Animal digital paintings [updated 4.17.22]

Jill wrote:

....
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I want one of these in the field


Your drawings are marvellous

Thank you guys for all your kind words!!

sunny wrote:

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)

I have heard good things about Gimp, though I have never used it. I think Gimp and Clip Studio have more in common with each other than photoshop, since both are designed for painting/drawing and not photo editing. Which is one problem I had with the change, the learning curve was steep because some tools I have accustomed to using simply don't exist in a program not designed to edit photos. I also lost all my custom brushes, which you can make and download for Clip Studio, but replacing all the lost ones would be challenging! I hope Gimp works out for you, it's so nice to find a free program that does many of the same things as the exceedingly overpriced subscription programs.

Quote :

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

Animals of course! Mostly horses, as no surprise. I don't have them all collected in one place (except my old DeviantArt account, which I don't direct people to because it is a MESS), but I was thinking of making another thread for them. One of the best parts of art is sharing it, after all. There are not very many of them, because traditional media takes a great deal more space and time than digital and I just don't do it much (or at all these days, to be honest).

Quote :

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

Dangerous words. There are plenty more in the wings.

I use Gimp and really, really rate it - it's fine for editing pictures, but even better for creating from scratch, whether digital painting or sketching or line work or whatever, it's really versatile for different art styles. You can create or download custom brushes, but not the same ones which work in Photoshop/Paintshop programmes, so you do need to be sure you're getting Gimp ones if not making your own.
But I admit I do stick with a really, really old version, cos the newer one isn't compatible with the way my mind works, I just couldn't get along with their new interface and make it do what I wanted to do, so I've been downloading the same ancient edition to every new laptop over the years

thanks Jill and George for all your helpful input!
I shall give this a shot :)
and I understand what you mean George about using the older versions. I found that photoshop would update and the whole format would change and it was like starting over again (and again and again! )

that's wonderful Jill - you paint horses on canvas :) please share any more when you are ready, it was wonderful to see all these super creations here!
I do watercolours of animals and landscape and only tried oil once and acrylic a couple of times. I really like art!

Some really gorgeous and original ideas here. So many that I adore!

Thank you Paige!

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] have you shared your art anywhere on here? I would love to see it!

So one of the other species I had was dogs, of course. These were even more heavily pulled from existing breeds than the horses thanks to dogs being so distinct, but I did try to keep them from just looking like 1:1 comparisons. So like, this one is very clearly corgi-inspired, but a taller corgi with a shorter body, haha. And again, obviously fantasy genetic system allowed for unrealistic colors like blue.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Those ears on the middle batch! Remind me of my dear Brandybuck boy.  

These are all lovely.

That last blue sortacorgi! Make the legs longer and fold the ears, and that's my beloved Pip! (different color of course)

The sighthounds are adorable.

Thank you, Paige and Kelly! I did many pet portraits over the years, in fact . . . but wait, there's more.   I just got distracted mid post, haha.  

There were far fewer dogs than horses, so I think this is actually all the line sets. The bottom four were puppies that never got an adult version drawn.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

What a wonderful selection of poses, like we were talking about in model form you've got static and dynamic poses in here! And I love the attention to detail and how true to life everything is, like the anatomy of the feet, and the little creases in the face to give expressions which are proper dog expressions, not human ones like animated dogs usually get!

Thank you! That is exactly a challenge of making these! When I would go for more exciting poses, it would often limit how much of the coloration could be seen, which was of course the whole point of the series. Plus they had to fit into a certain small dimensions for when they were distributed (much smaller than pictured here). So I had to figure out how to keep them interesting and unique while still having them basically facing sideways. I can sympathize a bit with toy producers and the struggle between practicality and uniqueness.