But It's a Dry Heat

Archive for the ‘Digital Drawing and Painting’ Category

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.

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.