#13 - Lucky butterfly at dawn

#12 - Mushrooms... from SPACE

Space... mushrooms... in space! Another friend request. Not as elaborate as I'd have liked, but we can always revisit it, right? Most of the color palette was stolen from the Eagle Nebula, with space mushrooms and rocks added. Mushroom design heavily influenced by the 'shrooms in Zangarmarsh, Outland in World of Warcraft.

#11 - Icebergs at dusk

More cold stuff! I borrowed the color palette very heavily from a photograph I googled, and tried to emulate the same time of day, the same type of glaciers and ocean water, the same sky spectrum and cloud coloring. I think my favorite thing about this color palette is the heavy metallic black of the water.

#10 - Tundra at dawn

For this image, the color palate was everything. And it took forever to figure out. I imagined a gradual move from magenta, to lavender, to cobalt, and blast it with orange from an implied sun.
I was really unhappy with this image right up until the last 15 minutes of tweaking, now I really like it. Cold, cloudless days are one of my favorites, plus I think the tundra was always the "boring" climate in science class (I got the tundra for a project when I was a kid, and everyone wanted the tropical rain forest.) But really, everything in cold climates is so stunningly hardy, that its "lots of grass and things that eat grass" perception doesn't hold a candle to the plants that, daily, survive freezing to death and on a low diet of sunlight and precipitation. Cool!

#9 - Graveyard at moonrise

HALLOWEEN! This one took forever, and I had to end up using some bits of photos for the grass and trees. I wanted to give a real impression of humidity and mist and a rising harvest moon, or something. Another image from a friend's request.

Post an idea in the comments and I'll do my best!

#8 - Coral reef

I'm back! Sort of. I was asked by a close friend to do a seascape thingy, so I tried my best. There aren't any big fish because I ate them all before they made it into the image.

#7 - Sunset by a rock plus seagulls

Started off this one with just a horizon line. My focus really was on getting the ocean right, making it feel illuminated by the bright sky above. It's not perfect, but I'm happy with it. Also, seagulls! I grew up near the ocean, and no rock in the middle of the water is complete without hungry birds!

#6 - Acropolis above the clouds

City in the Sky! I had this idea to have this massive city sprawling out in all directions, but today is a rainy day down below, and only the upper floors are sunny and happy. I like the idea of human made structures reaching the same heights of commercial airliners and enjoying sunny weather regardless of weather.

#5 - Scary cave and kids

Went for something a bit different with this one. I put a creepy monster in the corner to make it funny, like he's mad the kids escaped. Poor monster.

#4 - Red rock canyon and Radio

Started this one with 3 quick slashes with the pen, then decided: forest canyon! It looked a bit bare near the end after color tweaking, so I added a radio tower in the foreground. Technology! Really love how this one turned out. Probably going to use the random-slash strategy from here on out.

#3 - Slimy rock canyon in moonlight

This image wasn't easy. I originally worked with a broken, stony chasm lit artificially from below, but it just wasn't working. On a whim, I inverted the image and flipped it vertically. Modified the color and went a bit crazy with snowy/shiny reflective rock on all the open ledges.

Also, I may post images early, or post 2-3 images per day. Kind of goes against the point of the blog, but I'm impatient!

#2 - Sunset under cliff tree

Started with an idea of foresty mountains and a cliff. I wanted to have an "asian" influenced watercolor feel to the drawing. The tree could be a bit more crisp, but I'm pretty happy with it overall. A friend of mine put it as her desktop background! Great success.

#1 - Super cool mountain fortress

First one I did. It's one of my favorites for sure. I dig the feeling of an overgrown and dangerous natural environment with sort of rag-tag man made buildings inhabiting the mountain like swiss cheese.