Shantell – Shantell Tedjamulia

October 30, 2017November 17, 2020

Batragon

This bat-like dragon is the familiar of a wizard who is under a powerful curse. Determined to help his friend, this devoted dragon has spent many sleepless nights studying and preparing ingredients to concoct this cure for the wizard he loves.

I had so much fun researching historical magic books, herbals, medieval cookbooks, alchemical recipes and medieval and renaissance medicine for this project. I probably spent more time researching than painting! After my attempt to learn Old English in a couple of days proved to be too ambitious I decided to borrow my recipes from “The Compound of Alchymie” by Sir George Ripley and a headache cure from “Bald’s Leechbook.” Don’t try the headache remedy at home though, the hemlock bath it recommends seems a bit risky!

July 14, 2017

Longboard Dragon

A friend asked me to help him design a dragon for the bottom of his longboard. It was fun to try and figure out how to fill such an unusually shaped space.

I started out painting a grayscale dragon in Photoshop making sure to keep the dragon and background layers separate to make masking easier later on.

(Please note that I do have kind, wise, wonderful friends who care about my sanity and advised me not to worry about painting all the scales. But, as is usually the case with the recipients of good advice…I listened and did just the opposite)

Once I had all the detail I wanted I added color using gradient maps which is something I’ve never tried before. I color sampled from a couple images of copper coins and was able to get pretty good initial color in a relatively short time.

After several (and I mean SEVERAL) layers of this I went back to direct painting and finished it up! Which took forever. But it was probably faster than it would have been without gradient maps.! I’ll definitely experiment with them again in the future. Here’s the rectangular version:

August 7, 2016October 31, 2017

Sharpie Shoes!

For my sister’s birthday I Sharpied some shoes with some of her favorite things. It was a lot of fun but it took FOREVER!

We have The Hobbit and Doctor Who:

Star Wars:

Portal and Star Trek:

And of course Harry Potter!

Mischief Managed!

I even decorated the tongues. I figured they wouldn’t be much use as tongues if they didn’t say something! The left shoe says “It’s a dangerous business walking out your front door” (anyone who knows my sister will know why it says that). The right shoe says “Sala’s shoes! Thief, you have been warned.”

I was also really pleased with the box I made for them:

And the gift tags:

If anyone is looking to draw with Sharpie on their own canvas shoes (Converse, Vans, Keds, Toms etc.), I discovered a good trick for shading with markers. I usually just use cross hatching, but there were a few places this didn’t give me the feel I wanted. So I took the cap off and let the marker dry out for a while. When it dries out the Sharpie will make a lighter mark. Then you can layer the lighter tone to make a gradient. It’s probably not very good for the markers, but it’s great for art!

And when you’re finished be sure to seal the shoe with a water resistant spray. I used Crep Protect:

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Crep-Protect-Spray/dp/B013YRRFJ4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1470608163&sr=8-1&keywords=crep+shoe+spray

It didn’t discolor the shoes or make the Sharpie bleed. But it does need need to be reapplied periodically.

July 9, 2016October 31, 2017

Baby Marie

I started this portrait of Marie shortly after she was born. I meant to do just a little speed sketch of this photo:

…but true to form I got a “little” carried away with the details. Here’s a close up so you can appreciate them:

It was an awful lot of fun playing with so many lines! Next time I’ll make the texture a little more obvious so you don’t have to zoom in so far to see them 🙂