Art Trades Roundup 2013: Things and That Other Thing

So as I went through on the last entry, I've been pretty much demoralized about art trades over the last three years of trying them. I suppose I had this idea in my head that they'd all be fun and timely and make me loads of interesting friends and contacts. Alas, it wasn't to be, my arts been getting better, but it's still a long way to go, so I can understand why a lot of people may want to give me the brush off.

But whatever, I still got some cool art, which I'm going to run through for you now. All artists are credited and I recommend checking out their cool galleries. All characters depicted belong to me unless otherwise stated. If any of the artists object to having their work featured here then contact me immediately. Big thank you to all those involved.

First up is a scenic piece of my characters Danya and Bracken by Sharpiekan. This wasn't part of a trade itself, they just wanted a bit of practice and wanted to take some requests. I was pretty happy with what they ended up with either way.

Next up is Alrianna by Sonten. I really liked what they came up with for this one and managed to stick to the design pretty closely. I'd love to do an art trade with them again.

This drawing of Nero by Intissaria is actually for a trade we did last year. Better late than never, I thought it came out beautifully and managed to capture the characters personality better than I ever could. Nero belongs to my friend Jamie.

Psychoticking's side of the trade of Bastillion. I really like the dynamic angle of this piece, again really capturing the mood and personality of the character. No mean feat when he's masked.

This is another trade for something I'd done last year. To be fair I have to take a bit of responsibility for this one, since I was in a 'not doing anything until I get something in return' phase. Hellyacross finally made good with it though, with this pretty darn solid drawing of Lerissa, my friend Simon's character.

A slightly anime influenced take on Sofia by Monoklo. I think it works really well though, and can imagine a colourful cartoon version of her flying around the galaxy in her Spelljammer.

Another one of Jamie's characters. This time his invoker Cardia. I like how Wildjenmonster took the original idea and just ran with it, without making the character look overdesigned.

Finally a work in progress of Clchriskl's side of the trade of Trust and Megi. Still no sign of a finished version but I have been in touch and hope to hear back soon. I like what's been done so far anyway. Trust and Megi both belong to my friend Jonathan.

And that is that. I really like what I ended up with, but art trades can be a tiresome process with little returns. Like I said, I'm not sure if I have any plans for further trades in the future, most of my art from now on will be working on my weakest areas, that's in between writing projects too. On a happier note I'd like to say a thanks again to all the artists I worked with and hope you all have a bright and prosperous future.

See you fools soon.

Art Trades Roundup 2013: Nothing but a bunch of Yeah Yeah Yeah's.

Several years ago I decided that I would dedicate a chunk of the towards doing art trades. Being hardly the greatest of artists I wanted to get in all the practice I could and step outside my comfort zone, and at the same time see other people's own takes on my designs to better develop them and identify my own flaws.

For the most part this is what I got out of it, and certainly I've had some great experiences. For the third year running however, there has been a portion of the tradees who would never respond back. I would keep up my end of the bargain, always, and try my best. There were some who did get back to me who advised for a variety of reasons why they couldn't finish their end of the trade, and for that I am thankful that they contacted me. There was also people who never got back in touch, and while it's frustrating that this happened, I understand there are some things in life more important than an art trade.

I'd just like a bit of acknowledgment sometimes, you know?

Ultimately I've come to the conclusion that art trades only seem to be worthwhile for artists who have been long time friends online or artist's who are commission worthy enough that they can pick or choose their trades. As a result of this, I think It'll be unlikely I'll be returning to trades in the future.

Anyway, enough moaning. Here's the first half of the roundup, featuring my end of the trades. Characters all belong to their respective requesters unless stated otherwise.

Garnet for Sonten.

Character from Sonten's webcomic. I really like doing characters of different skin tones and Sonten's style was different enough that I felt like I wasn't just covering old ground. I've only had a chance to check out a little bit of their comic but It's interesting to say the least and well worth checking out.

Daniel for PsychoticKing.

A simple everyday person. I wasn't sure what to do with the background and I think I could have probably tried harder with that. Overall though I was pretty pleased.

Blastoise girl for CG-Crayon .

Humanised Pokemon character. I wanted to emphasize the strength of the water Pokemon's final state but I don't think I pulled the muscles off very well. This pretty much led into me doing a lot of muscle practice with I still working on at the moment. CG-Crayon hasn't done his side yet but he did have a pretty big backlog last I checked so who knows. The character is his creation but as you all know the Pokemon elements belong to Nintendo.

Red for Intissaria.

Another simple character for Intissaria who I did some work with last year. Again, no response on their end but they did make good on their last trade after a lengthy hiatus, and I know they've been dealing with some issues of late so I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt.

Bruce Banner for Wildjenmonster.

I can't say no to the chance to work on a Mark Ruffalo. Natuarally the character belongs to Marvel and Mr Ruffalo's image is his own.

Magician for Monoklo.

Quick nondescript character for Monoklo. This was another one of my attempts at trying something a little more dynamic. Because I suck at perspective I went for a pretty standard profile, which ended up making it a little less dynamic than I had planned. Still satisfied with it overall but it didn't archive what I intended.

Amelia and Cillian for Clchriskl.

Some nice romantic stuff. I was a little worried about doing this because it seems like an eternity since I've drawn something that wasn't f/f or m/m. In the end it turned out exactly as I wanted it and I'm really satisfied with what I did with the background. Clchriskl still has yet to get back to me with their end, they last posted a WIP months ago, but at the very least they've responded to my messages so hopefully something will turn up shortly.

And that's the end of part 1. I really wanted to do more trades this year but it was hard finding people that were interested in doing any. I even got turned down because someone said they didn't think my art was good enough to warrant a trade. Fair enough but wow don't worry about my feelings. Part 2 wrapping up all the artwork I got in return will be coming up shortly.

What Trouble Have Our Intrepid Adventurers Found Themselves In This Time?

Been a real lack of updates here of late. I'm not dead, but I have been temporarily incapacitated thanks to Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition.

So yeah.

Art Trades are back on again. Full info over at my Deviantart page as usual. Now with a handy list of characters and references.

I'm now on Tumblr, though I don't really know what for. I recently partook in Femslash February, which you can see collected here. I think I'll just be dumping a few sketches here and there in the future.

I'm still working on that novel I keep mentioning. It's all pretty much good for submissions to publishers besides a few tweaks, but I want to get some solid feedback off a few folks to make sure it's not just utter tripe.

So that about brings things up to date. Wow. I thought I had more to mention than that.

Art Trade Roundup 2012: Art Tradeier

Cometh the hour... no wait I already used that one. Anyway, welcome to part 2 of my art trades round up for 2012 (sort of), I've already discussed in my last update my thoughts on the highs and lows of doing the trades in general, so with this update lets get things going already. Below are the pieces I got from those artists that did respond to my trades, a big thank you to all of those people for taking the time to take my ideas for a spin, It's always greatly appreciated.



All links below go to the direct image on the artist's page. All characters were created by me unless otherwise stated. As with last time, if any artist has any objection to me linking them here, then let me know and I'll take it down.




First up was my trade with PanikSura, and, I've got to say, her rendition of Carnack was so close to how I pictured him it was unbelievable. Great stuff. As a funny aside, Tom Hardy's appearance in Star Trek: Nemisis was apparently the inspiration, and thinking about it, I think the guy would make a great Carnack, especially after seeing him as Bane in the Dark Knight Rises.




Next up KaciKay took on Sakari for her Fifteen Faces project. She never asked for anything in return, which was a shame, since I always like trying to do something to show my gratitude. Hopefully giving a big thank you here will go towards that.




Then the ever reliable Klerrik decided to offer art trades, and you know I wasn't going to miss out on that. Sharp, timely and original, It's always great working with Klerrik, but I'll stop heaping my praises now before I get carried away. It seemed only fitting for Klerrik to have a go at Jocasta this time, since he'd already done his own take on Katie last year. Once again, though he deviated a lot from my original designs, what he came up with worked so well, and I'll probably end up incorporating a little of his design into future renditions of the character.




And out of the blue, General Ebonrose drops her rendition of Damon in return for a trade I did last year. Long overdue, but never unappreciated, It's moments like this that remind me that trades are always worth the time. Damon of course belongs to fellow dnd player Jamie.




In return for my trade with Bluesoulber, is this striking rendition of Zantir, looking every bit as threatening as a dark elf should.




Lore-Necha took on Cardia in return for my trade. I got apologies that the image was a bit low quality, but I don't mind. Its a great, sharp image. Cardia also belongs to Jamie.




A time jump later and yet another one of Jamie's characters, this time Nero by Taurus-Chaoslord. This is the first independent rendition I've seen of my design for the character, and I'm glad to say I think it works pretty well.




Finally, finishing off all our Player Characters, is Nazrin, by Magicpotion. She's missing her signature jacket of course, but the rest of the pic was so solid that none of us are worried about that. Nazrin belongs to another one of our players, Simon.


And that about wraps things up. But what about the future? Well, as my (sort of)'s earlier indicate, I'm up for doing art trades at any time, but I'm currently working on getting designs down for all my characters so that, in future, artists can pick and choose which characters they'd like to do. Maybe this would encourage more popularity with my trades, maybe more people would respond, maybe not. Lets stay optimistic eh.



In other news, I'm off to New York Comic Con next week dressed as Jesse Custer from Garth Ennis' Preacher. SEE YOU THERE PILGRIMS!

Art Trade Roundup 2012: Art Trade's Big Day In

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Or something. This update marks the (sort of) end of this year's series of art trades. If I had to sum up my experience this year, it would be to simply say that my opinion has not changed from the last, and below I'll sum up why.


I had two rules I told myself I would follow this year, which made it a slightly different experience than last time. The first I followed easily enough, the second less so.

- Trades were to be on a more irregular basis, as and when I saw an artist available who was interested, rather than hammering them out over a series of months like last year.

- I would not start work on my side of the trade until the other artist had finished or at least showed some indication that they'd started work on their end.


The second rule may seem a bit harsh and uncaring, but is a direct result of having done so many trades last year and only getting a portion of stuff in return. I scrapped this rule after a while for two reasons; one being that a friend of mine had convinced me that doing the trades, even without getting something in return, would show me to be a reliable artist. The other reason was that if the other artist also has a similar policy then nobody gets anything out of this.

As such, the following happened:

- Just like last year, there were a fair few artists who never got back in touch. As I've discussed in previous posts, If it can't be done, an update or acknowledgment is all I'm after. Being ignored makes me just feel as though my time is being wasted.

- The trades I did get back this year were all astoundingly good. This isn't intended as a knock at the traders from last year, far from it. I'm grateful for anyone doing me a trade or request, but I noticed that doing trades on irregular basis meant I had a broader pick from artists who were better suited to the styles of the characters.

So, in summary, art trades are great for doing something new, interesting and outside your comfort zone, and It's great fun when you see a character rendered in someone else's style. However, when you get no response for your work, It makes it difficult to want to carry on doing them.

So, after all that, lets go ahead with my contributions this year. Images link to larger versions over at Deviantart. Characters all belong to their respective requesters unless stated otherwise.



Uglypanda's asked for “something involving zombies,” and I was in a musical mood so this is what I came up with. Unfortunately the trades did not get off to an optimistic start, and I didn't hear anything in return.



A while later came this black and white piece of Jolene, PanikSura's character.




Working with Klerrik again, I have a go at one of his Gutter Brother's. A good opportunity for playing around with light and shading.




I really enjoyed doing an action shot with Hades for Hellyacross. Alas, It seems a lot of the ones I really enjoyed doing rarely get a response. I may chase the artist up on this at a later date.




Next up was Humele for Bluesoulber




And in quick succession, Dany for Lore-Necha




More experimentation with skin tones, which I've been doing a lot of this year, with Thalassa for Magicpotion.




Back to a more standard piece for Intissaria of their character, Violet. Still awaiting a response for this one.

And finally, rounding it off with a Warhammer themed character, Josephine for Taurus-Chaoslord

Come back shortly for a round up of the, frankly, great pieces of artwork I got in return.

Art Trades Round Up: Stuff Folk have done for Me

As Promised, here are the completed trades I got in return. I'm still awaiting drawings of Damon, Nero and Carnack, hopefully I will be able to update this with them fairly soon. Artists pages are linked, and Images link to full work on deviantart unless otherwise stated.

Jocasta by Jackcrowder and Chibi-con





Trust by Neko1098



Azreal by General-ebonrose



Kara by Saone



Sakari by Deliawliet



Original is now in storage, so unable to link direct.

Katie by Klerric



A bit of a deviation from the original design, but I quite like it. I've also now taken the striped top for Katie's current design.

Lerissa by Something-Dead and Kilala909





Sofia by KungfooKelly



KungfooKelly is sadly no longer on deviantart, so I no longer have any contact details for her, or a link the original image. Shame.

Megi by Cipire



Zantir by Ladybugxlove



A big thank you to all the artists involved, and especially for getting back to me when others didn't. It seems likely I'll be going back to doing trades at some point in the future after looking at the quality of the work on display here.

Right then, off to America for two and a half weeks. See You!

Art Trades Round Up: The Highs and Lows of 2011 Thus Far

Ok, its a real downer to say this but I've been doing these trades for quite a while, and while its up's were great its downs have made me say I'm through with it.

It was with an eager heart and a prepared mind that I set forth earlier this year to have a crack at doing art trades. I had a great time doing requests last year, and decided that this year I'd be able to create some exciting new work, learn a few things and get a few interesting takes on me and my friends own characters. I wanted to give the trades some purpose, so I had the idea to ask the other artists contributions to be used as profile pictures of each of our Dnd characters and NPC's.

Unfortunately my experience doing these art trades wasn't entirely the experience I'd hoped it would be. What I thought would take two to three months ended up taking more like six, and the entire project was marred with difficulties getting people interested, hearing back from others, and particularly painful was completing my end of the agreement only to never hear back from the other artist again.

I'm not suggesting that said individuals didn't have a good reason, but by and large I was never given an explanation. I'd be perfectly fine with just a quick messages saying 'sorry I've been too busy' or something, and if anyone out there wants to get in touch to let me know, well and good.

It wasn't all bad though, it was an absolute thrill seeing these characters brought to life by other talents, and I loved every minute of having a bash at their requests. We'll be taking a look at the great stuff the other artists came up with next week, but right now I'm going to showcase what I'd done for my half of the trades. You can really see how I picked things up along the way.

For full, high res images, as well as links to the creators pages, visit the Requests and Trades part of my gallery. All characters belong to the requester, unless otherwise stated.

General-EbonRose, Devil and Sark



Kicking things off, I decided to advertise my trades on the Deviantart Dnd group. General-EbonRose was the only one to take up the offer. In gratitude I did not one, but two of her dnd characters. It was early days yet, so I was content to wait for a few more responses.

deliawliet, Trouble



After a while of no interest, the mountain was going to have to come to Mohammed, as the proverb goes. Scanning the projects section of the forum, I found others interested in doing trades and requests. Some responded, others didn't, some would abandon the discussion with little to no explanation. Deliawliet wasn't one of those though, and in return I did one of her characters from her 'Trouble' piece. I was watching a lot of Trailer Park Boys at the time, hence the rum and coke.

Saone, Allicra



It was about this point that the high point of the trades kicked off. I'd picked up a lot of interest and was working with a lot of great artists. I wanted to do something different for Saone, who gave a choice of several of her characters. It'd been a while since I'd done some sci-fi, so Allicra was the perfect antidote. I really like how this one came out.

ButteredEggs, Wolves Flying Spitfires



ButteredEggs requested something involving Wolves, so I came up with this bonkers idea. I really loved doing this and got a great response, so its a shame I didn't hear back from ButteredEggs, other than an early mention that her tablet got eaten by a friends dog. When querying this later I got no response.

Klerrik, Kloe



Klerrik was a great artist to work with, thats all you need to know. In return I chose to have a go at his characer Kloe.

something-dead, Dezonia



something-dead's request of her character Dezonia really drove me to work hard on drawing wings, and ever since I've been glad of the practice it gave me.

KungFooKelly, 100 Acre Militia



The ever patient KungFooKelly asked only for something involving Winnie the Pooh. After knocking about a few attempts, she gave me this idea of a fantasy version of Piglet. Piglet and Winnie the Pooh were created by A A Milne and the version I based it on, from Disney, of course.

neko1098, Hetalia Japan America



America and Japan from Hidekaz Himaruya's Axis Powers Hetalia. Neko1098 was great to work with, so again, I was feeling generous and did both of them.

jackcrowder, Cool Spot



Jackcrowder wasn't sure of exactly what he wanted in return, so just asked me to do something of the video game character that taxed my time as a kid. Step in Cool Spot of 7-Up fame, who's game by Virgin interactive had me chewing walls for years.

Chibi-Con, Mr Jenkins



Casual super powers this time, as well as a bash at doing an older character, of Chibi-Con's Mr Jenkins.

ladybugxlove, Magic



Unnamed character from a piece by ladybugxlove called Magic. I had free reign on the colours, and was chuffed that she liked how it came out.

DhamaNow, Rorschach



This piece for DhamaNow really got me thinking about light and shadow, and changed the way I now colour and shade artwork. It was a really progressive piece for me. DhamaNow, sadly, I never heard back from.

monstermo44, Nadine



Nadine, monstermo44's character, who was still only in the concept phase. I wasn't sure if I got the hair colours right as a result. Monstermo44 said he'd be out of town for a while, and I never heard back.

Cipire, Link



Cipire wasn't sure what he wanted for a trade either, but eventually decided he wanted me to have a go at Link from Nintendo's Legend of Zelda. I had a bit of fun messing with the Trifoce iconography.

Saone, Zen



Another one for Saone this time, and looking at Zen, you can really see how far I'd come. Saone didn't finish her side of this one, but has mentioned this, so I'll let her off with if because I liked doing this one so much.

el-guero, Lina



Lina, el-guero's character. He's still working on his side of the trade.

kilala909, Syrina



It seems I have to do at least one catgirl during my request period, here's kilala909's character Syrina in human(ish) form.

General-EbonRose, The Inevitable



And finally, going full circle, we have another trade with General-EbonRose. This time its of her prominent Dnd NPC The Inevitable. She's still working on her side of this trade. I have every confidence she'll come through with it.

One final note goes to lespapillions, who's doing a request for me but wasn't sure what she wanted in return. I'll maybe come up with something for her when she's done, so watch this space.

Next week we run through the trades I got back, which are a real treat, just you wait and see.