off of Enchantica Dragons but not even close to Enchantica quality…and I don’t like Enchantica! They look like lizards with attached wings and crummy dinosaur faces and the most hideaous colors around…and almost always snarling or flailing or otherwise guarding gold or being fought by a wizard. I spoke to a store owner who said he preferred those to Windstones because fantasy doesn’t sell. I said fantasy doesn’t sell when it comes packaged like that instead of Windstones. I showed him the Windstone catelog I have and he was just like…well, people do still pay for these things so why should I invest more money in higher quality stuff? And this coming from a guy who carries Swaraski or however you spell it, crystals and high-end statuary! It’s like his shop carries top of the line in everything sculpture except fantasy…then it’s the lowest of the low.
Unfortunately, and shockingly, I know a lot of people who don’t know the difference between that stuff and Windstone, and would prefer to have a so-so looking dragon for cheap than an excellent quality dragon for more $. I have gotten a lot of those craptacular things because people know I like dragons. I had to stop telling people because all I got were those things. I try to fix them up with repaints so they aren’t as horrible looking now, but turth be told you can’t really polish a turd.
Needless to say I did not take that job. The unfortunate part of it was I lost a client or two along the way because the publisher told them they needn’t pay illustrators that much money. I mean come on people, a book takes a couple months of labor. You can’t do them overnight and when you’re making it specifically for a client of the characters they want and detail they want…well, it’s exhausting deals with some people. Art will always be, for some people, just something they can always get cheaper somewhere else, which is why artists get the short end of the stick so much and have to work twice as hard for equal pay. That’s why we should all be happy that Windstone has and continues to survive as an artistic endeavor, because after 9/11 and the economy that followed, everything changed. I’m glad Windstone is still alive even though many of it’s distributers folded. It’s up to us collectors and people who support Windstone to keep it alive, and suport fellow artists as well whenever we can.
Yes, and I am thrilled to have people on this forum who know quality and love the work put in and do try their hand at their own as well…because it gives you a whole new outlook and respect both for the sculpt and also the other painters. The problem I am seeing is most of the bidders on these things are us forum members and not so much “outsiders.” I just want other people to know what it takes to do these things, or any art in general. I do tend to get defensive to a high degree on this mostly because I face it a lot. I just want people to realize that hey, these are one of a kind things, great quality, and worth the price, whether they are bidding or not, you know? I don’t know if you other artists get bad emails like I have done before or not but people are pretty blunt with me, and I in turn must be blunt with them. One example…someone wanted to hire me to do their children’s books…a small-time publisher who wanted me as their numero uno artist…but they got angry when I said I cost about a grand per book. They said I shouldn’t be worth any more than $500, and that THAT was pushing it because computers “do all the work for me” regardless of when I told them everything was drawn and colored by hand, page by page, and each page took yadda yadda hours and I worked with such-and-such materials. They flat out did not care and said I was crazy for doing things that way! Unbelieveable. But I don’t want to turn this into a “me” post. I just want to say, for those who are reading this who are not forum members yet and who are lurking around and choking on price tags for Windstones, PYO or not, hey…know the quality that’s going into this. You want to know what goes into a car before you buy it…so know your art and your artists.
