Jenny Dolfen

Folktember: The Seelie Queen

It's on! Folktember should be sliiightly easier for me to do than the October challenges - fewer class tests and conventions! It's only got five prompts, so I’m getting the first one ready for September 1st. =D 

Quick sketch using a ref photo from Grafit Studio. 

Video tryout!

My phone stand arrived yesterday and I can now actually film myself painting! I hope the magnifying glass isn't too irritating; at least it doesn't cover the area I'm working on. 

I will DEFINITELY do videos now! I wish I could just upload them to Patreon. It's such a hassle to put them on Youtube first (especially if they're filmed in a vertical position). I'll see what I do for the...

Maedhros in progress (with art tips)

I'm still smacking myself for not doing this mixed media thing sooner! (As always, it's smoother than this in real life.) I'm deliriously in love with the textures and colour transitions here.  

Steps: 

I did the background first, with normal watercolour, then added gradients with...

Oathkeeper

Maedhros has been very patient this past six months, but he finally decided I'd done enough testing and trying and dallying with media and fandoms, and demanded Art Nouveau and quiet obstinacy/tragedy. I was happy to comply. =D 

My family's reactions were mixed. Daughter: "Ooh, Maedhros again!" Husband: "2022-08-21 09:18:32 +0000 UTC View Post

"I will not lose you again" - an adventure in mixed media!

I am so fricking happy with the technique here. I used really everything - Procreate for the lineart, normal watercolour for the background, watercolour pencils for the rough colours on the figures, Polychromos for detail, more watercolour pencils for colour effects, for normal watercolour to tie everything together, more Polychromos for the final details. Mixed media deluxe. This is as close t...

Look what I found!

... I found the obvious thing: watercolour pencils! *rofl* 

There have been a number of people who said: "Okay, so if you can't use watercolour anymore, but recently fell in love with coloured pencils, have you tried watercolour pencils?!" - to which obvious solution I used to reply that, of course I had, but hated them. From when I last used them twenty-two years ago. So plainly, th...

Prints are back on the menu, boys!

So, as promised, starting a test run with twenty prints in my Etsy shop! They're the ones I had in the shop before I cut them, but other prints from the last year and a half will join them soon, I hope. 

You can get them at 10% ...

RPG lineart, Haunted Forest, and a print trial!

A lot is going on! First off, an RPG scene that happened last weekend - Jax meets his mother, the redeemed Succubus Arueshalae, in a fight that nearly kills several of them while fighting off demons attacking her. Jax was knocked unconscious (and from the air) by a dragon rider, and the first thing he saw was his mother’s face after healing him up, saying, "I won’t lose you again." 💜

Master Holbytla

Art Nouveau Merry is done! I can't tell you how happy I am with the coloured pencil look in this. A part of me is almost grateful that my crappy eyes have forced me to rediscover this medium - I don't think I'd have invested in coloured pencils ever again otherwise. Details and rendering are so much easier to do, and a realistic look is so easy to achieve! 

Prints ar...

Art Nouveau Merry in progress

Finally tackling this one! How do I polychromo again?
It took me a while, by the way, but I've now found my perfect way of organising my coloured pencils! Since I can only use them at my desk anyway, I ditched the 98-slot-pencil cases, put them in hanging organisers, and added little doctor's pocket pencil holders for the ones that are too small to peek out. Now Amazon keeps trying to sell ...

RPG night sketchpage: Jax

Last weekend yielded a lot of draw-worthy scenes in our Pathfinder game night. It's a campaign that's getting more and more epic as it pits the characters against demons of the Worldwound (a portal to hell), and we're starting to realise it's up to us to close it. 

tl;dr: Jax got naked and Jax got (illusionory) wings. =D

Jax was hit by a sickness spell by a Fallen one that ga...

Finnan and book project

Finished Finnan, and started putting together the Haunted Forest book!

If all goes well, it should be available in September. 💚💙💚

Back from holiday!

I somehow made it through the last week of school and now we're freshly back from a holiday in Denmark. (Which I've fallen in love with - how can a country have the friendliest people, the best food AND the hugest Role-playing shops I've ever seen all in one? Of course, you can't have it all, so it was rather cold, but they also have the nicest outdoor outfitters with the comfiest hoodies, so t...

Remember Agnes and her adventure in the Haunted Forest?

I'd put up a few prints of her at Tolkien Tage the weekend before last, and there were so many people who got prints and pins of her, without having any idea who she was, that I decided it would be a good idea to finally get that story out there as a book. It was still missing a first page and that had artblocked me for months, but now it's done! The style is even comparable enough to the rest ...

Merry in Art Nouveau

This one's squarely on Kate, who asked whether I was going to do anything else with Merry, and I remembered how much I'd loved Merry in Andy Serkis's Lord of the Rings audiobook (which came extremely close to how I'd heard him in my head reading the book)... so this happened. =D To be coloured. 

Here's the lineart for you to download if you'd like to colour it! =)

Tolkien Days book sketches!

I spent the last weekend at Tolkien Tage in Geldern/Germany, and I finally think I may have even out that sleep deficit, so I can post the sketches I did in art books! It's been an insanely wonderful time with people I hadn't seen for three years and who were about as starved for nerd culure immersion as I was. I encountered quite a few critters and sold heaps of artbooks, almost all with sketc...

"Among many other things"

"Curiosity is the spark of many arcane pursuits and knowledge... among many other things." 

Gilmore and Vax, finally done! I love this one so much. 

Polychromos on Arches hot-press watercolour paper (I've finally found out what Arches is actually for! Go me!) 

Next year, I'll do a Dungeons&Dragons club at my school! The headmaster is cool with it (Me: "Have ...

"Let's play."

Scene from our D&D game. Technically, from next session.
Characters: Farryn, Gnome Fighter (my DMPC), Eragon, Dragonborn Paladin (our friend), Nicht, Goblin Artificer (my husband), Farawyn, High-elf Druid (our daughter). We're somehow an all-male party. They've been adventuring for a week or two, but with a scared little Goblin, a stuck-up Elf, and a new player who doesn't initiate conv...

Vax and Gilmore (in progress)

I'm so in love with this piece and it just keeps getting better. Gilmore's skintone just turned out so gorgeous. 

I'm using Arches watercolour paper, Arches being the barely contested queen of watercolour papers, and I just could never get into it! Now I know what it's good for - coloured pencil! The colours are just so creamy. It looks even better and softer in real life; y...

Borrowed Time

Another image from Critical Role (spoiler-y for the end of Campaign 1, but I've already spoilered that pretty thoroughly): Vax'ildan realises that some resurrections leave their mark.

After his death and subsequent resurrection*, Vax has noticed a strange mark on his chest, and knows his time is running out before the Raven Queen will claim him for her own. (2022-06-01 18:33:53 +0000 UTC View Post

Fingon commission finished ... and a few words on men kissing

Here's the last of the three commissions! I'm really happy with how this worked out and will certainly open a few slots again later this summer. In the meantime, if anyone has any Critical Role commissions they've been thinking aabout, you can throw them my way already. <3 

I also have an important thing I need to put out there, seeing as the image of Vax and Gilmore kissing last ...

Celebrimbor

Finished Celebrimbor! Probably my favourite "Black hair in coloured pencil" I've done yet. 

And now I realise who he reminds me of - Paul from Dune! And that wasn't even planned, though I have to say it makes sense. 

Vax/Gilmore lineart, and Fingon and Celebrimbor colouring in progress

Yup, I'm somehow doing three pictures at the same time AND I'm also marking Latin exams in between and I'm feeling pretty accomplished. 

Toned paper is SO MUCH FUN. Not sure if it'll work for the Vax/Gilmore one, as the lineart tends to be swallowed if worked over by coloured pencil - so you...

Celebrimbor, Fingon, and some kissy Critical Role =D

Here's the next batch of the commissions: Celebrimbor and Fingon! I hope the colouring will go well - I have a new extremely irritating blind spot in my left eye which keeps making me think I forgot to draw a line that's already there. The spots do recede with time, to be replaced by new ones. It's irritating as hell but no longer terrifying. You get used to a lot of weird stuff. 

2022-05-24 16:59:12 +0000 UTC View Post

Signed and numbered LE prints this afternoon!

Haleth is getting a tiny little print run of ten! Prints are dropping this afternoon at 4 pm CET. <3

Haleth

Toned paper and coloured pencil. OMG. It's the perfect background tone as well. <3 

Also, blues and ochres forever! 

Note me making her hair totally ambiguous. I have no idea why, but in fanart, Haleth is usually blonde, although the Haladin are supposed to have looked like the people of Beor in the Silmarillion. I've always imagined them blonde too, which is weird. So ...

Commission: Haleth (lineart)

Here's the first go at the Patreon commissions! Haleth of the Haladin. To be coloured! =)

Orym wallpaper

This is probably the most wallpaper-ready image I've ever done, so here's a free-for-all phone wallpaper! 

I want to go wild with Art Nouveau now. =) 

Had an incredible day yesterday when Orym's (and Vax's) player Liam O'Brien shared this image with his gadzillion followers on Twitter... =O 

Orym in all his (digital) splendour

This completely defeated me in coloured pencil, sadly. It probably would have worked out, but the Ugly Stage looked so ugly that I abandoned it in favour of Procreate, in order to be able to tweak the colours indefinitely. With red (for the moon) and green (for part of his clothes) as a given, my usual blue-and-beige go-to just didn't work. ;) 

Love this little bloke. And I'...

Orym lineart (Art Nouveau makes a comeback!)

I'm going to HATE myself for the details here soon enough...!