Jenny Dolfen

Mîm lineart

The lineart for Mîm, for Christian. I'll probably be finishing him up for you this weekend at Tolkien Tag! :)

(For those who don't know: That's not a weird way of playing tag, but it's the Tolkien Days. It should really be plural in German, too. If you're in the German/Netherlands area, come round to Pont this weekend!)

Short heads-up from the edge

I got my last A-level paper marked yesterday, after spending two entire afternoons until 8 PM at school for the orals, and after every single small mistake on our parts resulted in the immediate ripping off of heads. This A-level season has been the worst in fifteen years.

Now I have a weirdly free weekend ahead of me over Whitsuntide - no school, no exams, four free days, my son away on a camping trip - I'll probably find myself sitting on the floor, humming wild-eyed with my heands over ...

Mîm the petty dwarf

First sketch of the May commission for Christian, who asked for Mîm from the Silmarillion. Grumpiness ahoy!

Rangers of the North for Krista

It was five weeks rather than two or three, Krista - I hope it was worth the wait! :) 

I've tried out a finer sketching style with very hard pencils and I really like this. Pencil and white pencil on toned paper, A4. 

Drawn under the cherry tree/at the hairdresser's. Long live my Nomad. XD

Freebies for May!

Once again with attachment... ;)

Hey my lovelies! 

Enjoy!

Winners of the May 4th raffle!

A SW print goes to Sharon Samples, and the non-SW one to Erin-Claire! (I used an online number generator after all - my daughter might have been influenced by pretty/colourful/mummy's avatars. ;) 

Let me know which you'd like, you two! Sharon, since you already have your fave piece, I hope you can find another one you like? :)

Happy Star Wars Day raffle!

^ That's what my daughter looks like today. She's totally taking May the Fourth very seriously. 

In honour of Star Wars Day, here's a mini-raffle! Everyone who comments until tomorrow morning gets any Star Wars themed A4 print of mine, sponsored by one wonderful Patron! :) And I'm throwing in one non-SW A4 print as well. Please mention in the comments whether you'd prefer SW or non-SW. 

My daughter will play the lucky fairy. XD

Bookmarks

Erin C., Is, Deanna, Willi, Floss, and Kimmie - these are on their way to you! :) 

Don't be afraid to use them either - I practically plastered them with fixative, so nothing will ever rub off. ;)

Raffle Draw: May

Hey y'all, I managed to mark 25 Year 7 exams today - yay! A few days of respite before the next set comes in, which means I can work off last month's prompt.

As I said, there won't be a prompt this month, as the month is incredibly busy and I still haven't recovered  from April. But anyway - here are the winners!

Five goodie bags go to: Emily Hughes, Anja Raupach, Catherine McCluskey, Sabine Kauer, and Jan Pospisil!

Two A4 prints ...

April 2016 patron supported

Thank you so much for the support this month!

Little somethings...

For all those pledging $25 (or more), it says "a little surprise" along with the quarterly goodie bags - I haven't forgotten, I just wasn't sure what exactly to do. Now I know - here's a tiny little preview for what'll go out to you over the next week. ^^

Any one of you who likes The Last Unicorn (book or movie)? Wouldn't want to send the Schmendrick to someone who totally isn't into it. ;)

Where did April go??

This month's been worse than I thought - I'm still in the process of marking exams, and will be for another two weeks. :( Sorry, Krista, for the delay with your prompt! It's on my list; I'll get to it sometime in between! 

I haven't forgotten the little surprise for the 25$+ supporters! I had a nice and fun idea but haven't had tiiiiiiime. I'll do it over the next few weeks! Promise! 

I'll have to exchange next month's raffle prompt for another print (a gilded one, to m...

Dark wings downstream

It's done! =D

Got darker than I wanted... again. And both my scanner and my printer hate this one. Got the scanner to cooperate, but my new printer hasn't been broken in properly yet.

(Yes, one of these days I'll settle on a watermark...) ;)

Seven black swans

Whew!

It's always weird when I've spent several days painting around the main figure, and have finished everything else. I've become so accustomed to seeing it on white that it often feels wrong when I finally colour it! I'll be using warm tones, definitely. Maybe not too much variation either, or it'll clutter up hopelessly. 

Four down, three to go.

Yes, that counts as four!! XD

Bonus word for the day: German has its own word for the upper part of a bird's bum. It's Bürzel. Say that aloud. Fluffige Bürzel. Yay. 

That's a lot of swans. And a lot of feathers. O_o

Well, Jenny, you had to go for seven. >_<

;) 

Water and sunlight

Next wip!

"Dark wings" (well, not yet) in progress

I was really having trouble seeing the colours for this, but I like where I'm going now. 

Working with *yet* another new watercolour paper, haha. XD

Black swans - finished lineart

Only six poofy swan bums after all. 

Trying to find ref images of a boat on a river - or any river from above - it took me a while to think of looking for rowing photos. It seems to be the only time people want to photograph a river from above.

Also, eddies in a river totally don't work the way I thought they did. Thanks, rower's clubs all over the continent!

Happy little funeral boat XD

.... just in case anyone still gets worried about this piece! :D

... but seriously, poofy little swan butts. Can't be unhappy with seven poofy little swan butts. 

Then again, all this guy gets, from where he is, are fourteen decidedly unpoofy swan feet, so maybe he's got every right to be gloomy. 

I love this little toy swan; he's indispensable here! I decided he's probably Arthurian (my daughter, bless her, immediately said "King Arthur"). I'm heavily referen...

Black swans downriver - and loads of thoughts I'd like to share.

Still looks very scribbly, but a lot more work has gone into this now. 

I've been thinking about my art a lot this year. Star Wars has been an exhilarating experience - so many new people, plus commissions and even bigger work opportunities that might follow (and I'm not saying it's over, it's just  died down a bit). Needless to say, my Star Wars art is about as popular as my Tolkien art. And yet, I've recently read dozens of angry rants about fanart. Never directed at me, thankf...

Finished Iria Hesk!

Yay for grungey Y-Wings!

Next wip: Indigo!

Actually, it's a mix of every dark colour I have on my palette. XD

Iria Hesk, in progress

I'm in love with her left hand. Among many other things. <3 

Fingon finished

Here's the finished Fingon for Josie! Watercolour and a bit of gold gouache for the braids. They're quite shiny in real life. :)

Hope you like him, Josie! ^^

Fingon wip

Fingon in proper Fingolfinian blue. 

It's cool to see how much easier realistic shading in faces comes even without reference now, thanks to that extended photorealism spree with my Star Wars paintings! It was long overdue.

Iria Hesk - lineart

Loving this character! And my (t)rusty old Y-Wings!

Iria Hesk, Indigo Three

Star Wars character commission for Paul: his Resistance pilot character. Based on a photo of me casually holding a red balloon (from that toy shop in Aachen, incidentally, Erin C.! They may not have the three-storey slide anymore, but they did keep their balloons...) =D

Fingon lineart

Drawn while I was sitting at the indoor pool waiting for my kids to come from their swimming class. He drew some heads from the other mothers playing Candy Crush on their mobiles. XD

Little sketches

Did all of these (and three more unspectacular ones) over the last three days at school with my lovely new Nomad - it's so cool to just feel like sketching, unzip one  zipper, have everything handy - and be able to pack it up again at half a minute's notice when I have to go. It makes working on the fly so very easy! 

On the left is a Fingon sketch for Josie, which will be turned into a painting soon. :)

Right is a sketch for a "Rangers of the North" piece, the p...