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As I work on rebuilding I’ve been adding older work to my Illustrations page. This one is from Winter 2025, and was done as a part of the monthly art challenge over on https://krita-artists.org/. I really love doing their art challenges when I have the time for it, because not only does it teach me a lot about the software I’m using, it also teaches me a lot about how to improve my work.

While I see a lot of flaws with this piece, it was really fun to work on the perspective and to see if I could get the lighting the way I wanted it. I learned that I should definitely practice perspective more, because it has been so challenging for me to employ it in my work, and it’s a technique that really needs the attention for all that it can bring to a piece. I feel like I get impatient with it, but I’m trying to improve on that, too, and Krita has some amazing tools that help me add it to my work.

The theme for the contest was nature retaking civilization, and I was inspired by photos of ancient temples that have been in a place so long that the trees are growing over them now. I wanted to try to convey that here, that everything is temporary, and the feel of the lone adventurer discovering something that is still breathtakingly beautiful despite being destroyed by time and environment and circumstances.

Years ago I took a trip to Mexico, and seeing the temples there was really inspiring for me. Just thinking about the work that it must have taken to build them, to maintain them, and they still stand all these years later. As much as I love the natural world, I also love what people create, as well.

If you’d like to see the timelapse video of me painting this, I’ve included it here, as well as on it’s own post in the videos section:

If you’d like to see some behind the scenes and process for this painting, you can find that over on my patreon page!

I’ve been wanting to learn how to use vectors in my work for a long time now. This piece was done for the monthly art challenge over on https://krita-artists.org/

It was definitely a learning experience, but I really enjoyed how easy it got as I went along, and I’ll probably use more vectors in my digital work in the future. I’ve also really been wanting to draw Maple. I know not everyone likes snakes, and some people vehemently hate them with a passion, but I feel like looking after her has definitely improved my life, even when she gives me her little attitude.

One thing I had fun with in particular about this was trying to replicate her pattern. It of course doesn’t do her justice whatsoever, but it was definitely the most challenging part, aside from just learning my way around Krita’s options and controls for manipulating the vector shapes. I still have a lot to learn, but I enjoyed it.