6/24/2022 Changelog

Hello, everyone.

I have written this post to update you all that from today onwards, I will be dealing business with Canadian Dollar (CAD) as my primary currency instead of United States Dollar (USD).

Because I am planning to move to Canada in the near future, it only makes sense that I earn money with their currency. It will make it easier for me to settle once I have made the big move abroad to live with my significant other. Additionally, this is also to avoid unnecessary conversion fees when that time comes.

The commissions page has also been updated to reflect this change. You can view the page here.

Thank you all for your understanding! 🧃

-Zip

Sanguine Force

"A radiating burst of crimson energy that heightens the user's physical abilities, and capable of drastically increasing their strength by tenfold."

This was meant to originally be a painting that simply depicted Zephyr posing in an angle with the Sanguine manifesting in her hand. Then I felt that this alone was not doing her justice, and I decided to whip up some kind of background behind her. At first, I was going for the lazy gray background that darkens at the edges, or something. But I started toying with the idea of a landscape (despite me saying I'd take a break from making them 😆)... A dark landscape, in particular, something like a crystalline cavern.

In the end, I decided to use this opportunity to feature another prominent location in the Aether and Radisrol. These plains are the Auric Steppes in the Aethersphere, on the main island of Aurum. The city in the distance is the capital kingdom of Caladria, particularly its castle.

A lot of lighting study went into this painting, the most obvious of which you can tell from the ambient light caused by the Sanguine reflecting on various surfaces. I had an especially good time trying to also mold the Sanguine's wispy shape, and I think I did a good job portraying how untamed it truly is. I was also looking at stock photos of starry night skies and used them as bases for the one I painted in my illustration.

This is, I believe, my first time painting a concept art of a character with a full-on, from-scratch, and equally concept-arty landscape. Alone, Zephyr herself wouldn't really pop out; she'd still look cool, but the appeal would have just fallen flat. With the landscape, though... Together, they just mesh so well. I'm rather pleased I didn't just give up on this piece halfway despite my initial misgivings, because now it looks twice as better than what it originally could have been. ✌

Zephyr - Concept Portrait

I attempted a grayscale to color painting on my stream today! Today we feature a bust of Zephyr, her left eye flaring with the Sanguine Force. 

Compared to the one I made of Viresco last year, I can say with confidence that I have definitely improved since. 😄 I like to believe that working on my landscape paintings helped me have a better understanding on how to paint like this. Hooray for applying what I learned and managing to connect landscape painting to grayscale portrait painting somehow 🎇🎉

Prismato Plains

I've done another landscape! This one was what I did mostly during my last two streams on Twitch. This features the Prismato Plains and its environs in my fantasy story, The Aether and Radisrol.

Prismato is considered the capital continent of the Enerhija, humanoid beings made of energy who descended to Radisrol from the Aether during the Golden Age. This painting depicts not only the titular plains but also the city of Cerise, and the capital fortress of Glaucous looming in the distance.

This landscape was one of six I had made during my landscape practice stream on May 29, 2022. I was really playing around with more brushes and textures on this painting and wanted to make it more vibrant than my last two paintings were.

I certainly want to work on the last three landscape drafts I prepared and see what I can create with them. But I honestly also want to move on to creating other stuff for the time being, and even get back into commissions. I'll return to making landscapes again some other time later on. 😊

Lake Saphira

Back again with another landscape!

Lake Saphira is a frigid lake in the frozen continent of Crivalis in the Aether and Radisrol. The tribes of the Crivalese--hunters and warriors whose bodies have adapted to survive in the harsh, icy wasteland--consider this to be one of the holy grounds of the continent. The temple in the middle of the lake supposedly houses Saphira, one of the three deities worshipped by the Crivalese, alongside Rubius and Emer.

When tribesmen come of age, they must undergo a pilgrimage to all the holy sites of Crivalis and pay their respects to their deities. Needless to say, tribesmen must travel to the lake and sail to the Temple of Saphira. Here, they must offer a sacrifice at her altar to receive her blessing to become a fully-fledged adult and warrior. All tribesmen receive a sapphire gem once they have proven their worth to the deity.

This landscape was me trying an arctic color palette and just playing around with values... I'm honestly a little iffy about the objects in the foreground, though. 😅

I still want to make more landscapes in Photoshop, so perhaps I'll do one more before I return to doing commissions and even a new comic. 😊