Trying...

That's what I'm doing. As I said, I'm striving to improve my artwork in many ways... Here is my first major attempt:

Now, let me tell you what I did WRONG here. Her posing is terrible (as usual, I just cant get it right) HOWEVER, I did better than usual... Secondly, she's aiming wrong, I tried to make it seem like she's aiming where the dragon is GOING to be, but it just didn't strike people that way... Thirdly, I seriously messed something up when saving my progress on this and the bow, arrow, wheat and ground got accidentally fused into a layer and in trying to edit them all together, I made a lot of mistakes... When I drew the mountains they were very 2-Dimensional and in trying to make them 3D, I made a lot of mistakes... I then tried hiding all of my mistakes with lens blur, bright lighting, overlays, effect layers, and effectively took a hug shit right on top of it, just to polish it off.... So, it started off quite good, I started with the girl and was happy with a lot of my shading and colouring, but it eventually went in the wrong direction... But that's okay! I wanted to learn from this and I have. I'm just going to let it lay as a failure and move on, undeterred (well, slightly deterred) to the next piece... Also, yes, with Iron man 3 having come out, you CAN expect me to do another Iron Man painting... Even though I said I'd stop using references so much, I just have to do another... Wouldn't you agree?

I should also thank Iron Man 3 for my latest influx in views, aside from my best friend's DDoS attacks, most of my views are coming from people trying to find out more about all the cool suits they saw in Iron Man 3, and I know, they're pretty hard to find, but you shouldnt go by my 'Men of Iron' or whatever I called it, as reference because those were all drawn from the awesome Hasbro figures I'm collecting... So, I'll help you out, I can give you the names of a few and then you can google those or whatever... 

Okay, so the new poster armor is no longer Mark VIII (8), but is Mk 42... Then the other armors you see in the film are known as 'Shotgun', 'Hammerhead', 'Iron Patriot', 'Igor', 'Starboost', 'Heart-breaker', 'Red Snapper', 'Striker' (one of my favourites), 'Silver Centurion' and there is a black and gold one which you see in the film, which is very similar to the Stealth Operations armor from the comics so... Maybe it's that? There are more, but that's all I know as of yet, unfortunately...

Also, I've been working on a bit of comission work lately, a bit of stuff for Lovebuzz clothing again and a map for a writer's book, check them out:

A new direction.

I've come to a decision... within the next few days I will remove the bestiary page. These works were repetitive and were getting me nowhere, the story I was building was mediocre and cliché, I want to focus on working above and beyond, doing something new every day, as I have been recently, and working on developing some level of skill as a 3D artist too.
I've been stuck at the same level in my artwork for quite a while now without making any real improvements. That ends now. The bestiary and all related projects are, at most, being put on hiatus for now, I may revisit in the future for a total overhaul of all creatures (and getting rid of some of the crappier ones). Until then, the bestiary WILL be preserved right here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.574438495902350.1073741834.566268886719311&type=3
If you choose to follow my journey as a hastily progressing digital artist, I thank you for sticking by and I look forward to my future works.

I don't like to make a post without any pictures, this is an art blog after all, so here, have some little bits and pieces I've been doing lately...

Thats about it, expect a post soon with more interesting things :P 

Design Overhaul

I've completely redesigned the blog to accommodate my new logo. Hope you guys like it. Here's some of the things I've done playing around with my logo:

STAGgering into space

*cough* excuse the pun...
I spent all day and a little bit of last night on this and I'm actually pretty proud of it, there's a few things I'm not sure of, but It's quite good.

I like this so much (and stags) that I'm going to work on FINALLY coming up with a logo including a gold-horned albino stag.
I'd REALLY like it if I could get some feedback on this, on Twitter or here... Or even my facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Thedoubletap

Thanks :)

Another painting

This was supposed to be really good, it was supposed to have the beautiful lighting and colours that my work always lacks but... Yeah...
It's an Anendeus fight an ADU (a.k.a dragon)... I did this, however, whilst pulling an all-nighter... And somewhere between rushing to finish it and being really tired, I lost direction with it... The pose is terrible 'looks like he's ice-skating', apparently the lighting isn't great either... I know I can do better and this is really disappointing...

Some feedback would be appreciated, I'm really going to crack down and work on my painting for the moment, so, with me doing that and the 2 commissions I have to do lately I'm not going to be updting my bestiary or concepts much for a while.

I got a lot to tell you!

First of all, I want to say a huge thank you because I've finally reached 2000 views, and a lot quicker than I received 1000, so keep em coming :D

Secondly, I have no new creatures for the bestiary (I know! hat a lazy bugger I am!) But I do have this:

Another armour design, this time, for the Aggressive Defence Unit ( and I misspelled defence, what a tool). I'd have more to show you, but I've started like 4 designs (including an Engineering and Repair Unit and a huge spaceship) and haven't finished any of them... I have more stuff to show you though, off-topic procrastination stuff though....

I did some fan-art of the lovably quirky Merrill from Dragon Age 2, this turned out great, if I may say so myself!

And uhmm... Oh... I think that's it... I guess I am being rather lazy lately... Well, thanks for checking these out! :)

New creature, painting AND Maggot Hank.

As usual, I have a new creature design, this one is based on a Wasp and a Firefly:

For more creatures and in-depth informations on each of them, please, check out my bestiary: thedbltapbestiary.blogspot.co.uk

Secondly, this new creature has made an appearance, alongside the Field Scientist Unit in the first of what should be many illustrative paintings based around my new, ever-growing world, story thing...
Here it is, I do hope you enjoy it:

That is not all I have in store for you, as it happens, out of boredom and procrastination this week I have created my own horror villain. For obvious reasons, I have named him, Maggot Hank. the idea was to made him as vile and insane as possible, I did practically the opposite as he has failed to come across as vile to the extent of which I had hoped. At any rate, I spent a good long while on this and I, again, do sincerely hope you enjoy it. Here it is, for your viewing pleasure, or displeasure, should you be squeamish:

That would be all. thank you greatly for reading.

New creatures for my bestiary and Field Scientist Unit concept

Okay, first things first, new creatures:

As usual, you can check out these and other creatures in detail on my bestiary: http://thedbltapbestiary.blogspot.co.uk/

Secondly, as the world I'm creating expands a story has come into fruition. Here's a small run-down, I dont want to give too much information as it's prone to a lot of change.
For starters, the Earth we all know, runs out of resources and Microsoft and Google team up and buy out NASA, using NASAs resources and knowledge and their combined knowledge, they successfully relocate Earth's inhabitants to 'Second Earth'. The only people who don't go with them are the religious who choose to 'go down with the ship'. Obviously, 2 mating couples of all creatures are brought with them (and a few more in the form of people's pets). The losses are great but a few centuries and a lot of hard work in, Second Earth is well sustained.
At this point, another occupiable planet is found with a single super-continent on it. The Earth's council and the super-company combination of microsoft and google move to this Third earth, as well as the people with enough money for a relocation.
Now these creatures you've been seeing in my bestiary, are the creatures on a possible 4th Earth. The 3rd Earth sends exploration teams to the possible 4th earth to discover the creatures and occupiability of the planet.
Here, I have a concept for the 'Field Scientist Units' who are scientists who explore the new planets. You can expect more of these, for pilots, engineers, soldiers, vehicles, weapons, technology, etc. When I have more stuff created I'll expand on the Bestiary page.

Thanks for checking it out.

Aquassilis and NEW new bestiary format

Okay, so first things first, I added a new creature to my bestiary:

For more creatures check out my bestiary: http://thedbltapbestiary.blogspot.co.uk/
It also contains a great deal of information about all my creatures. Please check it out, I've but so much effort into it all.

Secondly, even though it was only 2 posts ago that I changed the style of my bestiary, I found the old style drab and mediocre, so I've changed the style again to something more fitting, it's nice and sci-fi, as though an exploration team from the future is recording information of these creatures on a new planet...
Here, again, is Lariza as an example, All the information is the same, it just looks better :)

Thanks for viewing :)

Woof Woof

So, I've got something other than creatures for my bestiary today, I'd like to talk about Dogs, one of my favourite things.
My real name, as some of you know, is Connor, and by many definitions, especially Gaelic, Connor means 'Dog Lover'.... No, not in that way ¬¬
And by all means, for as long as I can remember I have loved the company of dogs, and seemingly, they've enjoyed my company too. Over many years I've had many dogs. Bruno, Bobby, Tara, Scrumpy, Diesel...

I have no pictures of Bruno, but he was the first dog we ever had, we had him from his birth right to his very last day on earth, where he was so ill he could hardly move. He was a lovely dog and enjoyed nothing more than a good cuddle, until over the years he grew bitter in his old age and liked to just hide behind the armchair with his trove of stolen materials from around the house...

The second dog we ever got, was bought for my older sister. My stepdad was in a pet shop one day when Bobby, a very small puppy at this time, plodded over and fell asleep on his foot. He HAD to buy him at this point. So bobby was brought home as a surprise for my sister, who loved him to no end... For a while, over the years his 'novelty wore off' with her and I ended up being the one who walked him and fed him and looked after him, and soon, in time me and Bobby had a great bond. After some time, Helen moved to my dad's house, taking Bobby with her, she's left to live in her own home with her child and Bobby has been left with my dad. Recently I've moved in with my dad and now Bobby is once again, in my care, here's a picture of him I took recently:

He's getting old now, bless him :(

The third dog we got, was again for my older sister, she got this dog, Tara, whilst living with my dad, and so she still lives with him and in turn me now. I don't have a picture of her, but I have this painting I did for my dad:

She's a Staffordshire Bull-terrier. She's fat and makes noises like a pig and she's generally unpleasant towards Bobby, see that scar under his eye on the earlier pic? That was her. I don't like her very much, but it's hard for me to really HATE a dog...

The FOURTH dog I got was called Scrumpy. Of all my dogs I loved her the most. She would sleep on my bed and insisted on cuddling me. All the time. She was cute, gentle and really motherly... for a dobermann. We got her from a rescue in Wales, she was called Tara by her original owners, but being that we already had a Tara, we re-named her after an alcoholic beverage she stole from my Mother's friend. Here are some pictures of her:

 She was clearly neglected by her previous owners, she'd been bred so much that her teets hung very low, she'd had her tail and 'ankle claws?' cut off. She also got a cyst at one point which needed surgery to be removed. She went through a lot. Two years ago, I went on a trip to the lake district with college, and when I came home my Father informed me she'd died of a heart attack. I still miss her today, especially when I'm having a hard time. And lately, I've been missing her a lot, A. Because it's nearly around that time when she passed away, and B. I'm having a very bad time lately. Because of this, I was thinking of her the other night and decided to create this:

I know, this mediocre painting is hardly enough to merit this huge blog post... But it means a lot to me. She meant a lot to me... And I just wanted to share it with you...

Moving on, my FIFTH dog, who I sadly had to give away when we moved recently, is called Diesel. Gladly, my best friend agreed to take him so I still see him every week or so. Diesel is a really nice dog and he means well and I do love him, but he's got far too much energy and the giddiness of a small dog... But he's not small enough to be that giddy. I have plenty of pictures of diesel, because after Scrumpy was gone, I wished I'd took more pictures of her, so here's a few of Diesel:

Thanks for reading :)

New creatures and bestiary format

I've added some new creatures to the Bestiary, Celippurus, Celemuro, Celentis, Saxularis, Saxumaris and Crystaris.

To view more creatures, descriptions of these and more, check out my bestiary: http://thedbltapbestiary.blogspot.co.uk/

Speaking of which, I've started using a new format for my bestiary entries, here is Lariza as an example:

This new format has all the usual stuff (i.e Stage, Name, Entry number and Image) with a few extra bits (i.e How to pronounce the darned things, a Height in Feet and Inches, Habitat and 3 small images showing all the stages of their particular pack). Be sure to check them out! Thanks :)