Domestika Review: Natália Dias, Female Character Portraits in Procreate

 

Domestika is an online learning website that mainly caters towards the art and design community. Their courses cover a lot of topics from learning to paint and draw basics to game design and 3D design, craftmaking, photography etc. I was curious to try out a few of their courses and hopefully pick up some tips along the way.

Hand painted 'Heavenly' Vans

The current lockdown situation has given me time to embark on several art projects that I have long been thinking about.

These painted Vans were put together over 5-6 days and are based on my previous Meerkatsu rashguard designs - the Heavenly Wristlock and the Graceful Kimura.

Here's a more detailed rundown of how I painted these shoes:

Licensing, copyright, ownership - a quick guide

There's often a bit of confusion and misunderstood assumptions about ownership, copyright, licensing etc so I thought I would write down a simple guide on the topic and how it applies to my artwork. This article refers only to the art but of course the same applies to any created works (eg music, books, software etc). 

HP Envy x360 Convertible Laptop and HP Tilt Pen Stylus

My daughter wanted a laptop for her birthday so I thought why not get her one that could convert into tablet mode and could also accept active pen input, this way she could practice her digital drawing skills as well. After much research, I decided upon the HP Envy x360 as it seemed to offer a good power to cost ratio and there are a few artist reviews that seem happy with it. Here are the specs:

Rebelle 3, watercolour and painting desktop software

I was given the commission to create a client Christmas card and I thought this would be the ideal opportunity to try something I've always been meaning to do properly - digital watercolour.

Looking around at various review sites, the decision as to which software I would use came down to either Art Rage 5 or Rebelle 3. Reading several reviews I was swayed towards Rebelle 3. I chose it because I liked the description of the way it handled watercolour and I liked the colour management system. But it is a bit more pricey than Art Rage (£45 inc VAT).

Halloween 2018

For Halloween this year I decided to draw a cheerleader applying a rear naked choke (one handed) on a zombie. It was fun discussing the merits of such a technique over on Reddit BJJ!
Eagle-eyed jiu jitsu nerds will have spotted the deliberate use of the 'straightjacket' system that has been used by the Danaher Death Squad to great success.

Triangle Girl

This T-shirt is my latest tee design. It is available here at my store.

The design began life as a charity poster and T-shirt for the 2018 Bristol Grapplethon event. Here's a look at how the design evolved over time...