Finished Work - Color

Winter Holidays Card 2007 by Synnabar

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 17:47:24 -0000

Merry Christmas, Joyous Yule, Happy Holidays, Season's Greetings, and Happy New Year! This is an unashamedly, unabashedly anatomically incorrect card; of COURSE lions, rabbits, and songbirds don't really look like that! And certainly you'd never find them all together peacefully in real life; however, my theme for this year's card was "my favorite things" (including fluffy-maned lions, birds, knotwork and bunnies), so I chose to do it in my favorite-to-do "not-quite-real" style, and I'm allowed to have my fantasies, right? :D It's a variation on my actual printed card, which had a different border and was printed on parchment-patterned cardstock. Original pencil drawing is in my Scraps gallery. I hope your holidays are wonderful! I didn't have time to send out many cards this year, but if you sent me one, you got one from me. I tried to do that, at least!

Medium: Mechanical pencil, Bristol, Photoshop
Tags: rabbit lion songbird

Wild Cat Cards - "Golden" Leopard by Synnabar

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:43:55 -0000

"Golden" - Panthera pardus pardus: There's been so much gorgeous art for the Wild Cats of the World Card Deck posted already; still, I wanted to hold off on mine until they were available for sale (NOW THEY ARE! Check the link below). So, here is the first of the two cards I did; this is a muscular, male tawny leopard (from Africa, with a Masai-type shield), to contrast with the sleeker, female melanistic leopard (from India, with a temple-like sculpture piece). Yes, there's sort of a yin-yang thing going on. Please don't expect complete anatomical accuracy in my pieces; the art director encouraged us to draw in our own style and stylize things, so I most certainly did (that's always more fun for me). Decks available for order HERE: http://rozgibson.huzzah.com/Deck/

Medium: Mechanical pencil, Bristol, Photoshop
Tags:

Wild Cat Cards - Black Leopard by Synnabar

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:20:51 -0000

Black/melanistic leopard - Panthera pardus fusca: There's been so much gorgeous art for the Wild Cats of the World Card Deck posted already; still, I wanted to hold off on mine until they were available for sale (NOW THEY ARE! Check the link below). So, here is the second of the two cards I did; this is a female melanistic leopard (from India, with a temple-like sculpture piece), to contrast with the more muscular, male tawny leopard (from Africa, with a Masai-type shield). Yes, there's sort of a yin-yang thing going on. Please don't expect complete anatomical accuracy in my pieces; the art director encouraged us to draw in our own style and stylize things, so I most certainly did (that's always more fun for me). Decks available for order HERE: http://rozgibson.huzzah.com/Deck/

Medium: Mechanical Pencil, Bristol, Photoshop
Tags: leopard leopard black Panthera pardus fusca

Green Spirit I by Synnabar

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 01:31:08 -0000

A piece from my Pen Sketchbook Project, cleaned up a bit in Photoshop, with a parchment-like background and frame added. This is just a green tree spirit/antlered dude; he's not Cernunnos or Herne. I used a wet brush to blend the ink a little. His eyebrows are inspired by a book's character who had a "permanently surprised expression", and his face - like the other Green Spirit Things in that sketchbook - is rather like my old Eastern Influence faces. NOTE: Just wanted to add that he's not based on something called "Endless Forest"; he's a combination of the things I listed above, and any resemblance is coincidence. For more information on the Project, please see here.

Medium: Mixed media (digital, RSVP pen)
Tags: deer spirit antlers woods

Leopards Card by Synnabar

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 17:12:41 -0000

For the Totem Cards Project (http://community.livejournal.com/totemcards), here's the Leopards Card: leopard (Panthera pardus), clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa), and snow leopard (Uncia uncia). For this card, I wanted to try using acrylic paint (which I haven't used full-scale in years), in a different style than my usual (LOTS of hairs) - but I struggled with this a lot (apparently my acrylics are too heavy-bodied for fine detail work, plus I need practice), so this needed a LOT of retouching. Suffice it to say, it was quite a learning experience (and there are many things I would change if I re-did it), though still an enjoyable one (leopards are among my favorite animals of all)! There are many variations in the various spotting patterns and coat colors of these cats, though I tried to go with more typical colorations for these. Acrylic, Micron pen, gold ink, graphite, on cold-press illustration board. Touchups in Photoshop CS.

Medium: Mixed media
Tags: snow leopard leopard leopard clouded

Arch'Teryx Badge by Synnabar

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 01:12:52 -0000

For the very kind and patient Arch'teryx. Yet more practice with drawing gryphons!

Medium: Graphite, Photoshop CS
Tags:

Thylacines Card by Synnabar

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 20:50:22 -0000

For the Totem Cards Project (http://community.livejournal.com/totemcards), here is my card for the Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus). I went back to my usual style (symbolic & stylized) and my favorite painting materials (gouache on watercolor paper) for this. I love to paint skulls, so I added one in, to symbolize the fact that it is considered extinct (though I secretly hope there are some hidden and alive somewhere out there). The eyes are empty for that reason, too. Additionally, the skull provides a definite "up" direction (so it has, for totem deck purposes, a "reverse" if it is drawn from the deck upside-down). I looked up hundreds of references for the thylacine, and did it in my own way (with a little bit of artistic license). It was a lot of fun to do all that research (mmm *drools*), especially since I've always been fascinated by them. It's mostly gouache on Strathmore watercolor paper, with a bit of pencil and Micron pen. Slight touchups in Photoshop.

Medium: Mixed Media
Tags: thylacine skull

Leopard Shapeshifter for the BITN Portfolio by Synnabar

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 19:46:17 -0000

This a slightly different version of the leopard shapeshifter I did for Kyoht's very cool Bump in the Night portfolio. It's pencil, with the border created in Illustrator, and colored in Photoshop. His ornamentation is inspired by African jewelry and fabric patterns, though it's not based on any actual pieces; I designed them myself.

Medium: Pencil, Illustrator 10, Photoshop CS
Tags: leopard shapeshifter skulls

WYWH (March) - Rhodesian Ridgeback by Synnabar

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 19:39:31 -0000

Here's my piece for the Wish You Were Here Calendar Project (http://coyote-tangent.com/wywh/index.htm) I was asked to do the Rhodesian Ridgeback, a large dog well-known for the distinct ridge of hair that grows in the opposite direction of the rest of the fur on the back. They were often called "African Lion Hounds" as well - thus the lion with him. It's supposed to be glossy and like a vacation postcard, so of course the dog is dressed in his Zulu-inspired finest, and the lion is a bit "fluffy"; obviously, in real life, things are a lot less pretty. There will be a stamp in the upper right and a line of text along the bottom; I left the areas less-detailed there for that reason.

Medium: Pencil, P{hotoshop CS
Tags: lion dog rhodesian ridgeback zulu