Jenny Dolfen

Peaceful solutions guy

Orym again being completely oblivious to how small he is. <3 And that's only a dwarf he's glowering at, or the perspective would have had to have been even more extreme (whew). 

(Most of that blood is his.) 

If any of you have been around with me for a veeeeery long time, you may have noticed (as I did yesterday) that Orym is slowly getting closer to a very dear old original character of mine, especially when glowering... 

2022-10-13 05:23:45 +0000 UTC View Post

Dancing on the air

I'm terrible. Give me a snippet of a character's childhood and I'm all over it. =D

Orym, probably around ten or so, "training" with his semi-adopted sister Lita to "dance on the air".

Something really weird is going on right now. For a couple of days, I've been able to instantly pin down a pose, a face, anything without half trying and without much correction. For a pose like this, I'd usually spend a few hours searching for reference photos and then I'd cling to the ref ...

Footsteps (slight CR spoilers)

"Orym, out of old habit, falls in where Derrig would, to the right and behind Keyleth."

So many good vibes with the last episode! And Liam wrenching at my haertstrings without even doing anything monumental. 

I really need to do a piece with Ashton and Percy facing off. So much goodness when your new characters meet your old ones! 

I actually sketched that at the Essen Games Fair (Spiel) where we spent the Sunday. Husband and son were painting Warhammer miniatures ...

Back from MagicCon!

I had a blast of a weekend at MagicCon, where, funnily, Tolkien prints did worse than Cosplay Dormice and Critical Role - and Agnes!

I did a lot of sketches, some for visitors, some more elaborate ones just in between (I find that people are more likely to believe that you're an artist if they see you sketching at your booth). I'll put some of them up for sale later; drop me a line (message on Patreon, please, so they're all in one inbox!) if you'd like to call dibs on any of them befor...

The days are just packed

It was so hard to come up with a title for this one (couldn't call it "Orym and Hobbes") and then it was so obvious! =D So, Will and Orym from Critical Role as kids, probably ten-ish. (Does Orym ever actually say he and Will grew up together, or is that fanon?)

I love the colours here. Going digital was an obvious choice. The Swan Knight had wrestled with me a lot worse than I thought he would, and I'm in a slump of sorts again when it comes to coloured pencils. The large portraits are ...

Kids' play: Orym and Hobbes, old art, the Amazon series, and new book copies!

The days are just packed! 

I bundled up most of the previous book orders aaaaand new ones are in my shop! If you missed the last batch, grab one of the new. I'm sort of hoping I can stay abreast of orders this time and won't let them sell out, but we'll see! They'll never be gone for long. 

I'm also getting very good at drawing firecrests, much better than I was at any point while doing the actual book. They're basically feathered tennis balls with a toothpick. XD

...

Swan Knight, finished and properly scanned

Mythtember the Last, only three days late! Yaaay!

It may not have turned out the way I envisioned it, but it certainly turned out nicely! Still feel digital worked better recently. I'm glad I did a monthly challenge in September and have no self-imposed obligations this month, actually. 

I hope to do the remaining Haunted Forest sketch copies today and put up new ones! After MagicCon, the new prints will be up in my shop too, so if you're been eyeing Merry, or any Critical Ro...

Lohengrin finished (?) and more tiny Orym

So the Swan Knight took a turn in a slightly unforeseen direction, mostly due to the fact that it’s still hit and miss with the right level of intricate detail that I can still do with brushes. I’ll leave him lying overnight and see if he needs some highlights yet.

Some bad news regarding the Haunted Forest translation: I somehow managed to lose the part that I had. I'd saved it in the cloud and not on my laptop and now it’s gone. It was already two-thirds done and now I'd ha...

Sketchfest! and N(q)SFW Orym/Will

Okay, I soooooort of didn't expect eighteen sketches when I put up twenty copies of "Haunted Forest" - serves me right! Thank you wonderful people. =D

I thought it might be something like eight sketches in twenty copies and I could package them all on Saturday to make way to the next batch. So Saturday got a little full as I did something like thirteen sketches and packed up orders with my daughter's help! I'll do the remaining sketch copies over the next day or so and I should be able...

Swan Knight lineart and fun with halfling proportions

The last of Mythtember is almost upon us, and here’s the lineart of the swan knight, who can double as Tuor, funnily. ;)

I also set out to make myself a little cheat sheet for halfling proportions, and realised they are actually a lot weirder than I thought. For my halfling characters, I usually use the toddler weight and height grid, but that doesn’t work at all if you assume a halfling is a normally proportioned but downsized human! 

2022-09-29 08:58:31 +0000 UTC View Post

It's here! =D

... and it's looking gorgeous! Right on cue, hubby had dug up the autumn-y decorations from the basement and I used them to snap a few shots. 

The cover was tough to get right - the first test copy was way too dark, the second way too vivid. I opted against a third test copy, tried to hit the middle, and ordered three hundred copies. O_o I'm so gald it worked out perfectly! It's just the right middle path of gloomy and vribrant now. I can strongly recommend the printer, by the way ...

"We're so sorry, Imogen"

Yeah, no. Orym in green(ish) and Imogen in purple AND yellow is just something that defeats me, haha. I started doing this in coloured pencils, was almost done too, and realised it was all too tiny for me to work with, so I started colouring it digitally twice and  I'm still not sure I like the colouring style. One of these days I will have to come up with a digital colouring style I like and can actually do. It's so weird - I have a few styles I really like and I can't seem to wrap my h...

Mythtember: The Buttercat

In Scandinavian/Saami legend, the buttercat guards the home and larder from evil spirits, and mine here doesn’t seem averse to eating a kobold or two if he can get them. :D 

Painted in Procreate. The latest CR piece with Orym and Imogen is still on the workbench, and I really want to explore more of Orym and his husband Will next… just some fluff. 💚 With weird height differences.

And I'm preparing for MagicCon in two weeks! I'll be there Friday and Saturday, with a l...

"We're all so sorry, Imogen"

Orym trying to comfort Imogen. 💔 I just love this little guy so much.

I'm so in love with the lineart here again, and I'm scared to mess it up with colours. I can't seem to find the perfect combination, especially digitally. Might take the plunge and try it in coloured pencils, though I made the figures so small again… >_< 

Mythtember day 21: Sylph

Just a quick and swooshy piece for today! Sylph dancing up in the evening sky. Trying around with loose colouring and letting clean lineart get in the way, as always,  haha. 😄

"Flip the coin."

/heartbreak

This piece dealt me about as much psychic damage as the scene itself did. Do you see all these colours? People with purple geode hair and green skin, a faun with green hair and a green dress, one halfling all in green and one sorcerer with purple hair and a yellow kerchief? Plus a bright yellow automaton, all in a red environment?! I cursed myself so often all day. I think I halfway managed. 

Okay, let's see if I can do a few sylphs in a day... XD 

"Choices" (CR spoiler)

The downside: I'm sick in bed. (There's headcolds going round here like nobody's business.) 

The upside: While you can't juggle sketchpad and pencil and eraser and sharpener and colours in bed, you can absolutely juggle an iPad in bed. And OH BOY, look what I found for a wonderful "inking" setting! I've tried them all: Slick, smooth ink tools, scraggly ink tools, airbrush... and this is a simple, very rough, pencil tool, set to very small. It allows me to work the way I always used...

*Critical Role spoiler*

(I know it's a lot of Critical Role right now, but this is an emergency. That last two episodes were crazy. Mythtember will resume soon. =D) 

This was the most harrowing scene I've ever seen in an RPG, whether watched or played. 

Clockwise from left:
Fearne the faun druid, freshly Revivified after dying just seconds before, sits with the dead halfling fighter Orym in her lap. She is the only one who has a spell slot left to cast Revivify. She is mor...

"There’ll be a time"

As much as I love traditional media, there’s nothing like digital to explore colour schemes that are unusual for me. I saw this in blues and it started out like that, and got more and more green-rose-gold the further I got, and I love it. Probably wouldn’t have worked out in coloured pencils.

Will and Orym. 💚💚💚

(Spoiler) "There'll be a time"

Spoiler for Critical Role C3E34! (Yes, I'm freshly subscribed. No, I did not get up at 4 AM to catch it live but cuddled up with my daughter on the sofa when we got home from school to watch it.) 

"You're not done," Will, Orym's deceased husband, says, as Orym's soul hovers between life and death. 

"I really wish I could stay," Orym whispers as he hears Fearne's voice calling him back. 

"I'll still be here. There'll be a time... I look forward to it. Now, ...