Friday, June 22, 2012

Nicole Cadet's foray into art improvements

Hi, I'm Nicole Cadet (sometimes known as nixjim13) and I'm a part-time fantasy artist (the rest of the time I'm a computer programmer). I mostly work in the private commissions arena, doing RPG character portraits, and the occasional book cover, but I love painting fantasy, goddesses, fairies, mermaids, sci-fi, myths and legends, and elves (I got hooked on painting more 'manly' elves, if that is possible, a few years ago as a laugh :) )

Anyway, I'd like to push my skills towards more RPG game card art and cover art, but also take a step back and pull out my watercolours and acrylic paints (as I've mostly been doing digital paintings for the last few years)

My goals are relatively fluid at the moment

  • improving narratives/ storytelling through character and composition
  • improving my composition skills (in general, might look at Loomis as a starting point)
  • trying to get more dynamics into my paintings (dynamic poses, interesting POV)
  • improving my values (so they aren't so flat, stuff like chiaroscuro and the likes)
  • simplify my colour palettes
Exercises (this is going to sound like a menagerie as I want to push my subject matters)
  • participate in sketchfest regularly (to keep the traditional drawing skills fresh & try new things)
  • learn to draw horses (so I can go to unicorns and pegasus)
  • gryphons
  • dragons ... of all kinds, and more than just a head!
  • paint a cartoon character in the style of a realistic painter (like the Disney princesses exercises that happened a few years ago)
  • sci-fi ships/ concept art / character concepts - like you see in game art concept books
  • more character concepts - different types of ethnicities, races, roles etc
Likely I'll be inspired by other people's posts ... I like joining in on the fun :) But Sketchfest tomorrow!

1 comment:

  1. Welcome to the blog, Nicole! I'm always so fascinated by how comp sci and art somehow mix. It seems like such an illogical vs logical mix! If one artist isn't doing both tech work and art, they're usually dating someone who is in comp sci.

    Random observations aside, I hope you find plenty of inspiration here! I look forward to seeing how each of us interprets similar themes. All of our trouble areas seem to overlap, every time I see each new 'wish list' from a new joining artist.

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