Loish

TUTORIAL // creating interesting & flowy shapes

Here it is: this month’s tutorial! It’s about shape design, or more specifically, creating interesting and flowy shapes. Basically, it covers how I approach shapes, and how I use them to enhance movement and appeal. I tend to approach this intuitively so in order to explain how I use shapes, I really had to dig into my influences and artistic journey to figure out where I picked these ‘automatic’ habits from! for those who find that stuff a bit tedious, the demo begins around 25 minut...

EARLY ACCESS // portrait sketches

One thing that I’ve kind of missed doing lately was some quick stylized portraits. I’ve been doing a lot of studies lately, but I kind of lost my flow when it comes to rougher portraits in my own style. I feel like I fall back on realism too much and have lost the ability to turn them into “loish characters” when I draw them. So I got myself a new small moleskine book and did a few portraits over the last weeks. These are some of my earlier attempts where I wasn’t really sure where ...

EARLY ACCESS // forest

It’s been a while since I’ve drawn a scene that isn’t a photo study! The first leaves of spring are starting to appear here, so I felt an urge to draw a lush, dense, green setting. And of course indulge in some soothing flowy shapes, which are always so satisfying to draw for me! I recorded the process of this one, so let me know if you’d like to see a process video for it. 

UPDATE // video issues solved!

Hey patrons! Just a quick update about the vimeo problems I posted about earlier this week. I knew that Patreon was working on a video hosting tool directly through the platform, which is currently in Beta, so I reached out to them. They generously made this tool available to me and also migrated all of my existing videos directly to Patreon, saving me so much stress and anxiety! They were so incred...

EARLY ACCESS // anatomy sketches

More sketchbook stuff! This time some pose and anatomy studies, as always using the amazing Senshistock as a reference for the poses. I’m becoming quite addicted to the blending stump, so much so that I’m always thinking about using it, even when I’m not drawing. I just see a shadow on the ground and imagine drawing it and immediately blending it out. I just keep thinking about how satisfying it is! Do you gu...

EARLY ACCESS // breeze

Finally got around to finishing this cloud painting I’ve been working on for a while! My aim with this one was to really capture the specific type of volumes that you can find in these fluffy clouds. It’s really tempting for me to use a soft brush and just smooth everything out, but that takes away the effect I’m going for, so I had to maintain focus on these cauliflower-like forms and balance the...

UPDATE // problems with Vimeo

Hey lovely patrons! I have some frustrating news. Today I received an e-mail from Vimeo saying that I have to upgrade to a $3500/year plan or find a different place to post my videos within 7 days, because they say my videos are using up too much bandwidth. I use Vimeo for my Patreon videos, and they only get a few hundred views each, so I find this highly suspicious. I've also had a lot of issues with their embedding tools in the past (many of you have said that the videos were not viewable ...

EARLY ACCESS // sketchbook session

It’s been really sunny weather here lately, even warm enough to spend the afternoon in the backyard! So I sat down to have a drawing session in the sun for the first time this year. I missed these kind of sessions! Here are some faces, drawn with a mix of HB mechanical pencil, blending stump and eraser. All of my pencil sketches have been super inspired by Eliza Ivanova’s work lately, especially how she approa...

EARLY ACCESS // poppies

Finally got around to finishing the WIP I posted last month! It’s heavily inspired by the art of Leyendecker. I tried not to divert too much from the rough version when finalizing, to keep that painterly sculpted look that I was going for. So in essence it hasn’t changed much from the previous version even though it took a lot of time :’) Ah well! Hope you like it!

EARLY ACCESS // head studies

Diving back into Procreate for this one! I love using textured brushes with this app, so here are some head studies with some nice, gritty, traditional-feeling brushes. They are mostly Maxpacks brushes, specifically the gouache set! I feel like procreate and the ipad are great tools for just doodling in a more 'traditional way' like this. 

WIP // March WIPs

Hey lovely patrons! Just like in January, I’ve been working on some rough setups for some digital paintings that I hope to finalize soon! I’ve been wanting to make an icy environment piece and also something with water. Which one do you like the most?

I aso made a little bit of progress on the cloud painting that I posted earlier this year! I am trying to make the clouds to look super fluffy a...

UPDATE // March is around the corner

The shortest month of the year is almost over! Here's a little review of how this month has gone for me:

FOCUS ON ARCHITECTURE

Drawing buildings and architecture has always been a huge weak point for me! I find that my workflow for characters just doesn’t translate so well to architecture, and that when I draw buildings, it tends to be too much a copy of my reference image and not as expressive as I’d like it to be. I really want to improve in this area and ge...

TUTORIAL // Finalizing a painting without over-rendering

It’s time for this month’s tutorial! It’s on finalizing a painting without over-rendering it. This is something many of you have requested, and it’s a very common struggle for any digital artist! It can be super tempting to keep rendering your painting for a long time but feel disappointed with the end result despite all the time and effort you put in. This tutorial has some techniques and ideas for your rendering process that can help you tackle this issue.

I mention my 2022-02-24 11:41:25 +0000 UTC View Post

WIP // poppies

Here’s the current state of a painting I’m working on right now! It’s heavily inspired by one of my favorite artists, J.C Leyendecker. I just felt his urge to channel the aesthetic of his art into a pinup type painting and I’m really enjoying the process of rendering it. It’s so much fun to lean heavily into the painterly style. I’d say it needs about 1 or 2 more sessions before I can call it finished.

By the way, I just finished filming this month’s tutorial yesterday! It...

EARLY ACCESS // more buildings!

More building sketches, this time in Photoshop, which instantly felt more natural and intuitive to me than drawing in Procreate. One of these is based on a town in the South of France, taken by me:

…and the other one is based on a photo of Stone Town in Zanzibar, which I have been to in the past but didn't take any good reference images! I found this specific picture on unsplash (2022-02-18 09:55:42 +0000 UTC View Post

EARLY ACCESS // whisper

Here’s a new digital painting that I created pretty spontaneously! I was working on other stuff and had a sudden idea for a sketch, so I started sketching it out on my laptop with my intuos pro. It’s been a long time since I drew with a USB tablet instead of a screen tablet, but I think it made the sketch a bit looser which was a good thing! At first I went with a purple ‘swirl’, but I was kind of struggling with it. I showed it to Arjen and he said that he liked the vulnerability of ...

PROCESS VIDEO // abundance, part 3

Here's part 3 of the process for abundance! Part 1 is here, and part 2 is here. Just like the previous videos, this has been sped up 1.5 times.

This stage of the painting process is all about finalizing and so...

PROCESS VIDEO // abundance, part 2

Here's part 2 of the process for abundance! Part 1 is right here. Just like the previous video, this has been sped up 1.5 times. 

At this stage of the painting, the ponytail was bothering me. I felt like it created too much empty space in the composition, because it was so tall and high. I wanted i...

PROCESS VIDEO // abundance, part 1

Here’s the process video for the Abundance painting I made last year! This is how the painting turned out:

I thought this was a good one to show you guys since it shows my process for creating a character-based digital painting and how I go about finalizing and rendering my artwork to create a finished look. The full process took about 5 hours, so I sped the process up 1.5 times and split it...

PROCESS VIDEO // procreate buildings

I threw together a quick video with the exported timelapses from my recent sketch sessions! Hope it's helpful in some way.

Here are the reference images in order of appearance in the process video: 

EARLY ACCESS // more buildings in procreate

Back to drawing buildings in Procreate! Still struggling to make them expressive and dynamic. These studies are based on a picture I took in Annecy:

For this one, I tried out a workflow where I created the basic structure and color for the building first, before proceeding with the details. I liked this ‘base version’ a lot, but felt ambivalent as soon as I started detailing it in my usual...

EARLY ACCESS // buildings in procreate

Drew these sketches to try and tackle two of my biggest art frustrations! The first of which is my (in)ability to draw buildings. I have a really hard time capturing the detail, perspective, and sense of scale. I want to get better at drawing them, so I did a quick study of a picture I took in Porto, which only reminded me how much I struggle with this stuff and how much I dislike the outcome of my workflow. Then I did two quick studies of two african buildings, based on pictures I took in Ma...

UPDATE // first month of 2022 down!

We're already on the last day of January! Here's a little overview of how this month has gone for me:

SETTING NEW GOALS

It’s the start of a new year! In 2021, I finished off a lot of paintings that I had lying around for a while, and am starting this year with a clean slate. It is kind of daunting to start with nothing, and so I’ve been spending some time setting some goals for the kind of paintings I want to make. In 2021, I mostly took on new challenges by t...

WIPS // winter painting ideas

I was out of ideas for new digital paintings, so I sat down to conceptualize a few new ones! I like to sit down and brainstorm a few different ones in one sitting, so that I have them on hand to finalize at a later point. Which one should I finish first?

EARLY ACCESS // tree studies

Here are some studies that match the topic of this month’s tutorial! Here in the Netherlands, we have a tree called a “knotwilg” which literally means “knot willow.” It’s a kind of willow tree that is kept small and short, and has its branches removed every so often so that it stays small and chunky (otherwise it splits open from the weight of its own branches). What I love about these trees is that they look like little characters. I wanted to make a few studies that show the str...

TUTORIAL // stylizing trees & plants

Happy Monday everyone! It’s time for the monthly tutorial! This one is on drawing stylized plants & trees, and the main reason I chose this topic was because it touches on a few other subjects that I wanted to discuss. The main topics covered in this tutorial are:

• Which kinds of reference images are helpful / unhelpful for creating stylized studies

• How to depart from the reference image to create a stylized look

• How to avoid falling into automati...

PROCESS VIDEO // red robin

Here’s the process for the Red Robin drawing that I made earlier this month! It was a fairly short process (less than 2 hours of drawing time in total)  so I made the video in real-time, but you can speed it up or down using the gear button on the player bar.

Early in the process you’ll see me drawing a bunch of different poses. This something I do a lot: searching for the right pose...

EARLY ACCESS // winter landscapes

Sat down to do some quick landscape studies! I’ve really been enjoying the winter this year. I usually dread it because I always feel cold and depressed in the winter time, but lately I’ve been learning to enjoy it more. I feel like there’s a unique beauty to the world during the winter, something about those muted colors and the crisp feeling of the air. Here are some studies based on some of the winter scenery we get here in the Netherlands - not as much snow and ice, but lots of clou...

EARLY ACCESS // stone portraits

I wanted to try some portrait studies where I took the color / surface texture of an iridescent stone, and applied this treatment to a face. The left one is inspired by reference photos of moonstone, and the right one by rainbow quartz. It was fun to do, I think it would be fun to expand on this idea for a digital painting in the future! Have a great weekend everyone ❤

EARLY ACCESS // red

My first drawing of 2022! Gotta get back into it after taking a few weeks off for the holidays and doing a bunch of boring tasks that I needed to get out of the way. Here’s a very red drawing, trying to play around with a harsher color combination than I usually do! How is your year going so far? Have you made some new drawings yet?