kyena's CGPortoflio Gallery

Can't stand the light

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 23:29:35 +0000

She doesn't quite understand why she can't stand the light despite the fact that she got wings too...like the other creatures she has seen around here..

First of all, this is a personal painting about the question why people need to fit in - so badly that they sometimes give themselves up.

I have two uncles who both grew up being gay. They had an incredibly hard time both being frowned upon by society and family. I can only imagine how hard it must have been to hide their true self and giving it up to fit in. I have a lot of respect for them besides the fact that they belong to the coolest people I know.

I tried to capture the expression of a curious child..just before the moment the pain might hit.

Henning took several pictures of me in a similar pose which I used to get the underlaying bone and muscle definition right. The wings were a freaking paint (sorry for the wording). I downloaded tons of feather references to work from.

I haven't copied any of the refs I got directly but used them to understand the actual topic (or muscle structure in the first case).

The clouds were a pain too..I am normally not the most patient painter but I wanted to practice three objects I normally totally hate to paint: coulds, hands and feathers.

Sketched some ideas first then worked from there in Photoshop CS
Hope you enjoy.

The Wax - Dragon

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 11:34:35 +0000

In ancient times, Wax - Dragons have been known to humans as sources of great wisdom.
Some of their body parts consist of wax elements and are very weak to physical attack. Thus those parts are covered with a transparent shell (specially the chest area - horns and parts of the head) which is supposed to gain them at least a minor protection against predators and heat.
Due to their great weakness and the fact that they are not meant to fight but rather serve as sources of inspiration and advisors, they have been driven very close to extinction.

It takes a long time until a Dragon of this kind makes friendship with a human being. A symbiosis which is however essential for their survival.
They are creatures of snakelike, delicate appearance and feed only on plants. Their character is very tender and protectful which in terms makes them even more vulnurable and weak.

Once a Wax - Dragon has found a human companion it stays loyal until it's death.

****

This was actually meant to be finished for Expos� but due to work I didn't have time to finish it earlier.

It's Photoshop CS2 from scratch till the end and started as a speed point of the girl. It was then when I realized that I have to expand my mind and start painting other creatures. The story of that particular dragon started to form when I started to think about how to paint and invent my own dragon.

I see this as a start to more creature and nonhuman elements sipping into my work

As always, I hope you enjoy
Matt: Thanks a lot in the cc and feedback for the Dragon!
As promised, some close-ups at 100% and 50% mixed:

Sidenote: I have over 30 Steps of this saved..my comp is about to crash I think >_<

EDIT:
I forgot to add - I didn't use any reference or material to stud for this but two really bad out of focus and yellowish fotos of my hands. They do however look nowhere near delicate and slender as hers and I don't have long nails either. I am most probably going to post them along as soon as this is accepted into the forum

Summer comes..

Fri, 24 Mar 2006 15:56:05 +0000

..hopefully soon.

This started out as a sketch and color try out for the last addition to my season series.
I didn't really feel like starting on it but I felt like painting something that helps me get over my longing for summer, sun and warmth.

The more I doodled around and tried out color and lightning I knew it will be the finish to my series. The format is different and I will adjust and repaint the older three to match this in size and quality/style.

This is the first painting I tried to be a bit more brave with light and shadows.

Other then that - I was looking for a warm, sunny and soft airy feeling. I wanted her to have pretty red cheeks..even a slight hint of a bit too much sun..

Other elements are in this that I myself again link to summer..but I let you do your own interpretation

Hope you enjoy and thanks for looking

And since so much detail gets lost in the smaller size:
100% Cutouts

25% Cutouts

A lot of details get lost and look quite wonky on the smaller size.

Kingsmoot

Tue, 21 Mar 2006 08:37:03 +0000

Another illustration for Fantasy Flight Games.
Again a Character out of the Fantasy Series by George RR. Martin.

Russian Pyetra

Sun, 12 Mar 2006 23:55:56 +0000

"The Eldren who become members of the Czarina Pyetra are extraordinary. They are taken from their families at an early age, typically 5-6, and then subjected to an intensive regime of schooling, training and indoctrination, sometimes by the Czarina herself but more usually by her steppegoblin and spirit allies and older Death Guards. They must learn the courtly arts, to speak French and critique art, but they must also kill a man before they are 10 and master at least three weapons before their eleventh birthday. They must learn the six silent speeches, to communicate with wolves and spirits, and their lives will rest on these skills. They will be hurled into pits full of hungry wolves before their eleventh birthday, and must emerge accepted as a pack alpha. They will be abandoned in the midst of a Siberian winter, when not even their survival skills will help them unless they can appease the spirits of the steppe and the tundra and win their help. For every ten children chosen, six will die, three will fail and be allowed to join other magical or military units and one will join the Czarina Pyetra. Some of the successful candidates have become grim, dedicated agents of the state, devoted to nothing beyond their work. Many others, though, revel in their triumph and glory in their personal prowess.

A whole body of soldiers� myth has grown up around them, of naked, feral Eldren women laughing as they tear a soldier�s throat out without even touching him, of riders howling through the air on the wings of a sudden blizzard, of bullets being slapped from the air. Worse yet, many of these stories are true."

First of all I need to thank Squib, Matt and Henning for their input on this piece which drove me nearly insane.

I really need to get off my lazy bum and practice more involved paintings with backdrops. This is only my second attempt in that area. I am also still trying to find a good middleway between detailing and stylizing.

This is half of the actual double spread page painting.
You can see the whole composition here: http://www.tascha.ch/artwork/pyetra_final.jpg
the right side as standalone:
http://www.tascha.ch/artwork/pyetra_backdrop.jpg

I had a lot of problems with the ice color scheme and the fact that I had to paint white clothing with a lot of gold embroiderings on top.

The clothing and color scheme have been predefined by the client as most elements in the painting. As always I designed the look and made sketches for approval before I took it into Photoshop.

Anyway, thanks for watching and I'll post some close-ups tomorrow. I need to break down now

Oh one last thing - I didn't use any references for this except some similar reference poses of myself in crappy light.

Copyright Heresy Gaming 2006

About the image:
This are supposed to be Russian Fighter Elves called Pyetra, cruel, deadly but beautiful beyond words.

This is supposed to be a double page spread. Both sides should be able to be used seperately as well as together (thus the composition decisions).
If used as a whole double spread, the right side is going to be covered with some text.

I am aware that some parts are still a bit slobby but I really needed to wrap this up.

Thoren Smallwood for Fantasy Flight Games

Sat, 25 Feb 2006 13:48:53 +0000

Another Character from "Game of Thrones" by George RR. Martin.
Once more an older illustration for Fantasy Flight Game's Trading Card Game.

The Soulcollector

Sun, 02 Oct 2005 21:57:49 +0000

For every soul she captures she adds another soulgem to her necklace. Her raven being her only companion...the soul she never had herself...
Photoshop - way too many hours. I wanted to challenge myself with a complicated pose. Somehow capturing her on the process of getting up.
Ah well..again I think I learned a lot while working on this.

Jon Snow

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 11:05:44 +0000

A rougher illustration I made for the "Game of Thrones" Trading Card Game. Since it was only supposed to be used on the small card size the approach is much rougher then my usual works.

Autumn

Thu, 14 Oct 2004 10:02:49 +0000

It might not be most original concept but I am somewhat intrigued to illustrate concept, sayings or ideas.
The idea I had before creating this was autumn to be a person guarding the passage from summer to winter. For myself autumn can be both - very playful (thinking of the leaves I used to kick around as a child) and depressing. Those are the things I wanted to include in this picture.
I started with a rough pencil sketch and then colored it in Photoshop 7. The (very messy) process can be seen on my website.
This was also the first piece I worked at in print resolution.

..too Sweet

Tue, 28 Jun 2005 14:16:18 +0000

Finally finished..
Things learned:
I only need one brush to paint a painting.
Deadlines are a good thing since it keeps me from fiddling with a painting way WAY too long
Learned a bit more about depth in a painting (I think)..
Started with a rough pencil sketch and ended with a different idea then I started with:
It's mostly about how sweet things tend to attract us - or tempt us and we tend to fall for them even though we know they might not be good for us or even dangerous.
Tried to give her a slight bee like look (you know..big eyes, fuzzy hair and of course make her look "sweet and innocent".
Photoshop 7, hard edged brush, Wacom.
Too much time spent on this..way too much distraction..
Hope you enjoy
I'll post the close-up set a bit later today.

Spring Petals

Tue, 09 Aug 2005 18:32:33 +0000

The third addition to my season series.
This time Spring.
Some throughts I had while painting this:
Spring has to fight her way out of the grasp of Winter before she can fully blossom.
Thus the webish cocoon thing at the bottom of her dress.
The dress itself is supposed to mimic a caterpillar at the bottom and the floating veils should sympolize the transformation into a butterfly (probably a bit too much symbolism and suger hmm?)..
I added the cloudy weather because April belongs to Spring and I really hate the moody character of that Month..you can have sun and the next time clouds coming in and rain for hours..
Some other things which are personal to me have been added as well but I am not going to bore you with that (the things that made me chose the color scheme above all).
I used a smiliar picture of myself for the arms and hands (didn't help much though - I shouldn't have chosen that pose to start with...) and all different kind of butterfly pictures and flowers (mainly of chinese cherry trees and Magnolias (spelling?))
No references for the clothing or anything else
Hope you enjoy!
Some 50% Closeups (100% will follow after I watched a movie and got some food).

Alice

Mon, 28 Nov 2005 12:00:20 +0000

I actually didn't want to post this because after working on it way over my time I came to almost hate this piece.
But I do post it because I owe thanks to the people in the 2D WIP Forum who pushed me through this.
I know it does have quite a few flaws but I have the deadline approaching and my wrist shows the painful symptoms of a nice carpal and it screams "BREAK"!
Anyway, some information:
No, I didn't use any ref for the face.
In face the only photo reference I used is a pink mushroom from getty images (I'll post it together with some close-ups later).
This is half of the page for a background that will be used for a gaming magazine and was commissioned by Heresy Gaming. The Character is copyright to their Victoriana setting and most certainly inspired by American McGee's Alice. However with less Goth feel and more of the actual Alice elements.
The outfit was defined by the AD after different b/w sketches I made for him.
Well yeah..that's about it - hope you enjoy. I go and burry my wrist in the freezer now..

Winter

Sun, 06 Feb 2005 16:02:36 +0000

Worked on this too long - and I probably wanted too much for this piece - ah well..
Autumn Sister: Winter
She is much younger and more dreamy..

Paradis Bird's Dream Of Freedom

Mon, 21 Feb 2005 23:51:01 +0000

First of all I need to thank all the people who helped me with critiques on this one. The concept proofed to be much more complicated to pull off then I imagined. The cage idea particularly caused me a lot of headache and I had so many decisions to make (some will definitely be criticised but you can�t please everyone hm? J)
I think I also need to thank Mister Stahlberg. Even though I didn�t really use his technique of rendering clouds � the images of his tutorial helped me to understand clouds a bit better.
�Paradise Bird�s Dream of Freedom� has been in my mind for quite a while now. It�s probably a bit autobiographic. I will soon have the chance to finally do what I always wanted to do and it feels like total freedom to me. (There you go - a little cheesyness from my side )
Also � the timing might be a bit akward but I was working on this for quite a while now � so forgive me for another �Girl on a Swing�-Piece @_@
You might find some hidden meanings and little details � they don�t have to be obvious and it�s not a big deal if you miss them J
Some things this painting proofed to me:
Painting is an incredible amount of brainwork
Colours are evil
Soap bubbles don�t act like magnifying classes
Clouds are fun to render and play with
Chocolate flavoured popcorn can bring me through the day
My cats don�t like me sitting at the comp painting all day long
I need to learn how to use Painter
I have to lose my fear of painting landscapes
Fully done in Photoshop 7
EDITS(thanks for the inputs):
- reworked the lightsource in her face
- reworked shadows around her tighs and knees
- fixed lenght of her lower left arm (from viewer)
- decided to sharpen the cage again a little bit more due to popular request