Jenny Dolfen

More Oxonmoot

I got 11 pieces done at Oxonmoot, and one is left - Fingolfin! If anyone would like him, shoot me a message. ❤️ (EDIT: gone!)

I'm still rather jet lagged (if that’s possible by train) and exhausted, and had school again this morning, so forgive me if I don't have to add much to the pictures and captions. It's been an incredible weekend, and it was so, so cool to see so many of you there!

The poll results for September art are in, and a young Glorfindel with baby Asfaloth won...

Some Oxford impressions from my first Oxonmoot!

I'm having a wonderful time here! I did a workshop on watercolour on the iPad yesterday, and I hope the workshops will be uploaded to YouTube at sone point 💚

The live sketches I did were all sold almost immediately, so I probably won’t have many to put up here later. 😊

"I'm scared, Will"

"This is so much bigger than you and me."

Liam making me cry once again with his role-playing. 

Drawing this, I was reminded of a hilarious Cicero quote. Seeing his very short son-in-law wearing a sword, he asked, "Who girded my son-in-law to a sword?"
I bet Derrig's son-in-law was smaller than Cicero's.

Believe it or not, this was painted entirely with a NEW brush set I made while fixing up the old one. O_o I'll keep adding to it until I have thirty or so and then ...

Round robin

... and a very poofy one at that.

I wanted to challenge myself to do a more painterly piece with my new brushes, to see if they work without lineart as well - and they do! 

I wanted to have different styles in the product photos for Etsy and such. I always find it easier to decide whether or not I can use any given set of brushes* when I see them used in different ways. 

*Ah, who am I kidding? Still kind of shaking my head at the several hundreds of brushes I've bo...

It's here! 😱

It's finished, you guys!! I am SO FRIGGIN' PROUD of this thing. It's available in the Patreon shop right here. Forest Guardian Patrons can access it for free! Alas, I was not able to make it available for the older tiers, so if you're on one of the older tiers of €10 or higher and you want it, just drop me a line and I'll send you a download link!

I ...

Saviour Blade of the Tempest

"You are hope. You are Orym. You are Orym, Saviour Blade of the Tempest." 

I do hope this sweet little man has had his well-earned factory reset at home and can go on being a hero now... Although the "I'll see you soon" he said at Will's grave was HARD. I does feel as if Liam is hell-bent on having another character of his die a hero's death. 

And NO, Orym, don't think I'll do all this detail on your armour everytime I draw you. I'll have to come up with a shorthand. XD&...

I literally cannot get over how wonderful these brushes are.

I have said this a few times now, but: I keep being floored by how cool these are. And the best thing is that I can now just fix anything I don't like about a brush I'm using, instead of saying "meh" and buying another set that I don't like. 

That water effect at the bottom! Look at it!!!11oneeleventyone

*clears throat*

Okay, I will now see if I can record a proper video to use these, and then they should go online soon... 

Fingon enjoying… a blank page right now =)

I found a great reference pic for this, and look at him! I also perfected my pencil brushes in the process, hee. That thin black pencil brush is perfect now. It's so cool to just make and tweak whatever I need now!
Next up, colouring! 🤩

I freaking love these brushes!

Almost two weeks with little sleep, reading and watching tutorials on brush-making, fiddling and and frequently dreaming of brushes, haha. But it paid off! Look at what these babies can do! 😍 

I will never need any other brushes again. I really managed to build everything I need now (which absolutely doesn’t mean I won't make another few dozen, hee). A lot of these also make use of my watercolour textures (but built into the brushes this time). I'm at over forty brushes now, n...

Quickie: Orym’s new clothes

I'm happy to report that most of my brushes do more or less what I want of them, but I need to take that blending brush for a quick conversation behind the garden shed. Not working at all. I will definitely have to do a lot of playtesting before I put those out to the public. 

I'm also happy to report that I'm keeping Orym's open sandals (can't deprive the viewership of his toesie-woesies!) and one sash will keep doing its thing, no matter how he tries to tuck it inside his armour....

Brushes sneak peak, and Orym waiting for clothes

So I managed to spend a whole week creating brushes. I'm at 37 now (the set's been completely reworked several times) and I haven’t even playtested them yet! But I've done so many that I've been looking for for years - I could kick myself for the dozens of brush sets I've bought because I thought there might be two brushes in there that I could use…

Something I will absolutely do is make a reference sheet for all of these (as well as a video) so people know how they're used. There h...

In development: My first watercolour brush set for Procreate! 🤯

Okay, so I've wanted to do this for years - make my own watercolour brushes. All the options are so daunting! But now I’ve worked my way through a few tutorials and the handbook and it's in the works.
Specifically, people keep asking me which brushes I use, and my answer has always been "thirteen different ones from sixteen different sets", which is not helpful at all. Now I've set down and learned to make all the brushes (23 right now) I can’t live without, and managed to co...

Time for heroics, coloured

(I thought I had a timestamp for you, but I can't find the scene - it's even possible I imagined it i this combination, and mashed together several things in one image. But Orym jumped from two tall buildings and FCG went "He's doing it! He's doing his Aramenté!" at least once, so there. ;)) 

I used my own watercolour textures for the stonework here again, and I 2023-08-08 14:29:39 +0000 UTC View Post

Time for heroics (and Oxonmoot!)

Just 24 hours after his mum told him not to be a hero... but when he sees Imogen down on the ground, being mauled by a 13-foot-tall fiend, of course Orym jumps down from a tower. 

Originally, this would just have been Orym jumping/running, but I was at my father-in-law's 80th birthday yesterday (which resembled a wannabe carnival session with the whole shebang including a polonaise and "Schunkeln"),...

Sketchalong C3_E67! (Spoilers)

Such a great episode! Fearne and Chetney trying to distract a bunch of devils by feigning a werewolf attack, Orym giving a flowery thumbs-up, him and Laudna pulling Imogen out of harm’s way, and Teren Klask, champion of Asmodeus and Fearne’s latest love interest. Someone needs to put that girl on a leash.
Also, a more refined sketch of Orym preparing to jump off a tower. O_o This will be polished up later. 

Also, results for this month's sketch poll are in! The winning sket...

Etsy shop coupon code

Hey my dear squirrels, just as a reminder and for the new arrivals: Your discount code for my Etsy shop is 10FORSQUIRRELS! I don't change it often so feel free to write it down for later, too. 

<3 

Flower power dream team finished

I was going to tone down the colours a bit here, too, but Fearne told me NO. I love this one to bits. 

Dream Team lineart!

I love these two so much! So much fun, in and out of battle. :D 

I spent hours micro-changing Orym's face until every bit of it looked horrible, erased it completely, and redrew it without guidelines. Reminder that sometimes you need to kill your darlings. 

New in the works: Dream Team

I'm leaving the Caleb-in-the-library piece for next week for all the start of term conferences… So here’s a sketch of Fearne and Orym in battle. They’re such fun, with his clever manoevres and her wanton destruction. 😂

Fun fact: for really dynamic battle poses, Capoeira has you covered.
Even funnier fact: as a student, I tried out Capoeira, for exactly one day. I discovered muscles I had never known I possessed, and the next day, when I dropped one of my gloves at uni, I br...

When mom forgot to close the front door again (new)

Adventures of a Quarterling: Baby Orym goes exploring. Gosh, this episode had it all. We got a description of Orym's nappies. There was no way I wasn’t going to draw him in it.

Updated with a quick slapdash colouring job! I'm always looking for a quick way to capture an idea that doesn't warrant two days of work to complete… 

Lineart version:

He'd be very proud of you - finished

I remembered in a conversation on Twitter that I wanted to try a more held back colouring style to let this pretty lineart shine, and I'm really happy with the result!
I also kept the triplets' (and thus Will's) darker skin, which works fine in contrast to the girls' blond hair. I still hope Will can remain dark-haired. Unless they see a portrait of him anywhere, it's likely we'll never get a description of him, which I'd be fine with, so I can't be proven wrong again 😅

"He'd be very proud"

Orym with his sisters. F.C.G. was very, very confused. 😁

So this piece won the inofficial "draw me first!" contest. The one with Keyleth in bed wasn't well balanced, I'll put it on hold for the time being. But this one I really love. It's such a sweet moment between very unlikely siblings (in law) who absolutely don't care how weird their relationship looks to outsiders.

In redesigning Leeta, she somehow ended up looking like P!nk, which I can totally get behind.

I have too many wips than is good for me

An episode like the last one PLUS a mini holiday is a bad idea - so many scenes, so little time, so much sketching on the train!

Above: "Allow me to be your blade."
Modelled again by my lovely daughter. I put a packet of tissues on the bookshelf next to the bed when we shot the ref, at 3'3, so I'd know where Orym's head would be. 😂

Below: Orym with his sisters-in-law, Leeta and Maeve. Leeta pats his shoulder and quietly says, "He'd be very proud of you." Very probably refer...

Mini Sketchalong: Orym comes home

I got up at 4 AM today to catch my first ever Critical Role episode as it aired! I managed two sketches but had to go to bed again when the break came up. Getting older sucks. XD

Editing with new images as I finish the episode…

So far: Orym reuniting with his mum, Keyleth on her sickbed, a redesign of Leeta, Orym's sister-in-law, baby Orym playing with wooden toys that were actually made by Chetney, and the undead they fight in the Grey Valley.

Well, we got SO much stuff t...

Study time - lineart!

This is going to be one of the most involved pieces I've done on my life, and I love it so much!

Patreon now offers a shop front for digital products, and I decided to give this a try. I've put the full resolution lineart of this up in my brand new Patre...

Study time (new sketch, constructed this time)

There were too many problems with the first sketch, from wonky perspective to the fact that it was based on AI. (Sad fact: even free-use databanks like Pixabay are now inundated with AI art, too. In many cases it’s hard to see).

Artist friends recommended Clip Studio Paint, which has a perspective construction tool that actually was intuitive enough for me to wrap my brain around it, so here's Caleb and Frumpkin in Caleb's library!

I included loooooads of Easter eggs on the she...

Sketch: study time (I must be mad)

A piece I've been wanting to do for ages: Caleb in his library, reading, with Frumpkin for company. Caleb is the one of Liam's characters from Critical Role that I relate least to (just too much emotional baggage!), but his love of reading and cats are the best. 🧡

I actually used AI for some of the background; I tried constructing the BG but the nooks and crannies defeated me. So I had Freepik generate me a room with books.

This is the pic generated with AI. I'm normally a stri...

Reminder: Community link!

Hey guys, not sure you knew, but Patreon has a "Community" tab that allows you to upload images (like the colouring pages) or anything else you'd like to share with the community here! Take a peek and let's breathe some life into that part of Patreon, too. <3 

Midsummer Will (finished)

I'm not 100% sold on the colours (as I feared, I went too over the place with them). It was okay before I did the poppies. Which is even more tragic as they barely look like poppies. But I still like his sweet smile. =) 

Also - OMG, we'll be seeing Zephrah next episode! Keyleth! Orym's mum! Orym's sisters-in-law! His mother-in-law! I can't wait and at the same time I'm scared they'll all look totally different from fanon. I never expected to be shot down so quickly, haha. But that ...

All the colours in skin

A lot of of new faces here! Welcome to Philip, E., friep and Holly! =D

I'm utterly in love with how this one is coming along. Layering colours on paper is just the absolute best. 

I had this really sad book as a teenager, about a girl whose sister dies of leukemia... and it had a cover that really insp...