05.26.06 Friday @11:53 AM EST

I absolutely adore the designs for the Final Fantasy characters. They're always so fun and visually engaging. However, as much as I love the character designs, I sometimes find myself wishing the guys looked a bit less feminine. You know, a little bit of a stronger jawline and such. This often leads to me making pictures of various characters to see what they could look like as a real person, and not just an idealized character design. I did this a while back with this picture of Squall.

I haven't made a picture of Cloud since back when Final Fantasy VII was originally released. With the release of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children I thought it would be a fun opportunity to re-visit an old character in a more realistic manner. So yes, his face differs a bit from the original character design because I wanted him to look more realistic and more masculine. This was a fun picture to make, but took a long time. I started this a few months ago, left it alone for a bit, and then went back and kept chipping away at it. I couldn't give you an exact time frame for how long it took to finish, but it definitely took a lot of hours. This was all painted in Photoshop with my tablet and completed in May of 2006. Original character design is by Tetsuya Nomura and belongs to Square.

A larger version of this can be seen right here. A close up view of Cloud's eyes can be seen right here for those of you that are interested in details.

Also, I've strung together a flash animation of all my in progress images for this picture. You can watch it right here. I thought it would be a fun way to show how this picture progressed.

05.15.06 Monday @7:38 PM EST

Deep in the wintery forest is where the snow princess holds her court.

This was initially drawn with brown pencil on watercolor paper and then I painted over it with a series of ink washes. Different parts of the scenery - trees, falling snow - were painted on separate sheets of paper and then added as layers in Photoshop. All of the color was painted in Photoshop with my tablet. I based the snow princess on a photo of myself. I started out looking at various random models from magazines, but they all looked too, well, modely and not so much like an actual person. And I'd rather for this snow princess to look believeable and not like some total fantasy person. Haha, if that makes any sense.

A larger version of this can be viewed right here in my DA gallery.

Prints are available right here.

05.10.06 Wednesday @1:55 PM EST

Here is the pencil and ink wash version of an illustration that I recently started coloring in Photoshop. As with many of the pictures I've been doing lately, I drew and painted this on watercolor paper and the scanned it into the computer. It helps to give me a good base to work from when coloring while lending a more traditional feel to the image.

05.06.06 Wednesday @10:09 PM EST

Love, rescue me
Come forth and speak to me
Raise me up
And don't let me fall.
- Love Rescue Me by U2

This picture is inspired by those U2 lyrics and Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid, one of my favorite fairy tales. I composed this in Photoshop with my tablet, incorporating a few elements that I drew and painted on watercolor paper and then scanned in. It was fun to take a break from all the pictures I've been doing lately that use heavy lineart and to just make something that's much more painterly.

A larger version of this can be viewed right here in my DA gallery.

Prints are available right here.