ElfQuest Fan Art

Ooh I might have to delurk for this one. Time to brush off my pointy ears and do another calendar entry.

Maggie, should we not use any new characters from Final Quest either, out of courtesy's sake?

I too have an idea, one that I am actually quite fond of!  The problem is now realizing it by the end of the month.   What with the 60 hour work weeks, building a White Queen costume from scratch, and attempting to open an Etsy shop, EQ has been sadly neglected.  But I'm-a give it the old college try! 

OH!  Also (stupid me, how did I forget this?) doing your base sketch and linework with a hard-lead pencil will drastically reduce smudging.  In the range of pencil softness/hardness, the higher the number H, the harder, lighter and less smudgy it is; the higher the number B, the softer, darker, and smudgier it is.  Ie: a 6H pencil will give you a light grey, sharp line that you'd have to rub with your thumb to smudge it, while an 8B pencil would be nearly black and will smudge if you look at it sideways.  (HB is the center of the range and is essentially your standard Number Two test-taking pencil.  F is a random pencil, I think for draftsmen.)  Me, I grew up drawing under my architect father's drafting table and have always felt more comfortable drawing with a mechanical pencil, and I find that helps as well (but shading is usually done with a "real" pencil or a nice dark Ebony Splendor )

Interesting art history note: Cretacolor / Koh-i-Noor of Austria pretty much invented the modern day pencil combination of graphite and ceramic that allows for different lead softnesses.  Both these companies should be widely available in Germany; Cretacolor's pencils are especially lovely.  (see what happens when I only work 12 hours? I come home and talk about work!! )

...Beats trying to blind search Google Images for poses and the stuff that pops up then (yikes!)

I know right?  Be afraid, be very afraid...

...That's where I got the pose for my "Brierlea" piece from...

It's 6am here so... where is Brierlea?  Is she your sweet Aion character?

Squeeeeee!!  So much love for this!  It absolutely glows!!  And sure, this movie was uber popular in America, at least when I was little.  (When I was four I was head over heels for the butterfly, who in English sings part of "Has anybody here seen Kelly, K-E-double L-Y..." ...which is my name, so I felt special).

Also I heard a rumor they were gonna making a live-action version of Last Unicorn, and I think using some of the (English) voice actors as live actors... only in older parts.  Like, Mia Farrow as Molly Grue, etc (but still Christopher Lee as Haggard!).  I even saw an official webpage for it once, but that was something like 4 years ago.  Maybe they abandoned the idea.  Cry.

But your picture is absolutely stunnning, and I can't believe you did that on the inside of a card!  Beautiful!

Huzzah!  I'm in with "Contrasts"... think I've been voting for that one for a couple years now... though I also really like elfeneyes' "Evildoers".... or maybe "Rogues and Wildcards", as Wendy put it

Thanks Windrider for stepping up again; and thanks Foxeye for offering this site as the home base -- I agree, the new EQ forum is far too clustered for me to deal with: here we are a happy little family (and far easier to navigate!)

Wow, I did not expect to finish one so soon.  Yereh for Foxeye is over in my gallery.  This is fun!!

Next up: Zoetgras/Fladder for afke!

Also, @Silber: your pumpkin girl is fabulous!  Does she have a name?  Is she a hunter? farmer? magic user?  You've got me interested!

So I saw the meme that afke participated in (if I knew how to link to it I would do!  someone please do), where the first 5 responses get a requested sketch, and I thought that might be great for someone like me: need to draw more, but severely limited in time. Sooooooooooooooooooooo...

....If anyone wants to request a sketch of either a canon or a non-canon character, please say so here: first 5 responses will get pencil sketches of their chosen subject

Please note: it may take a while, since, as stated above, I am time-restricted.  HOWEVER, I will also take it as a favor should anyone request something, since I do need to draw more!  Also note: if it's a non-canon/personal character you'd like done, please point me in the direction of a CIS or other info/pic.

Thanks!

There's also a way to "cheat" one's way out of stretching watercolor paper, and that is to use what's called a "block."  Blocks are different than regular pads of paper in that they are glued on 3 or all four sides of the paper, essentially making it impossible for the paper to warp.  You just whip out your block, paint your painting, and slice through the glue when you're done to remove the piece.  This does mean, however, that you can only work on one piece at a time; if you remove it and then want to paint on it some more, it'll be warp central.  Pretty much all watercolor papers also make blocks: again, Arches is the creme de la creme, but for any vegans out there Fabriano Artistico is also an excellent choice (Fabriano uses only synthetic sizing; Arches uses some animal-based sizings).  Canson also makes a pretty decent student-grade paper (and block) called "Montval."

However my favoritest of favorites for literally any kind of painting whatsoever are Ampersand's boards.  Claybord has a super-smooth surface, Aquabord is slightly textured (both of these are literally a layer of clay over masonite; very absorbent and very forgiving).  They also make Gessobord for oils/acrylics, and Pastelbord (in various colors) for pastels, but it's Claybord and Aquabord that I love.  I've even used them for egg tempera and encaustic (!) with fabulous results.  They make lil' 5x7" sampler packs if you want to test the different surfaces... sigh.  For someone who hates paper and canvas (because they are "bouncy") and is a lazy git like me, Ampersand are lifesavers 

Wow, Faerydae, that is fantastic!  I love all your descriptions -- I'm reading along laughing and going "Me too! Me too!"  You're lucky you had fellow artist friends though... I was always the only one!

Anyways, those are adorable!  And you're right, we did all start the same   Maybe I'll make a temp Ancient Art folder here or something... it really does bring back some truly great memories doesn't it?  Thanks for posting those!

I can't figure out how to work almost any portion of the new site... granted I haven't yet gotten to devote much time to it.  Sure, it's shiny and pretty, but as far as I can tell extremely confusing.  I am perplexed.  But I vote for keeping this fantabulous site here going!  I'm one of those who think the Scroll is too crowded and difficult to keep up with, I prefer the smaller community here.  And yes, the gallery oragnization is 500 times better here!!

I don't know much about standard sizes, but I have a widescreen as well, and my display settings tell me it's set at 1280 x 800.  Is there a way for you to (easily!) do 2 versions, one universal standard-screen-size, and one universal widescreen-sized?  If it's not easy to do, my vote would be for standard 1024 x 768 since I'm sure everyone can see that properly.

Thanks again and again and again for being such a kick-butt organizer wizard arty awesome lady!!