Really Late Secret Santa

Through the adversities our secret santa managed to deliver the present that stated: Kane smile or a smile.

We wish our Secret Santa best of luck in life and thank you for delivering the present even though it took a while (I will still post it). :D

Easter eggs.

My mom has been bugging me about painting Easter eggs for a while.

So I bought her styrofoam eggs, gave her brushes, gouache and glazing medium and told her: okay, first you paint the base, then you decorate and then you glaze.

She painted them a generic color and said: DONE!

I was like: but put some stripes, some dots, do something…

No.

So I told her: I am going to commandeer your eggs if you don’t finish them.

And she went: Fffffine.

And I said: Fffffine.

And 4 hours later I had painted pirate balthasar eggs.

All of this to say: Happy Easter folks!

(don’t give styrofoam eggs, gouache and brushes to your mama cuz she ain’t gonna paint and you’ll end up doing her work instead XD).

I glazed and hanged to dry.

Decorations done.

Design planned.

In the end I had to refined the drawings with pen. 

I promise to take better pictures with a better camera and in details... these were done with my ipad.

How to steal a ship - page 3-5

I'm traying to get some blue flair on reddit. I am not sure on how it works but there: I'm the author of the Pirate Balthasar.

Bookmarsk gifts

Hi guys,
I was testing these and I have to say that they printed out quite nicely and exactly the color they were meant to be.

I did this using the PDF file hosted on Issu which can access also through the menu above (under lower deck)
Not bad, huh?

I print back and front and laminated them. Then put ribbons.

How to steal a ship - page 1 - 2

How to paint a ship - tutorial

I was asked to show more of the layers and the brushes so I made a second walk through with the current special.

I work mainly in layers because that's how I would do it traditionally, work from the bottom up - my preferred medium being gouache and glaze for this kind of style.

I put the sketch on top and set the layer on multiply.
Create the panels with the object tool and then create a selection.
I dump the base color with the bucket and turn down the sketch opacity.

Now I pick a dry brush and start painting on sperate layers the other colors. Like this, if I want to turn the opacity down I still can, and if I want to play with multiply... I also can.

Then I take a regular hard brush and do the linework. This is not pure white though. I never use pure white and pure black as they actually do not exist in nature and make things look... mhhh... artificial, I'd say...

Now I group my background layers in a folder and I start drawing the characters. One or two layer for every color. I chose my yellow to be my middle layer. All the other colors will actually go on top or below... or both.

The layers you see on top are from the previous page. Although I write down the code numbers of my colors... sometimes, to make sure I am keeping consistency, I create my new page in the same file as the old one where I swtich on and off the old layers and double check comparing with the new ones... before I trash the old ones away.

As you see my skin tone is both on top and bottom. The bottom one allows me to fill empty shapes fast. the top one is to refine the edges with the yellow border so... for touch ups.

I do the same for all the other colors... Beige.

Dark blue.

Red and ochre.

Browns and blues.

Then I create a layer to do my brown linework which will help give solid form to the figure. When I do the linework I usually fix the shape of the fill too. So naming the layers help me find things fast.

I don't know what this brush is called. I customized it long ago from an airbrush in Cs5 and I cannot replicate it in Cs6, but it's my favorite brush and I definitely need to save and export my favorite brushes if I ever want to switch to cs6 (which might not happen though because I find it heavy).

I pick my brown from the base and create a layer that I set on multiply and then I turn the opacity down. Like this I do my shadows.

Done.

I flatten the artwork, save the file as Lettering and do my lettering .

And the winner is...

After calculating the number of votes and the average stars given by the viewers (there's like a script in the poll website that calculates that)... here are the winners of the third anniversary entry:

 First Place

By taste-of-teal

 Second Place


by elianthos80

Third place 



by eliafreak


I thank you all for participating and for the poems... may I ask a kind soul to volunteer and do some nice little vignettes illustration for them?
I would like to put them together nicely in indesign and create a downloadable booklet with all your fan fics and poems.

Now the winner can request anything she likes :D

Coaster Madness

I am dragged from meetings to meetings and some are really really long.
Luckily I don't have to listen with my eyes... so I carry with my some markers and my coasters.

Enjoy the tribal pirate madness hahaha.

Suddenly fanart.

I was searching some pirate stuff on the web and suddenly I stumbled upon two fanart I wasn't aware of.
They were on tumblr so I don't know how to link on the page with the post.
I'll link you to the homepage of the tumblr instead.

This one is by Banal Adventures.

And this drawing of Kane is by Dragon Apples.

How to paint a ship! XD

More or less I chose the color scheme first. These are the only colors I will be using for this special, I will use all of them in different tints, shades and tones and sometimes I might brighten the hues but not change it :D