When the Star card appears, you are likely to find yourself feeling inspired. It brings renewed hope and faith and a sense that you are truly blessed by the universe at this time.
2022-01-27 18:46:11 +0000 UTC View Post
The new values really help sell the ethereal nature of the figure here! I'm so much happier with this than where it was headed. It's always a sign that the values are in good shape when the colors find their way into the painting easily. Ultimately these sorts of choices are done more by 'feel' than anything else.
Now I just need to scrape together the final details and I'll have 2 tarot cards out of 78. Whew, long ways to go! I'm going to have to make a plan to pick up the pace once I...
I got pretty far into this piece with additional work on both the rendering and color before I decided to peel it back a bit and take a second look at how it was coming together. Whenever I've made this choice I've never regretted it, but it's always hard to go ahead and pull the trigger when it feels like I'm far along in a paintings process.
It's not just the design of the head that's different in the new greyscale version, I've also made significant adjustments to the structure of th...
2022-01-20 19:08:11 +0000 UTC View Post
I've been working up the chibi pin designs a little more today and I've been playing around with templates to give a more accurate preview of how they'll look once they are done. Mocking up reflective gold in a Photoshop template is tough, so the effect of the metal isn't quite as brilliant as they'll look in real life, but this is definitely getting there.
More tarot updates next!
-Pete
2022-01-12 21:35:09 +0000 UTC View Post
The chibi angels are rolling along excellently. My desk is filling up with little notecard sketches right now!
I also got contacted by a company that makes custom plushies. Doing a little Azrael plush would be pretty amazing. After I've established these little guys into the canon I might expand to that as well...
Lots of new stuff to consider here in 2022 :)
2022-01-06 14:05:57 +0000 UTC View Post
For the last few years, I've been pretty shy about showing you guys the junky-looking part of the process. Today I'm including a look at what ends up hitting the trash bin.
The main image above is the sketch I'm going with.
It's theoretically possible for me to grind out corrections to make the other two sketches work eventually. But it's just not worth it. Typically a good sketch should exude something obvious to me and make the next steps easy to follow. Trying to fix a broken s...
2022-01-06 14:00:37 +0000 UTC View Post
Don't worry, the Tarot project is still on. I'll have WIPs of the Star card uploaded very soon. I just wanted to share something new that I'm having a ton of fun with.
After the disastrously delayed Book of Watchers campaign blew a hole in 5 years of my life, I wanted to mark my return to Kickstarter with something fun and easy. The obvious choice was to make some fresh pin designs.
Initially, I was thinking of making some more conceptual pieces, but I just couldn't resist reachi...
Hey guys,
I just wanted to send a reminder that my yearly Playmat Vault event is living again. This year the mats are shipping straight from the printer, so the turnaround time to ship is down to around 7 days.
All the old playmat designs are back in stock and 20% OFF their regular price!
https://www.angelarium.net/store
Since you are a Patreon member, you are entitled to an additional 20% d...
2021-12-08 13:06:47 +0000 UTC View Post
Giving my little Sandalphon a splash of color. It's always fun to paint flowers, so I'm looking forward to finishing this up.
I'm debating about whether or not to add the other twin in there and make this piece more like the original Sandalphon art. We'll see! I should have the final art for this done shortly. Keep an eye out :)
2021-12-08 13:00:41 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey!
Sorry for disappearing for a bit. I've left a lot dangling while I was absent. I've been extremely busy with a weird side thing. But it's all done now and I'm jumping into a long-overdue new extension of the series.
Tarot is a perfect fit for Angelarium and I'm excited to finally be exploring it! For now, it's going to be a Patreon exclusive art series. I'll be announcing it more publicly once I've got a little more of a foundation laid out.
I'm still working out of th...
I've spent some time bringing the looser pieces of this painting in line with my hopes for it. Having gotten it mostly together and then taking a break from it, I'm feeling more confident in my ability to complete it.
To add some extra inspiration for the final phase of the painting process, Ethan has dropped his latest iteration of the music for you all to hear:
Following the cancellation of Dragoncon, I ended up listing all the inventory from that convention up on my website. This month I'm aiming to clear it all out with a 20% off discount and the offer of a free pin with each purchase.
https://www.angelarium.net/store
As a Patreon supporter, you get an additio...
2021-10-04 14:35:26 +0000 UTC View Post
This last month has been a really weird one for me since I wasn't working on one piece in specific. Instead, I've been picking away at a lot of pieces simultaneously. In the Dropbox folder, you can see the work-in-progress PFPs for the Watchers. I've got 13 of the 20 already done.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qj1bbq1putlz0os/AABCiWE8xlx-5HT_mRcZEBbpa?dl=0
With each of ...
2021-10-04 14:27:23 +0000 UTC View Post
The clouds in the center of this piece were already in color because I'm reusing them from an abandoned work that I had done earlier this year.
Having such a clear sense of what I wanted from this piece early on, I feel like I rushed into some bits too fast. The casualties of my hurry are the face and hands. Those are the first things that will get redrawn now that I have a lot of the other aspects of this piece established.
2021-10-04 14:21:54 +0000 UTC View Post
The direction to take this piece was sort of obvious to me. Putting the doorway-like shape into the chest of a giant divine being is just right up my alley. The proportion the template forced makes this being very reminiscent of Yesod, Foundation of Life but I'm not going to be sticking too close to that piece.
Ethan started on a musical composition based off his impression of my past works before seeing this sketch: 2021-10-04 14:18:37 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey guys,
One of the interesting projects that blew into my inbox recently involves a live orchestra.
Musical composer Ethan Algazi approached me to create an original painting based off the template you see above. As my painting takes shape, he's going to be writing an original score to accompany it. After the painting is finished and the music is written, I'll be hiring a my friend Dominik Guembel to add a layer of animation to the painting and Ethan will be hiring a live orches...
2021-10-04 14:11:35 +0000 UTC View Post
I had this idea to do a series of Archangel pieces that were all in the same longer format that Azrael, Grand Psychopomp used. Some of the Archangels have already had other versions, like Gabriel and Raphael. I'd like to redo this in a way that makes them all appear to match the same format.
The idea for them is to have a composition where they are all towering over a sprawling landscape. I want to lay them out so that there is deep perspective in both the top and bottom thirds of the ...
0N1 Force is a PFP project that I've been a fan of recently. I've even gone so far as doing a couple of pieces fanart for them as part of their community contest. For this piece, I mixed the 0N1s with my lifelong love for the Final Fantasy franchise.
Out of the hundreds of entries, I was lucky enough to get picked as a finalist by the 0N1 dev team. It was really fun to participate in someone else's project for a minute and I walked away 4th place and a $2000 cash prize!
I've uplo...
The second Emanation. A vessel we use to carry experience itself. Chokhmah is the first moment a newborn child opens their eyes. That child’s first steps. The beginning of a lifelong journey whose path disappears over the horizon. Where Keter is the pen that hangs above the page, Chokhmah is the moment of contact.
Descending from the summit of the Tree, we see its duality begin to form. Chokhmah sits atop the Pillar of Mercy, forming the first masculine aspect of the diagram and nesti...
2021-09-03 16:02:06 +0000 UTC View Post
When the first 2 steps of a painting come together so easily, this phase of the painting becomes sort of a non-issue. Cleaning up edges and adding surface detail don't feel like work when the painting is making itself. I feel like I'm just there to help tidy things up while the painting does all the real work.
2021-09-03 15:57:53 +0000 UTC View Post
There were two ways to pay off the connection between Binah and Chokhmah. I could either make them a diptych and continue the color/composition from Binah into this painting, or I could build something that contrasted it starkly.
Given the similarities between the two faces, I chose to make them more different to ensure each one stood on their own as well as within the pairing.
Working with brilliant red on top of grey and black is always a pleasure for me. Between having a pre-pl...
2021-09-03 15:52:08 +0000 UTC View Post
I've always enjoyed the way that the original paintings of Binah and Chokhmah played off each other, so in their newer incarnations I wanted to do the same. I've been careful when laying out this painting to perfectly mirror several aspects about Binah, Flowing Mind. Having that rigid structure has been an amazing boon to kicking off this piece.
2021-09-03 15:46:22 +0000 UTC View Post
Profile Pictures or PFPs have become a bit seriously business in 2021 and I've been having a lot of fun with them. In addition to playing around with PFP derivatives, I've been excited to make my own original Angelarium PFPs.
The current plan is to make PFPs for all 20 Watchers and release them as a set sometime later this month or early next month. So far, I've got wips for the first 5. Which I'm uploading to the Dropbox in a new subfolder called "PFP WiPs".
You should see more v...
2021-09-03 15:38:40 +0000 UTC View PostFor the past few months I've been behind on managing this Patreon campaign and now I'm later than I've ever been in terms of posting new art and rewards. What's weird to me is that the latest paintings have finished on schedule, but the posts about them have been late. Last month's painting was completed a week ago and I've yet to post the first work in progress for it.
I've been thinking a lot about why my art and posting haven't been lining up and I wanted to share my thoughts.<...
2021-09-03 15:29:19 +0000 UTC View Post
The sixth Emanation. Tiferet is the temperate force that allows the power of the rest of the Emanations to exist in beautiful harmony. As each of the other aspects rage with the Tree, Tiferet neither yields nor resists.
Forming the midpoint of the Pillar of Balance, Tiferet defines its essence. It’s a careful balancing act, incorporating such extreme opposites, but that is the nature of the Tree as a whole. Tiferet mirrors the structure of the Tree, existing as a microcosm within the ...
2021-07-31 14:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
After some more unexplainable color alchemy, I've found my way to a version of this painting I can envision finishing. Whenever I see daylight, I count my blessings and tuck in for the final phase of the process. Detailing is sometimes rather tedious, but I've had a lot of fun with this piece and its ethereal nature makes it very easy to refine.
The final question in regards to completing this piece is what show I'll watch on my second monitor while I scrub away... I think I'm going to...
I love doing red and blue palettes and I love how convoluted the process has been to get me to this point, but I can sense something unbalanced about the colors still. I've worked to try to find a way to get that intense red light shining down on the head to make more sense but so far it still feels like a good idea that's not connected to anything. Oh well, more delicious experimentation for me :)
2021-07-29 00:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
As I've been experimenting with color palettes, I stumbled across this weirdness. It struck me as interesting, but I don't want to commit to it, so I'm sleeping on it to get some fresh perspective tomorrow.
I like the way this looks being so murky and mysterious but trust such a dark (especially a dark blue) digital painting to appear cleanly across different screens and in print.
2021-07-28 00:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
