Using ArtRage to draw my interpretation of a Thing poster, my favourite horror film.

My entry for a DeviantArt contest, the BeckyKidus' Contest: Scary Posters to Draw in the Dark

Here is the final version of my entry to the ImagineFX August competition!, I'm not quite sure what I am going to call him, probably Derek!

Here is the final version of my entry to the ImagineFX August competition!, I'm not quite sure what I am going to call him, probably Derek!

Here is an initial version of my entry to the ImagineFX August competition:

Timelapse of some nursery art, this time with little or no colour.

Nursery art for our offspring!

Timelapse of my garuda art / wallpaper contest entries, the theme was bird of prey, so what perfect bird than an eagle!

A competition entry to the linux distro of Garuda, unfortunately I lost out to some AI generated art! 😠

Using ArtRage and Infinite Painter on various drawing tablets showing a video slideshow from 301-350

Using ArtRage and Infinite Painter on various drawing tablets showing a video slideshow from 251-300

Using ArtRage and Infinite Painter on various drawing tablets showing a video slideshow from 201-250

Using ArtRage and Infinite Painter on various drawing tablets showing a video slideshow from 151-200

This was created from an initial brief. I tweaked my style slightly generally to be more of an illustrative look and had to focus more on a playful theme rather than the dark edge I usually employ.

Part of a big multipart commission I completed. This was created from an initial brief. Firstly I produced some sketches to make sure I was going in the right direction with comments and modifications along the way. I tweaked my style slightly generally to be more of an illustrative look and had to focus more on a playful theme rather than the dark edge I usually employ.

Another 50 pieces of art I have completed in a slideshow!

In loving memory

Simply in loving memory

(updated) Seemingly where I spend most of my arting time

Using ArtRage and then animating

Using ArtRage and then animating!

Using ArtRage and then animating

Using ArtRage to rework some old art and then to animate

Using ArtRage to rework an old piece of art and then to animate

They sadly are no longer with us, but maybe soon…

Using ArtRage and InfinitePainter on various drawing tablets

Just a simple fruit bowl, but with a bit of a twist!

Using ArtRage and InfinitePainter on various drawing tablets

Animating everyone's favourite Slayer!

Animating some of my art, this time a scary tree that used to exist just down the road

More animating my art this time one of my weird creations!

Animating more of my art; this time a simple Frankenstein, ahem, I mean a Frankenstein's monster!

I started this quite a few months back and thought I would revisit now I am catching up on all my unfinished art. Strangely I quite enjoy still art but this time I thought I would play around a little and put in a bit of a sinister twist.

Creating my yearly advent calendar for work with the theme this year being films featuring computers.

Animating more of my art; this time a Superman and terminator hybrid!

I thought I would have a bit of a go at animating my art using an app on IOS called Werble!

I thought I would have a bit of a go at animating my art using an app on IOS called Werble!, this time a weird floating burning pocket of destruction!!

Another 50 pieces of art I have completed in a slideshow!

A commission in timelapse fade format, a tree is falling and of course must remember to utter, Timmmmmmbeeeerrrrr!

The last 50 pieces of art I have completed in a slideshow!

This was part of a commission I did for a Canadian children's TV company through TeenyTinyStories

Some more random doodles, this time using just a notepad, biro, and infinite painter.

Finishing off an imaginary black cat with the help of playgroundai.com and Krita.

Video showing my process for a commission I completed for Teeny Tiny Stories

Using ArtRage and InfinitePainter on various drawing tablets

A commission that was to become animated for Teeny Tiny Stories.

Started in Infinite Painter and I wanted to apply a lot of texture in ArtRage mainly utilising the depth of the Oil Brush to define Jabbas skin. I added a tongue from the original reference and subtly introduced Yoda and Luke into the background. The main enhancement from the reference was adding more of a spotlight on the face and enhancing the saturation.

A portrait of a recently passed cat of my girlfriends parents. This took quite a while to get the proportions and the colouring correct. The final touch of a vignette blur worked pretty well which gave the depth of view and brought the focus to the face. I enhanced the eyes with a sparkle which didn't exist in the original reference and of course needed to remember to add in the whiskers.

From an art gallery, far far away!

Any furry thing

A portrait of my girlfriends parents. It is always tough for a portait let alone two so it took me quite a while. As you can see I did the usual background trick of duplicating and resizing the foreground which always ties things up nicely.

When a canvas is created or an image is imported and the height is larger than the width then the layer preview, canvas rotation and transformation options become distorted. There seem to be no problems with a landscape orientation.

Any piece of art that doesn't fit into a category

Part of a big multipart commission I completed. The first time I had really done some art for a sizeable amount of money. This was created from an initial brief. Firstly I produced some sketches to make sure I was going in the right direction with comments and modifications along the way. I tweaked my style slightly generally to be more of an illustrative look and had to focus more on a playful theme rather than the dark edge I usually employ.

Part of a big multipart commission I completed. The first time I had really done some art for a sizeable amount of money. This was created from an initial brief. Firstly I produced some sketches to make sure I was going in the right direction with comments and modifications along the way. I tweaked my style slightly generally to be more of an illustrative look and had to focus more on a playful theme rather than the dark edge I usually employ.

Part of a big multipart commission I completed. The first time I had really done some art for a sizeable amount of money. This was created from an initial brief. Firstly I produced some sketches to make sure I was going in the right direction with comments and modifications along the way. I tweaked my style slightly generally to be more of an illustrative look and had to focus more on a playful theme rather than the dark edge I usually employ.

Part of a big multipart commission I completed. The first time I had really done some art for a sizeable amount of money. This was created from an initial brief. Firstly I produced some sketches to make sure I was going in the right direction with comments and modifications along the way. I tweaked my style slightly generally to be more of an illustrative look and had to focus more on a playful theme rather than the dark edge I usually employ.

Part of a big multipart commission I completed. The first time I had really done some art for a sizeable amount of money. This was created from an initial brief. Firstly I produced some sketches to make sure I was going in the right direction with comments and modifications along the way. I tweaked my style slightly generally to be more of an illustrative look and had to focus more on a playful theme rather than the dark edge I usually employ.

Part of a big multipart commission I completed. The first time I had really done some art for a sizeable amount of money. This was created from an initial brief. Firstly I produced some sketches to make sure I was going in the right direction with comments and modifications along the way. I tweaked my style slightly generally to be more of an illustrative look and had to focus more on a playful theme rather than the dark edge I usually employ.

This test of saving times was performed on a Samsung Galaxy Book Flex 1 i5 (the rest of the computer info can be see on the video)

This took me a loooooong time, probably because the subject matter is bother complicated and potentially a bit stale meaning that I had to work extra hard on it. I applied texture layer after texture layer and eventually got to a point I was moderately happy with.

It's easier to paint a subject that doesn't move

It was Christmas so what better way to celebrate than producing a robin. The idea behind this was to make the style like a christmas card. This one was one of those that came together very quickly in a couple of hours and I quickly decided that it was completed.

Started in InfinitePainter over christmas, the main focus being a warm complimentary colour and the focus of the detail being the chalet, and just popped in a snowman for a bit of fun. The balance between a vignette contrast was key here.

Channelling my inner Bob Ross

Another started in InfinitePainter, I always quite enjoy the still life art and embellished a little with the writing on the side and tried to make the jar really pop out. It is not always easy to add life to an inanimate object, I think that is probably why I generally prefer portraits.

Creating a Married At First Sight (Australia) advent calendar using ArtRage

I originally started this piece about a year ago and had it hanging around for while, when I revisited I replaced the original cat with a dog and added a teddy bear.

I don't often do a full body piece as I prefer to focus on the face so I get a bit caught up in not putting enough detail into the face itself.

I had lots of fun with this one, I initially tried a spherical stencil in ArtRage to get the basic shading and then went from there.

The start of a new playlist series in which I demonstrate how I use ArtRage for simple graphical tasks. This time it is to finish my Christmas advent calendar.

Showing the immense power of layer effects in ArtRage

The first of the Sanderson sisters that I attempted, the final version here is a little different than my original idea when it came to typing all three of the sisters together, originally I had also cropped out the lower part of the chin (as an accident) and it seemed to work well, but eventually relented.

All three of them!, I tweaked Winnifred a little and blended her hair with the other two using the palette knife in ArtRage.

This was actually the second Sanderson sister I completed but set the tone for all three of them.

The third Sanderson sister that I attempted, struggled a little, I think mainly due to the flat lighting on the the reference so had to add my own in for interest.

A suggestion from my girlfriend to create a poster featuring our cat Binx and the aforementioned girlfriend.

Fiancé art

Demonstrating how to set up an .arscript file association for the windows store app ArtRage Vitae so a .arscript will open up Vitae with a double click

When recording a script playback and selecting Import File rather than Import File to Layer accidentally, the replay stops on the Import File and the recording can only be stopped. At this point the original recording can be continued to be played back by switching to the original painting but now the GUI elements are present on replay which wasn't desired for a clean video playback with all GUI elements removed.

When the canvas is horizontally flipped (H) there are some black artefacts relating to the brush on the screen, have also noticed some others too not necessarily relating to the brush on the screen.

Showing the ability to quickly change the layer blend modes using actions

This was a portrait I completed for my mum's 70th

A portrait in profile!, the important part of this piece was the cropping, I worked originally for quite some time on the hair but it didn't really work.

Completed pretty much entirely on my Samsung Galaxy Note 8, with just a little tidy up using ArtRage.

I wanted a bunny with a bit of an edge, I modified the reference a little to add hair on the head and a slightly scary eye.

Done mainly for my girlfriends parents and was quite close to the reference, as I guess it had to be to maintain the likeness.

I'm not really sure why I don't indulge in more still lifes.

Ah yes, my perennial Alien art!, after watching the film Alien for the umpteenth time I saw an image right at the end of the film which I liked a lot, so I snapped it with my camera with a resolution to artify it!

Extreme experiments in ArtRage textures. You will notice some bubbling effects which was an overlay from my camera from fat globules rising to the surface of a hot watered roasting pan I often use this text as it add much interest. The effect was either a marbly man or a rock of a man emerging from water. The detail was brought in by copious use of the palette knife.

After watching the Killing I was inspired to render my favourite actor, that of Joel Kinnamen. I had the idea of warping and blurring to perspective the gun to add a 3d effect.

Yes thats right!, pretty much my first portrait, mainly due to the dearth of my facial pictures. As you can probably guess I was lying down for this one, but uprighted for the portrait itseld, I think in the end I was quite pleased bow it turned out, the key was the mid tones, which I am working on as I tend to focus on the darks and lights too much and get carried away.

After watching the Queens Gambit, I was inspired, just a straighforward head on shot, which is quite unusual for me and really tried to push the colours and highlights.

The greatest show every, except the final season of course

A bit of a montage of art which every now and then I do, taking the art of Rey, Daenerys, Yoda and Darth and merging them all into an interesting coherent whole.

Based on an idea for my sister, a vampire diaries mash up showing the morphing of a ripper enraged Stefan to his boring normal ego. This one I found very tricky, it took quite some time to get the balance right and of course would have taken quite a while anyway due to the fact it is two portraits. Again I was having problems with the mid tones and getting the image generally to be bright enough and not look too flat, hence the palette cloudy blending.

A suggestion of an idea from my mum who at the time was writing a story about a Macaroni man with a story lodged in each pasta recepticle. I had already rendered such a monster but thought that I could not do a little better. This is one of the few pieces that I specifically created a sticker brush for to easily define the macaroni pieces.

I really should do more landscapes they are fun and actually fairly easy compared to a portrait, much more range for error. The key is to focus on the planes with the ones further away being lighter and having less detail, ArtRage is ideal for this type of texture rendering. It did take me a while though to figure out where to put the source of the sunlight and trying to get the beams of light to sit well.

A landscape with a twist, originally create off a Maddy livestream I thought the beach was just too boring so spiced it up with a sea monster and added in some story with a boat reaching out. Again this was texture heavy and landscapes are very much enjoyable.

Creepy creatures from the depths of my imagination

Running ArtRage Vitae on a Samsung Note 8, rotating the screen with canvas resetting to landscape canvas orientation canvas reset

Using a Samsung Note 8, when setting the oil brush to above 100 percent and then moving to the colour picker and back again the Oil brush size resets to 100 perecent. Sizes below 100 percent are remembered.

Using a Samsung Note 8, when long press colour picking is activated in settings the colour sampler jumps from its previous position to the new one, the colour picking works fine but is more of a cosmetic issue

Can't seem to transform all layers on ArtRage Vitae

Another originally created off a Maddy stream but of course morphed in someone who looks suspiciously like Daenerys, I added the lighting to make it more interesting and to be sitting in a cave, I am starting to realise now that telling a story is quite important, although it is not always possible with a simple portrait.

Using a Samsung Note 8

I wanted some art to hang up at work, the main issue I struggled with was to get the sub to fit in with the background, originally I had rendered it quite dark and with little texture but it didn't really seem to fit into my style so there was a lot of playing back and forth between GIMP and ArtRage to get this right and a little overlaying of the building from a partially completed piece to enhance the composition.

The original was started on a Maddy stream, I tweaked the house a little to make it more interesting and added a spooky man wading through the water in the center (can you spot it?).

Using a Samsung S6 Lite tablet and am finding the following bugs with the brush size

A quick demonstration of the new features on the new mobile ArtRage Vitae app!

Although there is a sub with high contrast in the foreground I wanted the eye to be drawn to the mountains. At the time I was watching quite a lot of Bob Ross so wanted that kind of rendering, I'm still not quite sure I got the colour of the sea as it may be a little too saturated, but it is good enough.

I really love the reference for this but wanted to change the original cool colours up so it reflected more of a northern mystical sunset. I utilised the deeper thicker paint of the oil brush in ArtRage to acheive some of the snow textures, the difficulty as is often the case with my paintings is getting the final result to be bright enough. I added some humans in the near background to add interest and imply that they are on some kind of exploratory mission.

Started on a Maddy stream and came together quite quickly, I was careful not to overdo the textures in the foreground and spent longer than I thought on rendering the sky, I wanted more af a focussed light but couldn't really get it to work.

A commission I did for someone at work, I don't often do white backgrounds but he was very insistent. It meant that I just had to blur and soften the edges just a little to unflatten the main protagonists. As you can tell they both look very similar and a little copy paste took place between the two.

A commision I did for someone at work, dogs of this furry variety are always fun as I can leverage the ArtRage palette knife, however it is essential not to render every hair and only focus on those parts of interest. The key to this portait was the background and one which I had already rendered seemed to fit in nicely with few changes and fix the dog firmly in space.

I was in the mood to start some animal portait and found a really good lamb reference, but as always I didn't really want to follow the reference too religiously and wanted my own spin.

Part of my girlfriends medical series, this time simply a hand holding some pills, the proportions of the fingers really took a long time to get right but fortunately I have the warp took for that, as part of this series I wanted to get consistency between each part of my artworks and in a way firmly grounded my art style.

Another from the medical series on paintings, another atypical piece in that here we have some bottles, with labels on them, more difficult to apply a twist and potentially to make it interesting.

The first portrait of my girlfriend with her tube!. My main aim here was to capture her beautiful personality and to define a new lighting setup, a dappling type of sunlight across the face. Unusually for a portrait the face is very cropped and it took me a while to get this balance spot on.

A continuation of my medical series, this time face on with my girlfriend. Quite a simple and quick portrait, but the more I look at it the more I like it, the skin tones are flatter that I normally render and I was content with little dynamic lighting and I liked the unfinished look.

This time a body part that isn't the face!, it is however a better part!

Another part of my girlfriends medical series in which we paint a common occurrence when one goes to a hospital in that a tube is put in your arm. An interesting challenge in technically this could be quite a boring painting, so I tried to add extra impact by focussing on texture.

Part of my girlfriends medical series, this time from a photo she took when suffering and bored in hospital, I had quite a lot of fun with the curtain and settling it into a nice background.

Which Witcher is this?, well I'm not quite sure, but I can be sure of this, he is a Witcher.

My idea here was to create a very simple landscape with the focus on a tree utilizing quite a few of ArtRage's foliage brushes. As it turned out this painting formed the backdrop of quite a few of my later paintings!

I found an interesting reference of a woman's face and started off in Infinite Painter, as I progress I thought that it would be fun to overlay my Frankenstein painting as I loved the lighting and see what would happen. As it turns out the best effect seemed to be really to push the contrast on lighting on this one.

Overlaying a previous painting as a blend layer of Frankensteins monster to enhance a portrait.

A large proportion of this painting was completed in InfinitePainter, I was struggling at times to really get the colours to look interesting, but a couple of GIMP exports and really focussing on that rim light along with a late texture overlay seemed to bring everything together.

I have yet to see the Mandalorian, but I liked the idea of painting that uber popular character baby Yoda. So I took my original Yoda painting and using the warp tool, initially to enlarge the eyes of course, turn it into something a little bit cuter.

A bold bunch of textures to really make this tiger come out and I was determined not to apply too much contrast.

A commission I completed for my girlfriends parents. This is a portrait of their dog. I have done quite a few of this type of animal portrait with a simple face lying down, the main challenge with this one was to add something extra to the eyes and to define the environment.

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

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

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

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

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

A quick demonstration of the new Actions feature in ArtRage. In this video I have demonstrated the use of Actions to create a quick shortcut to all the blend modes for the selected layer!

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

Feathers and more feathers! Started in InfinitePainter on a black background initially as I really wanted the parrot to be bold although in the end I decided against it, but it took me a while to get a background that would fit. I got a little lazy with the feathers too where I really should have spent more time on them.

Using InfinitePainter on an iPad and ArtRage on a Surface Pro to create some digital art!

A simple rendering of a spaceman reference, it is not often that I attempt something that is more mechanical. Started in InfinitePainter to get the basic shapes and composition quickly constructed. Added an extra thick oil brush so the paints topology could reflect the creases of the suit. If you look very closely you can see that in fact I have overlaid a photo of my garden as a reflection in the visor. This piece of art was picked for the inclusion in a book called Teeny Tiny stories.

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

This is pretty typically of the style of portrait I usually produce, chunky colours, plenty of texture, saturation, simple background and a little twist.

This painting caused me quite a few problems, the main one being the yawn, it took me a very long time to define the correct shape and I was struggling to figure out how to apply a tweak to the reference, in the end I just added some extra texture.

Something very different, I started in InfinitePainter and spent quite a while drawing lines, I wanted almost a Blade Runner type vibe but with my own design and it is not often that I involve a sense of perspective in any of my paintings.

Another superhero, this time I wanted to be very original, my initial reference was a creepy clown doll which I tweaked to look like the joker. It was interesting to do a profile portrait for a change and the background was rendered separately and then brought in with the batman sneakily in the background. So this painting turned out to be more of a story to it and I had to focus more on the composition.

My own spin on the ubiquitous superhero genre

I thought of a simple concept, to draw a cute cat!. This turned out to be very close to the reference and actually I ended up completing most of it in Infinite Painter.

More GOT art!

I really liked how this one turned out in the end it has quite a nice old fashioned painterly vibe. This was from a simple reference, but tree frogs tend to have some very interesting colours to them. This one I started in Infinite Painter and managed to get quite a realistic look quite quickly.

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

I had the same idea for this as I did for my previous yoda painting to focus mainly on the light sabre and have the lighting set up springing from mainly this single source of light. I had to work very hard to make the portrait as bright as possible without actually making it too bold.

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

Yes sadly he is no longer with us :(

I twist on Darth Vader I almost wanted to try out my own design and have his face emerging from the gloom, maybe a future Darth with some upgrades.

Taking some old pieces of Alien art and combining them into something new. Trying to stay faithful to my original pen drawing that I did a very long time ago by layering my previous alien paintings over the top. In the end I was quite happy that I achieved the correct texture balance and gave the alien I slightly different hue.

Finally a Sansa portrait that I was at least reasonably happy with, I still don't think I quite got the likeness of Sophie Turner but it is close enough and the texture and the warm almost sepia tone gave an almost old master look.

Taking some old pieces of Alien art and combining them into something new

Putting my own spin on a superhero character, I really wanted to do more than a portrait here and challenge myself to a more of a full body pose.

Of course I started with an Ewok reference with the initial aim of adding this to my Star Wars gallery, but half way through I wasn't really feeling it, so had a little fun to create something else that possibly might reside on Endor!

Yes sadly he is no longer with us :(

IT'S A ………… TRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!!!!!!

In the end this was a pretty faithful reproduction of the reference but I really wanted to push the texture, I think in hindsight I may have overdone it a little, especially with pushing the high pass sharpness filter.

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

Another eagle!, this time face on, copious use of the bear fur sticker spray for this one and the key for this one I think was probably getting the crop right.

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

This time experimenting with some blending techniques using ArtRage.

Putting my own spin on a superhero character, I really wanted to do more than a portrait here and challenge myself to a more of a full body pose.

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

Showing how I managed to install the latest version of ArtRage on Linux Mint 19.1 using Crossover on a Surface Pro 2017

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

A lot of this painting was spent in Krita and following a simple reference of a squirrel, I went quite a way with it until I couldn't quite get the composition right and in the end brought the warp tool out to create a slightly different creature.

I haven't seen IT, but a portrait of the main protagonist seems to be right up my alley! It gave me the opportunity to try again a little lighting from below which I thinks works very well for a portrait and is not something you often see. At times I was struggling with the composition as the hair never seemed to give me a satisfactory shape.

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

Another go at Robocop, this time in simple profile, I wanted to try and make this as original as possible in my style and found that making it a warmer tone rather than the traditional blue metallic hue worked better in this case.

Is it a robot, or is it a man?!

Showing how to edit a script playback file to fix the canvas in place and ignore all the canvas positioning during the painting.

Started the painting in Krita working my way up from a thumbnail. I wanted to tweak the colours a little here as the original reference had blue eyes, so I exported at one stage to GIMP to have a tweak and then blurred with the palette knife towards the end which is something I have learnt to do with an animal portrait.

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

Reworking one of my first digital paintings :)

A paint over of a GOT dragon that I painted about 5 years ago :)

A paint over of a GOT dragon that I painted about 5 years ago :)

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

Yet another eagle!, I always love to draw these and this painting only really came together when I applied a cloud type palette knife to mess around with the edges of the protagonist.

I was playing around with the idea of a monster montage and a rough idea using a hard airbrush, after a while I started to feel some kind of zombie coming through, as it the usual with me!. Towards the end I think I cropped a little too much and should have been braver to keep an earlier idea to show more.

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

An idea that actually started in Krita for a change as this software has much improved in recent times and I always want to try something new.

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

Again started using Krita and based on a reference of a little cute own ornament. I am currently liking starting with a very zoomed out view to almost thumbnail the start of the painting which seems to lay in a good foundation.

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

The idea here was to show a mummy in a sarcophagus with a ray of light shining on their face. As the face was covered by a bandage I could get away with a lot here!

A Mummy time lapse using the POWER of ArtRage :) for Halloween!

Reworking one of my first digital paintings :) The first painting I had completed on my ipad using an app called ipastel and using an old fashioned capacitive stylus. Knowing more about how to set up a lighting situation I had the idea of including a light sabre as a secondary light source and with a little of the warp tool giving him a little more attitude.

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

A reworking of my original Faith torso painting as I wanted to push the lighting and to solidify the edges if possible. Added a lens flare type effect for a finishing touch.

Everyone's favourite slayer!

A fun piece for the most amazing time of the year. It was also used as a promotional piece of art for Ambient Design the makers of my main art making tool ArtRage. The original reference was a gnome Santa with the lighting massively colour dodged and the oil brush texture really pushed.

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

Showing how the clone tool can be usefully used in ArtRage

Adapting my winter puppy painting with some texture and a reflection.

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

A cute puppy reference with extra blue tone and a wintry feel, I have done a puppy a couple of years back and this time I think the balance and blending was better and I ensured a good texture with a late layer of white paint multiply.

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

A spiderman but with the essence of venom, another one of my original superhero paintings but with a hybrid tweak. Extensive use of combining some of my old paintings and the warp tool. This painting took me quite a while as I couldn't quite get the tonal brightness quite right, I think I learnt a lot from the Mummy art I had finished before and really worked hard to bring the main character to the forefront.

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

Narration of my process to create Ahsoka Tano

This started life as a pelican and I added some rim colour dodge to turn it into something else!

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

A Star Wars character that I haven't even seen on screen, but I really liked her design so I thought I would try and put my own spin on it.

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

Started as a painting from a parrot reference, but during the initial render I got a little bored so I started to add an edge to it and then completely change the colours.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here is a link to the .arpack :)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An original!, literally of course, in the vein of my penguin painting years ago I tried a full body portrait, I'm not sure I really pulled it off and really struggled with the likeness in the end.

Creating a montage of Stranger Things characters to produce a little fan art, I used a few references for this to create a little tweak to the demo concept and then overlaid Eleven in the backdrop.

Using a Buffy painting as the base and playing around with texture and the palette knife.

After just watching the latest Star Wars film the best thing in it was the Porgs!, so I thought I would try and put my own spin on things, I reused the background for created for C3PO and drew the focus as much as I could on those eyes!

This was a rework of an original piece that I had painted on my rucksack when I was younger in acrylic, I thought it might be a good idea to give it a digital paint over.

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

A commission I imposed on myself for my sister's birthday, a family portrait, this one took quite a while and I had to be especially precise with the faces, every pixel had to be very accurate.

I found a creepy reference of a doll face and decided that with a good texture brush I could get

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

I thought I would try a portrait with no colour in the reference so I could primarily focus on the tonal aspects. As it turns out frankenstein's monster really lends itself to some nice texture and the palette knife.

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

A simple portrait painting using mainly the oil brush but really pushing the tonal contrast, I was quite happy how this turned out and is really the style I want to try and achieve for my portraits.

An improvement on my original Dark Willow effort, much better blending and overall refinement on this one, I think now I have really moved on from my pastel techniques to that of using more of an oil brush.

I really wanted to change up the colours here, to obviously keep the essence of Buffy but to shine a much different light. Also to have a sticker spray configured to cast a splash of blood, for dramatic effect!!

The initial reference was just of a frog ornament which I thought looked interesting and had some character. It took me a while to figure out the colours, including exporting to gimp. It was only when I started to apply blend mode layers using the bucket tool that the piece all started to come together.

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

A paint over and update to one of my first pastel type paintings in ArtRage, it is always useful to attempt this to see if I am actually making any progress on my art journey. I can now see a lot that was wrong from my original effort.

Something very strange, I just was having fun and playing around with just about all the tools in ArtRage.

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

Sometimes I like to take a reference of an innocent children's toy and then tweak it to extraordinarily creepy levels.

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

A simple still life, and in the style of an old master, hence the dark backdrop. Surprisingly this didn't take too long, I held off applying the higher tones and the saturation for as long as I could so the luminosity of the orange tones could come through. This was just about the first still life I have done using ArtRage and actually surprisingly I enjoyed it, it was nice to have no pressure to achieve the likeness of a portrait.

A spliced painting taking my dragonfly painting as a background and then the lizard painting to adapt into a dragon, this gave me the opportunity to experiment with the ArtRage editing tools.

I found a cute picture of a teddy bear online reading a book and thought that it could look pretty cool if it had a bit of an edge, like if it was a little evil for example.

Initially I was just going to follow the reference of a lion faithfully while applying a little texture, but as it turned out I decided to give him a little bit of an edge by colour dodging a red highlight around the eyes and a little rim light.

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

A fun still life from a challenge suggested on the ArtRage forums to simply render a pear using just the oil brush, surprisingly I had quite a lot of fun with this one

A Sand Snake from Game Of Thrones, I really don't think I caught the likeness and it really isn't done in my own style. I think I ended up focussing too much on the airbrush to achieve a blended skin tone.

A simple reference copy, and I think the key to this painting was its simplicity as I seemed to hold better control over the oil brush and palette knife and to achieve the right background colour.

I wanted to combine superman with robocop, so to start I painted based on a superman reference and then started to work out some dynamic lighting. I overlaid a few of my old paintings and even played around with a stencil to apply a texture to achieve the overall effect.

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

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

Inspired by Bob Ross I had an idea to come up with an original fantasy landscape.

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

An amalgamation of several paintings I had previously finished.

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

This painting changed quite a lot during inception as originally it was supposed to be a child of the forest from Game Of Thrones, but I was struggling with the oil brush in ArtRage and things were getting a little muddy.

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

Tried to use the oil brush for as much of the portrait as possible, but I am still struggling a little to blend colours smoothly. Tried to overlay a previous portrait with different blend modes and then push colours and textures towards the end.

Simply a fly on a flower, I wanted to try and channel the success I had with the dragonfly painting I did a couple of years back with the foreground even more prominent with a blurred background.

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

Another superhero!, I really do like getting a theme on and then bingeing on it. Again I gathered up a lot of reference and wanted to produce my own take which would a combination of the 60s Adam West version and the latest Dark Knight.

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

More superheroes, this time on of my favourite, catwoman!, I gathered quite a few references and realised that it should be very much a Batman Returns type catwoman but with my own design of mask.

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

A fun monster, overlaying many of my previous monsters combined with the use of the Warp tool, this turned out to be more of a photo bashing exercise but using my own art. I always find these experiments valuable as it pushes me out of my comfort zone.

I am certainly in the mood for superheroes at the moment. This one I completed on my new Wacom Cintique and wanted to put my own spin on the wonder woman concept. I gathered quite a few references and just figured out along the way what I wanted.

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

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

An experiment to adapt my original Spike piece into something else, a troll. My idea was to give me practice with the newly introduced Warp tool.

This painting was based on my airbrush based Spike portrait as I wanted to experiment with the warp tool and to apply a few more textures.

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

I really pushed the palette knife to blend the oil paint as much as possible and actually ended up blurring at the end for a softening effect, ideally I think I would have liked to have pushed the piece a little more but for the blending experiment, it did what I wanted.

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

A paint over from an old pastel drawing which is probably about 20 years old. From the scanned in picture I simply overlaid some paint and added a few effects, so gauge whether I have made some artistic progress.

I wasn't too happy with my original effort for this Game Of Thrones character, this time I wanted to blend better, but as it turned out I thought a better idea was to try and caricature the portrait with the help of the warp tool.

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

A paint over for a very old painting I probably did 30 years ago, taking the original acrylic and applying a digital sheen.

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

Another superhero and again I wanted to create my own version, so initially I collected a multitude of reference and then felt my way through the process.

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

Of course this is Game of Thrones and I always had in my mind to apply a texture brush to her face to represent the grey-scale. The portrait ended up in a more realistic fashion than I intended and I think in the end I got a little carried away with the multiply layer towards the end when I was more clearly defining the lighting, I would have liked to make her figure more pronounced and brighter.

Continuing my Game Of Thrones art binge I thought that rather than painting a character that exists on the TV show I would paint a character that only exists in the books. Ideally I think she would be mainly wearing a cowell and look more like the spirit of the future in the Christmas Carol.

A straightforward painting from reference, I would have liked to have worked a little long on this as I think I could have blended a little better and I don't think that the likeness is quite there.

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

This painting ended up being quite the experiment. I started off by mangling a manga portrait I had already completed using the Warp tool in ArtRage and figuring things out as I went and seeing what emerged.

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

A straightforward rendering of an eagle, I started with pastels but it seemed to hold me back a little in the final rendering and in the end I wasn't too happy with the final outcome.

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

I took a piece I had originally finished with the aim of turning it into something very weird using as much image manipulation as possible to see what I could come up with.

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

I decided to go fast and loose with a think oil brush and I left this piece fairly unfinished, and of course it is unusual for me to portrait in profile.

A paint over of one of the first digital paintings I ever did with ArtRage, as can be seen there are a lot of subtle improvements.

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

An obvious combination, I was asked by a work colleague to do my own version of Thanos, I had fun after I had rendered a basic Thanos head in then merging in some previous Darth art to achieve a combined look.

I had an idea that to truly test the power of the new Warp tool from ArtRage I could take the original Groot portrait I had completed and see if I could produce a grid of differing expressions, and here is the result!

The main inspiration for this painting was my weird squirrel dancing fur ball, I thought that I could push the colour and as it turned out it looks a little ore like Danger Mouse!

My base for this experiment was a portrait of Daenerys and I took the opportunity here to try out the new ArtRage warp tool

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

Another one of my hybrid creatures from old paintings, taking the alien queen and then combing a unicorn to form somewhat of a potent mixture. These kind of experiments really give me the opportunity to experiment with the features of ArtRage and also get a feel for the blend modes.

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

Started off as a straight forward render of a reference but while developing it struck me as being a little dull so using the selection tool I tweaked the proportions a little to give almost a caricature effect.

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

I wanted this to be very close to the reference but with some extra texture applied. I used my favourite bear fur brush to apply a feathery like texture.

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

A portrait I printed out and framed for my dads birthday. I wanted this of course to be very close to the reference but with a few extra textures and it turned out that a subtle blurring vignette would just finish things off quite nicely.

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

I simple render from Rogue One but with the colours pushed towards the end with an overlay and a little lens flare effect.

I wanted to go very digital with this painting and create a metallic type monster, almost a zombie Megatron! This was one of the paintings that was chosen to feature in an art book of short stories.

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

Started with soft pastels and then really looked to apply a bark like texture. A lot of textural experimentation here with a final flower flourish!

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

I decided to go all out on using the new ArtRage warp function by seeing what I could create while getting a feel for it.

Taking some texture and then overlaying a face to get the sense of a horror face emerging from some lava pool of texture.

Taking a cow reference from my parents and then applying the palette knife to tweak into a zombie character.

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

Started in a very digital fashion using a hard airbrush to define the basic contours and then playing around with text and colour. I thought I would play around with the text tool in ArtRage for a change and turn this painting into more of a poster concept.

A painting for a Christmas card and I thought it would give me the opportunity to use the text and stencil tools in ArtRage to create the speech bubble.

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

Originally this painting started out as a straightforward reference based render of Joyce Byers from Stranger Things holding an axe, but I had an idea midway through to apply some colour and focus more on a montage, overlaying a macaroni man painting I have completed in the past as I thought he looked quite like a demagorgon.

A commission for my mum for her aunty. I started with a little tracing and then applied quite a number of textures. The difficulty with this portrait was mainly the monochrome nature as I am so used to pushing the colour.

Based on a reference from my sisters hot tub, I had the idea of creating a mermaid just quietly lounging. I found a reference but I didn't quite get the pose or lighting set up properly.

Similar to my dragon foliage piece of art I started with a picture of some flowers and with the palette knife and overlays managed to find an old lady!

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

Playing around with some random contours and fills to get an idea of any kind of shapes and then developed the idea from there. I find I always learn a lot when I experiment and go out of my comfort zone. At one point I exported the image and distorted as ArtRage hasn't yet got a liquid transform function as of yet.

This was a painting I did for my dad's birthday of his favourite cat, my aim was to go for a very much photorealistic look and of course that would involve extensive use of the hair sticker spray brush.

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

I pushed the colours on this one to give a more illustrative look and colour dodged some rim lighting for effect.

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

This time I decided to start off by tracing using pastel and then work from there. I focussed on the detail of the feathers using the pastel and then simple fill tiled a simple background at an angle.

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

This was originally going to be a straight-forward animal portrait, but I thought I would like to add a twist by adding some rim light and a little demon twinkle in the eye.

Taking an original Darth painting and then applying some highly saturated texture.

I took my original axolotl painting and wanted to massively push the colour, so started with a high saturated overlay.

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

Playing around with lots of digital tools at the start, including the gloop pen and watercolour and defining initially some very cute digital eyes. The rest of it was just made up!

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

I had an idea to render a variation of an alien, namely the one in the film prometheus but to add something extra, my own spin on it. This involved mainly plenty of colour dodge to present an almost luminous effect to the skin and to overlay a single light from the eye, although I'm not quite sure I positioned it correctly.

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

Overlaying lots of my previous monster painting to try and create something original, lots of experimenting with texture and distorting and moving paint around.

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

Pushing my original Jon Snow portrait and combining with my White Walker portrait to see what Jon would look like if he was white walkered.

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

I wanted to apply a lightning techy type of luminous texture on the skin for this portrait.

Applying a face to my original palette knife based saturated dragon. This used to create a birthday card for my mum.

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

Originally this portrait started out as a famous screaming scene from Game Of Thrones when the Mountain did what he does, but it was very difficult to get a good likeness, so I cheated and turned it into a horror face which meant I could get away with quite a lot.

A huge experiment with texture and ArtRage brushes, I have no idea what this is but I did have a lot of fun!

A weird slug like creature really focussing on the sticker spray and pushing colour dodge.

Here I took a reference of some foliage and then layered and moved the image around to form a dragon / creature emerging.

Based on a reference photo of a scary looking tree at my parents and then pushing with a moon environment, there was extensive use of the foliage sticker spray to layer up the tree bark.

A card I created for my dads birthday using just ArtRage.

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

A simple landscape based on a reference photo I took at my parents. Mainly pastel based as it seems to give me a better blend in ArtRage.

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

Similar to my Mr Robot portrait I wanted to emphasize texture on the skin and to apply some blood type scars.

I found a really good reference of a cloud and to have it sitting over a creature, I also found a raindrop sticker spray.

I wanted to create an original monster character with a very simple background and applying leaf textures, this is the main theme of a macaroni man.

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

Based on a reference from Istebrak's Portrait Studio which allows any light setup for a model. I liked the idea of lighting a face from below. I had an idea to abstract out the eyes for some reason, maybe as I couldn't quite get the eyes in the right place, so I cheated!!

A commission for my mum off the back of my Clanger art.

Based on an idea my mum had for a story and I decided to save some time by creating a new sticker spray brush based on a photo I took of a macaroni piece.

A commission for my mum's workplace for a health and safety presentation she did for her work colleagues.

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

A more complicated painting with a full torso protagonist with a landscape background, yes really out of my comfort zone here. With a smaller figure I really struggle sometimes with the detail as you have to be very precise. In the end it all came together quite well.

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

This was an experiment, I had little idea of what I was going to achieve except some kind of creature. About half way through I decided to export into a program which I massively stretched and distorted the image, this was my first foray into exporting to an external program to cover the functions that ArtRage doesn't have.

A commission which I did for one of my dad's friends and printed on canvas. The soft palette knife was used extensively to pull out a lot of the hair.

I had an idea to adapt some reference of a cow I took from my parents and to create a Minotaur type character.

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

Trying more experiments with the technique of starting from a black background and then using a harder airbrush to build up the tones using pressure sensitivity. As it turned out it ended up looking like my dad!

I am currently watching Orphan Black and created this very much pastel based portrait.

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

Experimenting with the paint tube after watching a tutorial demonstrating how to create atmospheric clouds and then the palette knife to smear the paint around in a haphazard fashion.

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

Something fun and made up based on playing around with the sticker spray. I thought I would use a digital art trick on copy and reflecting the foreground character to simulate a floor reflection and applied the background as a kind of disco light using the radial bucket tool

My yearly portrait of an alien.

I started with a shape and then with a lot of colour formed some neon fish like creature.

I wasn't too happy with how this portrait was turning out so I overlaid an overlay layer of texture. In the end face looks like some delicious ice cream.

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

This was a commission for my mum for her work. Went for a much more illustrative look and start off with the ink pen with some smoothing and then tried to keep a watercolour like approach.

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

I decided to start this off using a fur sticker spray brush to form the basis of the painting and then to overlay some oil painting on top.

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

Wanted to take a different approach in to start with a black background and use the airbrush in a harder mode with pressure sensitivity to generate a more subtle variation.

Started again with the harder airbrush, applied a little texture and some extreme blending.

For this painting I started with the paint tube to apply some shape and then smudged around until a weird face started to emerge.

Again an experiment and mainly with blend layers to produce a horror portrait, note that there were definitely no shark references used for this one!

I started off with the airbrush to create a very digital cute face and then randomly applied some things, this was very experimental, and I was just having quite a lot of fun!

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

Trying to overlay some textures on to this portrait of one of the Doctors companions. Oil plus palette knife and then later on some airbrush to apply more realistic tones.

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

I wanted this painting to have a blurred star wars ship type background, so that part would be easy as you can always get away with a lot on blurring and then have a very bold C3PO in the foreground with a little texture applied, making sure I clearly define his chrome finish.

A made up world, full of green and the soft palette knife.

A massive explosion of texture, I literally threw everything at this one!

Pushing my original grid based Darth art with extra colour dodge!

I created a sticker spray with a 3d aspect with an idea to duplicate with small spaces along a length and then pop a couple of cut derpy eyes over the top.

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

Having fun with Portsmouth's Spinnaker tower, a few references for this one, spinnaker tower, a gorilla and an old style plane. I made use of the ruler stencil for straight lines and overlaid in overlay some multi colours.

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

Based off an ArtRage forum post which defined the original line art to colour in my own style. Well my style is a little edgy so I decided to pull out the palette knife and distort to look a little monstrous.

A combination of extreme texture, saturated colour, contrast, palette knife and a little implied zoom and I managed to get the eyes to really flow with a little colour dodge.

A landscape with a rampaging alien, I basically threw as many textures as I could at this one to create a Bob Ross type landscape.

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

This was a commission I did for my sister whose favourite show is the Vampire Diaries. I went for a more illustrative look and really pushed the colours.

I ended printing this to canvas I giving it as a present. This was a standard portrait for me.

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

A commission for one of my dad's friends. I thought I would start off with the fur sticker spray to form a good foundation of detail but it ended holding me back a little as I ended up rendering out most of it anyway, but I tried and learnt something from this experiment.

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

Trying a little ArtRage tracing and then created a splatter brush to simulate some blood to add some movement to the painting.

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

Extending my series of Game Of Thrones portraits I wanted to use the palette knife as my main brush to achieve more of an abstract look and to really push the colours.

This painting all came together when I exported out to GIMP and I warps extensively which formed the main part of the body shape.

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

I started from a simple reference of a flower from below and wanted to use thick oil paint with extensive use of the palette knife. I thought it might be a good idea to add an edge, namely some kind of creature crawling up the stem!

I wanted to produce some epic art, a hero standing powerfully, as can be seen there was extensive use of the palette knife.

Having another go as Sansa as Sophie Turners face is very difficult to get right. I still am not satisfied as I think I pushed the red tones too much and should have applied a little more complimentary colour.

As you can see I went palette knife crazy, this originally started off with a standard portrait but it wasn't really working.

The ultimate dracula of course being Christopher Lee, all I knew for this portrait is that I wanted a splash of blood at the end using the ArtRage sticker spray.

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

Mainly using the pastel at the start to apply a little blending, playing around with the hard pastel as I have been struggling a little with getting mixing to work with the oil brush.

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

I am currently watching True Blood so I thought some fan art was in order. I tried to use the oil brush and the palette knife but I was struggling with the mixing colours become quite muddy, looking back I think I should have pushed the hue of the facial shadows.

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

Quite a quick and simple bird painting, managing to get the hang of the oil brush. Experimented with a gradient overlay to add extra drama.

I think it was more by luck than judgement that this ended turning out so well, I think I mainly learnt that the shadow areas can still have a good colour and hue to them rather than just being a dark grey, this really looks as though I have applied a real pastel to create this painting.

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

I wanted to start on a black background and very gradually build up the colours to have Arya just appearing from the shadows with half the face in the darkness. I wanted to focus on mainly using the airbrush as so far I have been struggling a little with the oil and achieving a nice blend of colours. In hindsight I think I would have liked to have made the face a little more pronounced and lighter.

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

Unusually for me this was more of a landscape and also featuring a piece of machinery, of course there is the geeky aspect to it.

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

A very straightforward reference copy using a hard pastel, although I think I could have pushed the beard a little more with the palette knife.

For a long time I was really struggling to find the idea for this painting but it was only when I exported to gimp and then applied a swirly filter that I really found what I was looking for.

More airbrush on a black background to form the foundation and then using the sticker spray in overlay mode to subtly apply texture, this reminds me of one of those aliens from the film The Explorers.

More airbrush to start the painting and I think with this one I finally figured out how to better integrate a texture using a multiply layer.

I really went to town with the fur brush here, possibly a little too much and in the end I think I would have done the colouring a little differently, maybe focussing more on a cooler lighting setup.

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

I grew up admiring the art of the Transformer comics and would try and reproduce it, this is some sort of homage, but with a twist, due to the eventual green colouring I thought I would make the mighty Galvatron a little hulk like!

Lots and lots of palette knife here and showing the power of the ArtRage mixing engine to produce some unexpected colours!

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

Pastel based and deliberately applied some blur to give a more cinematic appeal, warmed up the original reference and pushed the face to emphasize the terminator endoskeleton coming through.

Finally a Buffy portrait that turned out well. Mainly focussing on using the pastels especially the hard one to help with the blending. The final painting very much looks like one I likely would have produced using traditional media.

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

Started this using the hard pastel to blend more easily, this painting came together pretty quickly, and drawing hands is really quite difficult!!

A strange sad creature and for this one a slightly different colour palette than normal.

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

This painting came together quite quickly and was helped by my technique of blending a hard pastel for realistic skin tones. I experimented a little with a more complicated background, but the simpler the better.

All palette knife!, I tried to be as loose as possible mainly focussing on the simple lighting and high contrast.

Finally I managed to figure out how to use the fur brushes! this is one of my favourite paintings so far and I accidentally managed to achieve and interesting dynamic pose.

I wanted something dark almost mechanical but with a subtle zoom effect applied.

Another initially thumbnail piece of art that I scaled up and turned demonic!

An expansion of part of an entry to an ArtRage forum competition / collaboration which started originally as a ghost but I had an idea to really push the colour and give him a fiery effect.

Something different, more of a mechanical creature, it reminds me of the cover of a Fighting Fantasy novel I read as a child and I really feel a got a good hold on the form this time.

Another piece from my dark imagination, I wanted to produce something that looked quite digital but also with an alien type style.

This took a long time and for most of this painting I had no idea where I was going but I always strive to finish and I suspect I ended up learning a lot.

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

A completely made up piece using no reference, the sticker spray made life much easier to generate the snow texture.

A big experiment with the soft palette knife to try and bring some blending and sharp edges, in hindsight I think I should have added more texture and contrast.

My initial reference was an eagle but half way through I was a bit bored so I turned it into some kind of creature!

My idea here was to plonk some paint down and then use mainly the palette knife (the soft one) to move the paint around to achieve a smoothing effect. I really had a good go at pushing the lighting and trying to achieve a fiery lighting effect.

Started this painting with a little tracing and wanted to primarily use the airbrush to see if I could figure out a better way to apply gradations to the skin, in the end it doesn't quite look like my style as the edges and texture are not really there, but with all these experiments I ended up learning a lot.

I am starting to feel a little more comfortable with the oil brush, again I mixed the media, by applying an airbrush at times for subtlety and also the pencil which gives me a level of detail and roughness.

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

A straight forward painting from reference with fun with the scaly details and pushing the colour with the blend mode overlay. Unusually I started with a pencil sketch which was how I used to start my pastel paintings but using charcoal.

A falling creature which I call a Squirm, I felt that I am starting to get to grips with the lighting and applied a little more blending to this one.

Extensive use of the fur and hair brushes for this one and even though the sticker spray brush in ArtRage does save quite a lot of time thought still needs to go into the layering.

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

I had tried a Willow portrait before but couldn't quite get the likeness, so I thought I would have another go, this time the dark version. Simply mainly using an oil brush.

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

I wanted this creature to look sinister in a very creepy way and to almost have a spiders eyes, the fur brushes were extensively used here to achieve an animal effect. I couldn't quite work out what to do with the body so I just cut it off, which I'm not quite sure worked too well. You will also notice a common background that I often apply from the default ArtRage texture section.

I really struggled with this painting as I found the likeness really hard to come by and the facial colours quickly started to get quite muddy, I felt like I was caught between using the oil brush and the pastels.

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

I hybrid of robocop and the terminator I always enjoy a mash up and also a disfigured face. The detail on this was fun to improvise.

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

I thought I would have a bit of fun with this one, combining a Game Of Thrones type dragon. To get the Santa facial expression I actually took a picture of myself and worked off that reference.

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

This came from a suggestion by a work colleague, of course I started with a horse reference, and then just added on the horn, I was going for a more pastel ethereal look.

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

Just the oil brush on an almost full body portrait which is unusual for me and therefore I had to have the challenge of rendering clothes! Of course I am currently watching Gotham at the moment!

What would happen if an octopus played tennis? well this is the answer, as you can see I pulled quite a few references for this one.

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

I was inspired to start this in the style of some manga focussing on some big eyes and a flat colour to the face and then go from there. In effect I was trying out a different style. Again this turned out to be a more of an illustrative look, in hindsight I might have liked to have blurred more the background or at least done something a little more interesting with it.

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

A very straightforward portrait, although the pose with a hand fully visible was quite challenging. I focussed on quite a watered down oil brush for an oil glazing effect to build up the colour.

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

I was playing around with this painting at the start, I knew I wanted to start off with something cute, so I focussed on the eyes and then played around until I felt an idea coming through, a cool dude of an alien idea then started to form and I just went with it, very much focussing on an illustrative look again.

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

A landscape using mainly the oil brush!, I had fun with this one balancing the tones and contrast and just plain making things up, I think I was channelling Bob Ross a little on this one.

Who doesn't love a zombie, and also they are fun to do especially with ArtRage and the palette knife.

Another made up piece focussing on an exaggerated bone structure and making a little use again of the hair brush.

My idea here was to pretty much go for a Christmas card type feel so I thinned down the oil brush and focussed on simplifying the painting.

Starting this painting I employed a grid based technique to define the initial sketch and then put down some flat oil colour. I struggled on this piece to get some realistic blending on the face and as a result it ended up finishing quite flat looking.

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

Mainly the oil brush and very close to the original reference, I guess I didn't want to change the likeness of an iconic horse.

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

A landscape using as much palette knife as possible for a more abstract look, I was determined not to overwork this and make it look as if I had just thrown some paint at it. I think I would like to do some more landmarks in the future.

A portrait of my mum of which I experimented a little with the tracing option of ArtRage to make my life easier as I knew that this would be quite a challenging portrait.

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

I always like rendering an alien as the detail is so much fun to render. I am still trying to figure out how to use the oil brush, currently using it on a thin paint setting as I am not yet comfortable with the thicker paint mixing.

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

A pretty normal animal portrait using quite a thin type of oil brush and having lots of fun with the big dark cut eyes, for any portrait that is a very quick and easy win.

Starting with a reference of my mum and then improvising the rest, I made a little use of a button stencil to define the moon in the background.

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

A commission for my sisters boyfriend, I spent quite a while on this one to get it right, lots of detail and of course it is essentially two portraits and I really needed to try and get the likeness.

This was my first self portrait!, or more precisely creating something a little odd based on a reference of myself.

Another attempt at a portrait using the oil brush and this time the wet palette knife to generate some blending.

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

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

The first landscape I have attempted in ArtRage, for this I thought I would focus more on the pastels. For this painting I made use of layers to split out the background and foreground, usually I pretty much work in very few layers.

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

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.