Kristina is now a FULLTIME freelance illustrator! - updated April 3rd

[iceman478]

your pencil work and charcoal work is AMAZING!

[Maidith]

Thank you, iceman478

Filling my sketchbook with animal studies after Bammes.
Also, a fun fanart meme thing! XD

[Maidith]

Running skeleton after Bammes, and various figures after Burne Hogarth.

damn, my sketchbook is full AGAIN. Need to buy a new one D:

[Baconstrap]

The figure studies are really bacon and I like your paintings they remind me a bit of old painting. Keep up the good work and stay bacon ^^

[Maidith]

Thanks for the comment! makes me feel really bacon

New sketchbook pages:

[jsn]

The progress in here is awesome!!!
Loving your studies, still life's, and post #691

Coming back for more!

[Maidith]

Thank you jsn
My newest finished painting, Joan of Arc.

[DStraX]

that silk dress in the Queen Elisabeth one.. it blew my mind at least!
Joan of Arc pic might be a bit flat, could use some more dramatic occlusion shadows

[ezekrialase]

very nice work! my solution to your sketchbook woes is to buy a bigger sketchbook.

[Maidith]

Thank you, ezekrialase and DStrax =)

In my class we're actually studying bones! Yay!
Apologies for the photo quality. "Hugo", by the way, is the name of the skeleton we got here at school.

[Nele Klumpe]

Haha, these Skeletons are always named Hugo...
Looking nice! The architecture in your latest painting looks way better by the way! Keep it up!

[Maidith]

Thank you Nele!

New painting, Tintin in Tchernobyl.



Like many Europeans, I grew up with the #1 Belgian comic series by artist/author Hergé (started reading the inherited-from-Dad albums when I was 8 years old) but it was the movie that put me in full fangirl mode about one month ago. (Even though the comics are much better.)

This fanart was the perfect excuse for me to get outside my comfort zone. Tough guys with guns and run-down communist architecture are very unusual subjects for me (and so is fanart!). It is my belief that every artist needs to get outside their comfort zone sometimes if they want to improve and evolve. I've also wondered how those guys would look like in my own painting style.

I really want to do more fanart in Hergé style, though! The fangirl trip increased my productivity quite a bit... Prepare for more fangirlisms!

The interior is based on a public domain photo of a building in Pripyat, Ukraine:
http://www.deviantart.com/users/outg...jpg?uselang=de

And yes, I know that Captain Haddock would rather swear off whisky than pulling a James Bond pose! But in my painting he does what I want, haha! (Sorry, Archie)

Medium: Photoshop and Wacom tablet, as always
Time: about 20-30 hours

Thank you, Conceptart.org folks here, for kicking my butt. Your critique was invaluable.

[Maidith]

Figure drawing exercise, 100% drawn from imagination, no reference.

The idea is to see how much anatomy already sticks.

Will study more.

[TArnell]

WOW...love your stuff....and thanks for the Critique (I did mine with no reference as you have done the above piece) I think we are chase the same butterfly!!!

[-D_art-]

brilliant sketchbook!!!! and wonderfull progress since page 1, keep posting!!

[Maidith]

Thank you Tarnell and D Art

Recent finished painting, The Year of Jubilee.
Special thanks go to the awesome folks on CA who kicked my butt in my Perspective study thread in the Critique forum.

The year is 1500, and Cesare Borgia celebrates the state and his family by leading a triumph procession through Rome.

I'm not sure how many figures are in this painting; I stopped counting at twenty-one.
Ever since I was a teenager I've had a secret crush on giant, pompous, oversized, overcrowded historical paintings (yes, yes, I know that cramming lots of people into a painting doesn't automatically make it good), or pretend-historical paintings. There's a huge painting by Hans Makart in the Hamburg Kunsthalle that I'm in love with

Ah well. My next one will be much, much simpler. I must focus on the fundamentals of drawing; perspective and anatomy especially. Still got a lot to learn and it's gonna take time; please bear with me.

Medium: Photoshop and Wacom tablet
Time taken: About 30-40 hours, not including wasted hours of procrastination and time spent on searching references.

[Maidith]

New painting. I ain't dead yet, just busy with commissioned work and fangirl issues.

Reference used: http://scastra.deviantart.com/art/Phone-10-196756471
Medium: Photoshop and Wacom tablet, as always


The last hurried telegram that reached him had been sparsely detailed and half-blacked-out, only the words '__________AT SEA AGAIN________ CPT HADDOCK' remaining. Tintin still has the scrap of paper, ragged from his own stroking fingertips, despite everything that the war has taken from him.

Static crackles.

“I miss you so much, Captain,” he blurts out, helpless to stop the words, “I miss you, I miss you, why didn't you-”

The bubbling hiss is his only answer. He knows why Haddock didn't follow, this time; Britain called him, the last beleaguered bastion against Hitler's might, and what could the captain do but answer? Tintin had flung himself headlong into death, after all. “Captain,” he says, low, desperate, and with a precise click, the line goes dead.

It is October 1940. The world is at war.

[TArnell]

Nice!!! with or without ref material? your last one turned out stellar!

[alizak]

That last piece is amazing!

[Maidith]

Tarnell, thank you. I almost always use reference. For the above portrait, for example, I used this: http://scastra.deviantart.com/art/Phone-10-196756471

alizak, thank you =)

New painting: Reunion at Ostend Harbour - Homecoming - 1945

[ezekrialase]

Great work!

[Maidith]

Thank you ezekrialase

I haven't got any exercises to show (apart from what I do at school, and those aren't really presentable), so here's another new finished painting, The Song of Lorelei. For more fantasy in my portfolio.

[Gannicus]

beautiful works!

[Maidith]

Thank you Gannicus

I'm making no real exercises right now, apart from school work. Just focusing on finished, refined illustrations for my portfolio, exploring as many different themes, genres and subjects as possible. (Currently I'm working on my first pure scenery illustration without any people in it).

Here's a new one (apologies to Hergé and Bouguereau).

[Maidith]

Portrait painting exercise, not sure if I'll make a finished work of it.

This is Tadzio from the novel "Death in Venice".

[PeopleEveryday]

Stunning work!

I believe I was taught by a student of the same school (in Florence) that you attended. That school certainly yields some amazing talent.

[Mistle]

Wow, it's absolutely amazing how far you have come since 2008 and 19 years old.

I'm 19 currently, and if I see such improvement over 4 years for myself, I'll be very happy.

[meticulous]

Beautiful work! Keep up the hard work!

[GaussianRaider]

Kristina! How is it going?! What are you up to now? This last one is fantastic! I like a lot this one too http://conceptart.org/forums/attachm...1&d=1330466690 and this
http://conceptart.org/forums/attachm...1&d=1315139251
And I don't think this is boring http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/4346/anneboleyn.jpg, she has pretty intense eyes and the hands are great !
Woah, I wish I had the commitment you have...it's astonishing! I'm sure you'll do ton of great stuff!!! I like your sketchbook studies too, your lines are beautiful
As a suggestion (not that I manage to implement it myself but I hear it said to me all the time ) I'd say try to differentiate more the local colors of the forehead/cheek-nose/mouth areas (ochre-is, reddish, bluish)!

[Maidith]

PeopleEveryday, thank you! Who was your teacher? Maybe I know him or her

Mistle, thank you Sometimes I wish I'd improve faster, honestly. XD

meticulous, thank you

Maurilio, thank you I'll keep your suggestion in mind.

New painting: Northwest Passage

This is either the HMS Erebus or the HMS Terror, a 19th century exploration vessel. Both these ships left England on the ill-fated Franklin Expedition in 1845.

Sir John Franklin hoped to navigate through the so-called Northwest Passage in the Arctic. But in the Victoria Strait, both ships became trapped in ice. The crew waited two and a half years for the ice to thaw but that did not happen. So in April 1848 they decided to abandon the ships and were not heard from again. No single man made it back home to England. It is assumed that they died from disease, food poisoning and starvation. From relics found by search expeditions later it was concluded that the last survivors eventually resorted to cannibalism.

Franklin's Lost Expedition - on wikipedia

It is pure Hollywood drama, and I'm astonished the story has not been made into a movie yet. I have, however, read a chilling (no pun intended) novel about it: The Terror, by Dan Simmons.

This was a new challenge for me - I wanted to paint a scene without any people in it.