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Hey everyone!

I think I should make this long overdue post. As most of you have guessed, I am not active here these days much. You can follow me on my Facebook page here: www.facebook.com/rashichan.art. I am much more active on the page.

I might come back later, but for now, please follow me there.

Thanks! 

The Pink Dragon

Well, I had posted on my Facebook page a line art of a dragon I didn't want to color. Some amazing artists colored the line art I had posted and did such an amazing job, I was waiting to find time to paint it myself as well. Recorded the process. I hope you find it informative.

Finished painting can be viewed here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1421041518156350&set=a.1397616850498817.1073741828.1397611783832657&type=1&stream_ref=10

Pele-Video progress

Video process of a sketch of Pele the Hawaiian Goddess of Volcanoes.

Part 1

Part 2

You can view the final painting here. 

Holi Peacock: Process videos

So after painting a colorful tiger on the occasion of Holi, the festival of colors, I decided to make a peacock. And this time, I decided to record the process. Unfortunately I remembered a little late so the video starts from the middle. 

Part 1/2

Part 2/2

I mostly used one brush for the entire painting except towards the end when I had to paint the color splatters. 

If you have any questions, let me know in the comments! 

Design-A-Character: Feb Shape Challenge

I decided to try out DeviantArt's group "Design-A-Character" shape challenge for February. I think it's a wonderful exercise to challenge your character design skills. This is what I came up with:

You can download the template and challenge yourself:

A Blast from the Past..

Samurai Jack. One of the best shows on Cartoon Network long back. A friend had once 'challenged' me to draw Samurai Jack in my style. I was so unconfident that I never really made anything. Today, finally, inspiration struck and I sketched this out.

Made using a Pentel pocket brush pen. Fancy photoshop effects added because I can.

I'm really happy with this one.

Aku, I honestly don't think he is enjoying your stupid face. He might just take a Katana to it.  

Process: With you, I forget the world

My sister's friend told us about this art shop in Lajpat Nagar and together we all set out to locate it. I bought a lot of things from there including a watercolor paper pad. It is A5 in size as I like to make small artwork. I also purchased a sketchbook for oil and acrylic painting. I am going to study oil painting and try it out. Oils seem too scary. Anyway. Let me try to explain what I did:

1.  I woke up in the morning and I had this idea in mind. I sketched it out in the watercolor paper pad. 
2. Took out my watercolors, and started with a light wash of Yellow Ochre and Burnt Sienna. I don't have many watercolors and have to work with what I have. 
3. Working out on the details of the male dragon. I have now applied a stronger coat of the previous colors and added Prussian Blue and Black to the mix.  My hands shake a lot and I couldn't add as much details as I should have. But, I will get back to that later. For now, I am happy with how he looks. Ugly. Also, I just had 2 brushes: a thin one and a fat one. I think I need to buy more brushes. 
4. Now I shift my attention to the female dragon. I had originally thought of making the male brown and the female green, but I decided to make her orange-ish. Again. applying a wash of Orange and Chrome Yellow. 
5. Applying stronger coats of color and I introduce Red to the mix. Well, technically it was Crimson. But, I mixed it slightly with Orange and Chrome. 
6. Added Black to the mixture for shadows. A lot of artists advise against using pure black for shadows because it tends to make the painting dull. I mixed it up with Prussian Blue but I should have added more blue. Anyway. 
7. The paint was wet so I added a little salt onto the damp areas because it gives a cool effect. But, my painting wasn't as wet as it should be or something because the effect didn't really come. I wonder if I should use a different salt. 
8. I decided to speed up the drying process by holding the sketchbook in front of a heater. The orangish-yellow glow made the painting look pretty good. No? I think it does. 
9. Since I had to add details, I took out my color pencils, took out matching shades and started adding details and shadows. I then used my Pentel Brush Pen to ink the painting and add more shadows. And finally, added a wash of my Cool Grey Copic Markers (C2 and C3) 

Done. I hope you find this useful somehow.

Supergirl

Felt like drawing another girl in Photoshop. Decided to make Supergirl. Took around 2 hours to paint this.

Need to explore more styles for painting. 

Tiger Tail

I'm thinking of submitting this as an iPhone cover. I've been thinking what designs to submit. Might go for a fan-art next. Let's see how that is received.

If you want to buy a cover with my design, please go here: http://www.love4apple.com/artists/rashi-chandra/.

One simply does not challenge a Dragon..

..even if one has a magical sword.

I think the dragon is going to have some fun with the little guy. Or will the little guy manage to slay the dragon?

Get well soon!

My friend told me that one of our friends was involved in an accident and he wanted to make a nice get well soon card for her. She had cosplayed as the Sorceress of Grey Skull (He-man, 2002) and he asked me to make that.

I hope you are up and about in no time girlie!

More sketches from the sketchbook

Some old and some new sketches that I have been doing since sometime. Still waiting to order my markers. Damn things are so expensive.

Yes, I have been painting...

I've been super busy with work and wasn't getting much time to spend on drawing. I have been sketching more on my sketchbook and will share my doodles soon. In the meantime, here are 2 speedpaints I did today.

So, they leaked the Godzilla teaser and whoa it's mindblowing. Can't wait to see a proper trailer. I hope they release it soon. Pacific Rim sort of made me go (more)crazy about super-sized monsters. After watching the teaser, I quickly painted this:

And here's a werewolf chasing something. Loose sketch and strokes. 

I will upload more stuff soon. 

Dragon, painted.

I found some old watercolors in my drawer and decided to test myself. I have always steered clear of painting because it's a lot more challenging. Okay, frankly, there is no Ctrl+Z button or Layers in real life.

So anyway, I didn't have any watercolor paper and I had to use my sketchbook's paper. Thankfully, it is a little thick and suited for markers.

Started out with a light wash of burnt sienna. Kept building more color where I wanted the shadows to be. Added black to the places where there was heavy shadow. I had intended it to be a monochromatic piece, but decided to add some yellows and oranges later. I think it is better to add black/dark colors in the end. But anyway. Since I am always so "un-decided", yellow and orange came at the end. Added a blue wash in the background. By now the paper was quite crumpled and since it's the rainy season, the paint was taking ages to dry. Turned the house upside-down and found my old hair-dryer. The paint was dry within minutes.

Once the paint was completely dry, I asked mom to straighten the paper out by ironing on it. My mom is lot more intelligent than me. She covered the paper with a cloth first and then sprinkled a bit of water and applied the press. Also, she did this on the opposite side of the paper because the stupid cloth bled some of it's own color. Anyway, no harm done. The paper was smooth and crisp again.

I took out my black and white pens and added some details. Also, color pencils.

I should do more waterpainting doodles. It was actually quite relaxing. Except waiting for the paint to dry. That was terrible. Thank God for hair-dryers. 

An.Al book cover designing

A while back, I was approached by a client to design a cover for their book. The book falls into the horror/suspense genre. He wanted me to make it look very similar to the cover designs of Noir comics. I took up the challenge as I haven't worked on this particular genre before and it would be a good opportunity.

I had just a couple of days to design it as they were almost out of time and their book needed to be published quickly.

He gave me a few descriptions of what the book was about and using that I started to chalk up ideas for the cover. I knew I didn't want to show the faces of the two protagonists. I wanted the reader to imagine them. Hence, I used the shadows. It gave them a menacing look though. But, the client liked it a lot and was infact, happy about the fact that the reader would have to keep guessing how they looked. The girl is one of the murder cases they come across.

This was one of the versions I made.

But, it turned out to be a little too violent. So, I had to make another version.

One of the most painful things was to look at reference photos of mutilated and tortured dogs. The dog in the cover signifies a sort of a calling card for the Twins. I made 2-3 versions of that mutilated carcass all the while shuddering at the images I had seen. Thankfully, one of the versions was selected. I decided to add that on the back cover as it was looking too plain.

The publisher wanted more color options. They did some changes to the color scheme.

This is the photo of the book after publishing.

If you still haven't stopped giggling at the name of the book, here's a hint: It's a mixture of the names of the two protagonists.

You can buy the book from Flipkart or Crosswords.

iPhone Covers with my designs

This is more of a shameless self promotion post.

Aren't you bored of the same old cover for your iPhone? Maybe you saw someone in the metro or in that cafe you frequent with a similar case? Guess what?

 You can buy covers for your iPhone which have my design!

 Head on over here: http://www.love4apple.com/artists/rashi-chandra/ to get an awesome iPhone cover and stand apart from the rest!


http://bit.ly/1bCYj0n to order your iPhone case with my design on it. 

Shark-week

Shark-week on 4th Aug. I believe. I had made this shark long back, but decided to share it today. I really find hammer head sharks to be very fascinating. And quite frightening due to their head shape. 

Steampunked

Always wanted to make a Steampunk styled character. Not very happy with her boots but they will have to do for now.
Those tattoos took a long time.

Best friends

On a sketching spree these days.

I now wish I had made her more of a reindeer because their hooves are shaped in such a way that it looks like they are wearing high heels. Maybe it would've suited her more.

Made with Sakura pens. 

Them Medusas

Trying to improve sketching with the traditional medium. Two very sexy versions of the Medusas. Done with Sakura .03, .05 and the Brush pen with a dash of white pens here and there.

I need to get some better markers. My black Letraset marker died and these things cost a lot.