Trying something different this time by playing around with the grid feature to go for a more graphical design concept of that well known Star Wars villain.

Using ArtRage on a Surface Pro to create some digital art!

I had the idea of throwing lots of textures at this one to see what would happen. My first idea was to grunge up as much as possible the pastels but I needed to go further.

Using a reference of a skull and a cigar I produced this mash up. As you can see I made some good use of a hair brush.

Using ArtRage on a Surface Pro to create some digital art!

Went for a very illustrative look with simple colours and no blending, I basically took a panda reference and then tried to simplify.

Using ArtRage on a Surface Pro to create some digital art!

I have started to watch True Blood, so some fan art is required methinks. I wanted a simple true to reference using oils. I tried to blend with the oils, but I am still struggling with that with the subtleties of a portrait for the moment so I overlaid a little pastel on top, also to bring out some nature skin texture.

I found a good reference and then put my own spin including, of course, zombifying him!

Using ArtRage on a Surface Pro to create some digital art!

More of a three quarter view, this painting was quite faithful to the reference and I didn't really want to push it too hard but just focus on the technique of the oil brush.

This was an unexpected win in that I blocked in a lot of the facial colours in a very rudimentary way with no blending and then used the palette knife wet option to blend everything in which as it turns out worked surprisingly well.

I really wanted to render something from the world of Transformers and this was for an informal competition on the ArtRage forums. I found a couple of references and then had a lot of fun designing the planet.

Using ArtRage on a Surface Pro to create some digital art!

Mainly using the oil brush and the style of the reference and the fact that there was armour to render meant that the painting lent itself to little blending.

Using ArtRage on a Surface Pro to create some digital art!

A change in approach for this one by starting off with a sketch. This was just a made up creature and through the power of digital art I could edit and play around until I got something that looked moderately decent.

Using ArtRage on a Surface Pro to create some digital art!

Metallic sheen is always a fun thing to render and the oil brush and pen helps to define the sharp lines. I always have fond memories of drawing Robocop when I was younger so this had a large aspect of nostalgia applied to it.

Started with a pencil drawing and then tried and old style but filling in some flat colour with a dry oil brush and then blending later. I discovered with this painting that Sophie Turner has a very difficult face to get absolutely right and in the end I'm not sure I really achieved that.

Using ArtRage on a Surface Pro to create some digital art!

Of course I am watching Game Of Thrones at the moment and I thought I would change up a standard facial portrait with a torso and hence a smaller head for a bit more of a challenge.

Using ArtRage on a Surface Pro to create some digital art!

Unusually started with a sketch on a coloured background and then applied a marker for a clear set of colours. My idea was to clearly define a crisp well defined insect offset by a blurry background.