But It's a Dry Heat

Archive for the ‘Krita’ Category

Monica Bellucci

And…today’s victim in my portrait painting study is the lovely Monica Bellucci. Well, she was lovely until I got ahold of her. LOL.

For comparison, the same painting, but with a filter added to warm up the colors.

Figure Studies, Part Three

More little sketchy sketches, done as two-minute warmups, and then given a bit more oomph with color and a few details. The goal is to keep them loose, with an emphasis on maintaining the fluidity of the gesture.

My reference with this one had a pretty challenging forced perspective.

This one, lol, got flagged as “suggestive nudity” on Bluesky. Ah, we are in the age of the internet nanny.

Figure Studies, Part Two

One of my favorites from my ongoing very quick, timed (2-minute) figure studies. I’m calling her “Green Girl.”

Figure Studies, Part One

My morning warmup routine currently consists of doing timed, gesture studies. I usually keep each study to 2 minutes, which is just enough time to get the main lines of action down, but not enough to get lost in details. Later, I’ve been going back and adding a bit of color and a few details to the ones I like.

This one was fun because of the forced perspective, the photo taken from above the model, her feet far below her and pinching off in the perspective.

A Bit of Fanart

More fanart, this time inspired by Voltron: Legendary Defender. Kosmo the space wolf who is a very good boi. In the show, there’s a scene where Keith, attempting to bond with his new pet, a young Kosmo, throws a stick. Kosmo, even as a cub knows he isn’t a dog and shoots Keith a puzzled look. In this drawing, Kosmo, off by himself on a snowy day, explores the notion of playing with a stick. Of course, he’d never fetch it, because…not a dog.

First Try at Portrait Painting

A big chunk of my art practice in 2025 was focused on figure drawing. The effort worth it. My sense of proportions for the human form is much improved. Not perfect, but improved.

What’s still lacking is my ability to draw faces, stylized or realistic. I don’t think I’m face-blind, but when it comes to putting more than a smiley face on a round head, “arting” is still a struggle.

Anyhow, this is my first concerted attempt at a portrait. My reference is a photo of Sophia Lillis that was posted on Reddit.

The process of rendering, adding color, wasn’t inherently difficult (not that I did a great job), but what had me tearing my hair out was her facial proportions. I should have saved earlier steps in the process, because, lol, she started out looking like a middle-aged woman.

Itty-Bitty Nazgul

Revisiting an old cartoon. The old version…

And the new version…

The original definitely has its charms. But what’s funny is that even though I thought my horse-drawing skills were good back then, they’ve definitely improved in the years that followed. And, a solid year of doing figure-drawing studies also improved my hobbit drawing ability.

El Tecolote de Navidad

Saw a photo of this adorable little burrowing owl and was compelled to draw it. As it was December, I gave the little fellow a festive hat.

I’m Alive

Rebooting and re-animating this site as a secondary (more like tertiary) place to post artwork. Though I continue to post stuff on social media, the constantly changing landscape of socials is pushing me back to also having a place with more permanence.

Honestly? I know no one likely to see this and that’s appealing as well. Posting to the void rather than chasing influence.

Anyhow, this horse was one of my earliest attempts to paint with Krita. Previously, I was using an old version of Photoshop to create digital art, but when that wouldn’t run on my new computer, I gave Krita a try.

The sequence of events actually consisted of me trying Corel Paintshop Pro, which was functional but not optimized for digital drawing and painting. Looking into free, open-source options, I came across Krita.

Initially, I found it a little frustrating because I was accustomed to Photoshop and to some extent Paintshop Pro.

Now? I love it and recommend it enthusiastically. It’s got all the functionality of most paid drawing and painting software, a terrific workflow and really great brushes and tools. Plus, there’s loads of help available online if you get stuck.

If you’d like to give it a try, here’s the main Krita site.