Animal digital paintings [updated 4.17.22]

I thought this might be appreciated here, where we have so many hyena lovers. I wouldn't consider this fully complete, if I were doing it for, say, publication or as a commission . . . but I am just doing it for fun, so I am calling it finished, because my eyes and fingers hurt.

Historically, I'm a canvas painter, but that's enormously expensive, time consuming, and space dependent. My attention span and my tiny living space and my budget all mean I have transferred almost entirely to digital painting. You can't beat the clean up or the storage! Or the eraser tool!  

This specific painting was done as a companion to a novel I'm working on (very, very slowly). It's a fantasy piece, as is likely easy to guess considering this hyena is a main speaking character. I know it looks like here that I have just made another "evil" hyena, but don't worry hyena fans, I haven't! I just wanted to paint an eerie image of her.

Holy moly, that is truly a work of art! So much detail, how many hours would you say it took? And writing too! Sounds like you have an excellent artistic mind set.

Wow, absolutely fantastic rendering of texture and lighting there (love the eye shine!), not just realism but really dynamic composition, I give you a round of applause! You can really tell you've come to digital from an already-skilled painter point of view, this would easily pass for an oil painting in the way you've handled the colour application.

Thanks so much guys! I don't usually have the energy for a piece this detailed, it's nice to have something a little bit more polished. :) I wish some of the background colors had held up against compression, but I always re-learn the hard way about dark paintings and PNG.

Saarlooswolfhound wrote:

how many hours would you say it took?

Probably 4? 6? I work very sporadically, jumping between YouTube and what not, and just whenever I have the brain space for it, so who knows, really. More than 2, less than 8.

Professional is not a good word when we talk about Art but what you did is of a superior artistic level. I am truly impressed!

Wow, that is amazing! The little saliva drip...

Thank you both so much! :)

This is absolutely amazing!
The details, the realism, the expression in his face, all beautifully captured with so much meticulous texture and and stunning tones!
It is wonderful to see another talent that you have- I would love to see any more that you do!

Thank you, Bonnie! I hope to do some more characters from the book (in hopes of inspiring myself to finish it, haha), so if they turn out, I'll certainly share them here.

I made another to go with the first, another character from the same story. This one was "easier" in some ways because it was a less complicated image, but because of that, it was also more difficult to create the sense of drama I wanted. But anyway, a little opossum!

This is stunning once again, you have managed to create the sense of drama perfectly which is definitely an achievement for an opossum which is generally seen as a cute animal! You are so talented, what an amazing work of art!

Really stunning! Firstly, wonderful species choice. Those eyes are so realistic and the texture/proportions are spot on! This is some amazing digital art skill, I am sure your physical material work is superb as well!

I see lots of possums, and it looks wonderful- and somehow wise (something I never associated with real possums).

This is amazing !!!!

I love it! Great use of light and I like your composition choices a lot too!
The possum has the cutest nose ever

Thank you all so much!! :)

I was digging around in the files from my old computer and found the content from a digital adoptable I used to run. If you're unfamiliar with what that could possibly mean, it's just templated art recolored and distributed to collectors - not unlike collecting animal figures, just strictly digital. Adoptables have a wide range of how interactive they are, and mine was VERY interactive. You could "breed" and "compete" with your digital creatures, there were accessories you could apply, and I created an entire (fake) color genetic system for every species. There were six species, three that exist in real life and three fantasy species, and within each species there were multiple breeds. It was a GIANT part of my life for many years, ha! I even had a staff! I was the artist, but they ran events, built the interactive website, organized the numbers, and simply helped me distribute and keep track of things. It was pretty fun, but I eventually got too overwhelmed and the person who ran our website and image host had to step down, which meant the adoptable could no longer function. Plus I no longer has Photoshop, and Clip Studio doesn't work quite as well for my existing temples. (Also, even my new computer lags HORRIBLY when I try to open these giant folders, ha!) But looking back at the art was great fun, I thought maybe I'd share some of it here, since it IS animals - domestic and fantasy animals, anyway.

This is one of the horse breeds. All the breeds were invented, but I did pull heavily from existing breeds in many cases. There was a baby, an adult female, and an adult male for every breed. Plus there was the option to create mixed-breed linearts, so "mutts" that resulted in a completely new set of drawings. Looking back on this, I am shocked I managed to run it as long as I did, this was so much work.

This was easily one of the most popular lineart sets, because it's very dramatic and flashy! Everyone loves long manes and tails and thick feathers! Me included, which is why I drew them, haha. (Two of the male, because his lineart set is one of my favorites and it's hard to see the details in some colors!)

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This breed is an older set of lines, and therefore has significantly more anatomy problems (the foal is quite lumpy). I got better at drawing horses as time went on. You can also see that the genetics I invented allowed for unrealistic colors like lavender . . . and then sometimes I just went off the rails and did something like copperhead snake patterns on a horse.

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Alright, I cannot possible show you all of them and expect anyone to look at this many digital horses, so here is just a smattering from the rest that I happen to like:

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Jill wrote:

Alright, I cannot possible show you all of them and expect anyone to look at this many digital horses, so here is just a smattering from the rest that I happen to like:

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aah you are SO talented Jill ! well done !
(and funny you should post all of this now because I have just discovered Gimp. I used to use Photoshop many years ago and then stopped using it. And now I've found a free version ? or something similar)

there are many here that I LOVE! -
and particularly this one with a feather in their tail !! Gorgeous!

what were your canvas paintings of ? do you have them online somewhere ?

These are awesome, I cannot begin to imagine the amount of work it must've been to run the entire project but the art stands alone as evidence of all the effort and skill put into the drawing side.
My absolute favourite is the pinto in the first post, but there's so many stunners here, and I really like your line-art style as well as the colouring, the soft shaggy detailed strokes for feathering and manes & tails are so nicely done.

They're so beautiful, and I'd happily look at as many more as you'd like to share