rachaelmayo

[rachaelmayo]

This ridiculous thing that has eaten my life is "Alien vs Predator: Dragonslayer."

This is one of those projects that has been fermenting in the back of my mind for about fifteen years. I finally finished it today, and it's likely to be the last Aliens vs Predator piece for the foreseeable future. (I'm invoking the Law of Murphy here: like washing the car in hopes of rain, right? If I say I don't plan to do any more AvP work, I'll get smacked with the Brick of Inspiration at some inconvenient time of the night.)

There's no big story behind this piece. I wanted to do a "St. George and the Dragon" kind of thing, and I wanted to detail the absolute hell out of both characters. I did this because it's fun. Lots of work, but fun. I think there's about 60 hours of coloring in this, on top of about ten hours of drawing and inking. I completed it over several months' worth of weekends, though. The color balance was driving me crazy - too much blue; too much bile-green, etc. So I'd set it aside and come back again and again as I worked out how to "calm" the color scheme so the greens would work together, while still allowing me to distinguish one character from the other.

I made this with Prismacolor Premier pencils over a watercolor wash, over an ink drawing. The image is about 11x14 inches in size.

[rachaelmayo]

Aliens: Chinny-Chin

Years ago, a friend wrote an Aliens-themed "Three Little Pigs" fable. Neither the piggies nor the Big Bad Wolf came off well in the end...

Zig and Micron pens, plus some India ink brush-work.

[rachaelmayo]

Here are some more spot illustrations from the Tremorworks Demongate bestiary. These are Chalkydri, Baku (from the art director's description rather than historical sources), Bakeneko, and Cerberus.

Made with Zig and Micron pens.

[rachaelmayo]

This is the as-yet untitled Champions 04 dragon design.

This is still a work in progress. I will later cut out the dragon and put it onto a background that will include 3D elements.

I used Prismacolor pencils and gel pens over a watercolor background to make this image. My inspirations were Mom's orchids and also nudibranchs.

[rachaelmayo]

This is "Dragons of Every Dawn: Rat".

I colored up the central rat-dragon a couple of years ago, but finally figured out how I wanted to finish it this week. It took some effort - it felt like the materials were fighting me most of the way. …Okay, it was the glue that was my biggest problem. The black and purple rays are made of papers that are matte or silky-surfaced, and the glue is shiny. If the glue squishes out onto the paper, there are shiny spots that look gross. So I had to deal with those, and then deal with the mess that made (brush textures in the gloss medium), and then deal with the spit bubbles made when I tried applying more gloss medium with a sponge (seriously, it looked like spit bubbles. Gross again!), and then I added some iridescent acrylic paint which totally altered the look of the project and I couldn't have that. So I repainted the black rays with black acrylic, and went over the purple rays with some copper-colored gel pen. Finally, finally, it's acceptable. But wow, what an interesting experiment!

The dragon was made with Prismacolor pencils and gold paint pen over a ink drawing and a watercolor underpainting. Then I partly cut out the dragon such that I preserved some of the nice watercolor texture.

As always, there are all kinds of interesting 3D embellishments:

Upper left corner: metal beads, black agate, and rainbow moonstone surround a chunk from a bracelet. The black bead-looking ray is dyed agate. The pinkish bead-looking ray is rhodonite. In the upper right corner is a nice bit of "porcelain" jasper. Near the dragon's chest is an amethyst. Along the bottom is a sequence of black-dyed agate, amethyst, and rose quartz. Along the outer right edge is a sequence of amethyst, rhodonite, and gold metal bracelet bits. The rest of the froo-froo are metal beads, fancy swirly stickers, a papercut flower shape, acrylic mosaic tiles, and acrylic gemstones.

[rachaelmayo]

This is "Champion Terrani et Vermiculi".

Here's the finished version of this project. I've cut out the dragon and floated it on foam tape over a background with 3D embellishments. It's a small piece, with the image bed being only 5x7 inches.

The dragon was created with Prismacolor pencils and gel pens over a watercolor underpainting. The background board is also colored with watercolor.

Stones I've included: aragonite (small white ovals), tiger eye (brown squares), leopardskin jasper (upper right, round), fossil ammonite (spiral near his head), and ammolite (rounded triangle between his lower jaw and knee). There are assorted metal and acrylic shinies, too.

[rachaelmayo]

This is "Dragons of Every Dawn: Serpent". Just completed this assemblage yesterday!

Some years ago, I made two large dragon artworks for my mom. They contained dragons based on the twelve animals of the Chinese Zodiac, and each was a different color of the color wheel - primaries, secondaries, and tertiaries. I always had a plan in mind to make an individual project for each of the dragons, because they were all kind of crammed in together and you can't see the details all that well. So here we are with the first finished project. This fellow is the yellow-green serpent-dragon.

I made the dragon with Prismacolor pencils and gold paint pen over an ink drawing and watercolor underpainting. I like to preserve part of the underpainting when I cut out the dragon, and it helps to keep the composition bright.

The background is comprised of scrapbooking paper, stickers, stones, and gel pen detailing.

The stones:

Along the top edge is a sequence of kambaba jasper (dark green), black-dyed agate, and desert jasper (brownish). The large round stone in the upper right is a kambaba jasper.

Along the left edge is black-dyed agate.

Along the bottom edge is "Picasso" jasper (the long pieces) and "Australian opal" (a trade name for some kind of jasper).

Along the right edge is a sequence of nephritic jade (alternating light and dark green) and desert jasper.

Near the dragon's nose is a chrysocolla stone.

[rachaelmayo]

"Champion Terrani et Vermiculi" dragon design.

This is the third in my "Champions" series, and is still a work in progress. I'll be assembling a background with 3D embellishments soon. The Latin is supposed to mean "earthen soil and worms".

These "Champions" projects tend to be color-themed, as I have a pile of old pre-painted boards that I'm trying to use up. This one is very much earth-toned, and therefore very much outside of my usual bailiwick! It was fun to use some colors I rarely use.

I've used Prismacolor pencils over watercolor, and I added gel pen detailing. A lot of that doesn't show up here, because it's mixed into the dragon's scale/plates and wings more subtly than I usually do. I assure you that it shimmers in regular light.

[rachaelmayo]

This is "Tapestry of the Vigilant".

This is an enlarged version of an image from my "Dragon Adventure 4" coloring book. I wanted to really get in there and play with the details, and see how it all worked out.

I used Prismacolor pencils over a watercolor/salt underpainting. I did a bunch of detailing with glittery gel pens. Though you can't really see it here at all, I also used a very light wash of interference acrylic on the leaf/flower forms in the background. For a change, I didn't include any 3D elements in this one. Some pieces just don't want any extra embellishment!

[rachaelmayo]

"How many angels can dance on the tip of a needle?" "It depends on the music."

WIP Painting for the swirlies and the fun~.

[rachaelmayo]

Hot off the drawing table, this is a Strange Angel - a semi-abstract collection of wings and fire. This is the line art, an early stage; I will be coloring the drawing later. I'll add a bunch of eyes at that point. I tend to do about half the detailing when I take it to full color.

I made this with Micron pens on drawing paper. It is 9x12 inches.

[rachaelmayo]

This is "Yantra of Dubious Provenance 2", still a work in progress.

Last year, I made Weird Art for a friend's promotional material for his book. We handled the design in a fairly straightforward way, with funky geometry and a simple color scheme designed to burn the viewer's retinas.

But.

I had other ideas I wanted to try with the design. This monstrosity is one of the alternatives. I have unleashed my morbid fancy upon it; it is made of bones and wings and eyes and teeth. The geometry is intentionally off-kilter; this is not a nice tool for meditation; this geometry is anything but sacred! There are missing pieces. There are angles that are off. There are teethmarks on the bones… (though I don't think you can see them at this scale and resolution).

I plan to color this. I'm not yet certain of the color scheme, but I'm planning for "dark" generally. The wings will be like those of a macaw, but will use blue-black instead of bright blue as the base. The central design will probably be bone-colors on blackish red. But you never know. I may go in a totally different direction.

…I need to set it aside for a while. It gives me a headache if I stare at it for too long…

I used Photoshop to help me with the layout and geometric forms, then printed it very lightly, then drew in the details with pencil, then went over the pencil lines with Micron pens.

[rachaelmayo]

"Tapestry of the Challenger 3" is my first completed work of 2025!

This is me test-driving an image from one of my coloring books, "just to see if it works". Conclusion: It has to be printed larger than 8.5x11 inches to work really well. This image is, in fact, 14x17 inches. I really wanted to get in there and play with the details; the larger size allows me to dig in there and color each individual scale.

I used Prismacolor Premier pencils over a watercolor base for most of the color work. I added various colors of gel pen (white, and glittery, and metallic). And then I added 3D embellishments. That's probably my favorite part. I have abalone shell beads, copper/turquoise composite stones, amethysts, rose quartz, pale amazonite, and a big teardrop-shaped lapis lazuli in the middle.

[rachaelmayo]

TBH I’m not sure what this creature is; some sort of undead specter horse dragon thing. In my head, I imagined that it would lead lost animal souls to the afterlife. I know that sounds sad, but I think it’s also kind of cool!

[rachaelmayo]

This is the Dog Dragon from "Dragons of the Twilight Dream".

This is still a work in progress; I will partially cut out the dragon later and add a background and 3D embellishments.

From the Dragons of the Twilight Dream I am taking each individual dragon and giving it a feature of its own. The Twilight piece featured six dragons, based on the Chinese Zodiac, in cool-temperature colors. The dog was violet.

I've found, though, that when I give the dragons a feature illustration of their own, I tend to deviate from the original color scheme. This dragon needed some oranges and pinks, as well as some blues. This helped to differentiate the body parts quite a bit better than my original monochromatic scheme did!

I made this with watercolor and Prismacolor pencils over a ink drawing.

[rachaelmayo]

It took me nearly a year to finish this large piece of art, but it is indeed, at long last, finished!

This is a commissioned piece for a friend. He set only general parameters for the project: It must involve paisleys, even the scales, and I must use orange as the base color. So here we go!

My visual inspiration comes from dragons and other fantasy creatures of Thailand and Bali. I love the stylization of the dragons' faces, scale, and wings. The flowers on the upper wing are stylized hellebore, which in some flower symbology stands for sarcasm. The flowers on the shoulder design and on the tail are mandrake, for horror. (Both are quite appropriate for the commissioner!)

As is usual for my mixed-media work, there are all kinds of things that I've used and included: The dragon was done with watercolor and Prismacolor pencil over an ink drawing. There are three or four layers of varnish over the top of that, as I was trying to even out the cut-out dragon after I'd glued it down to the foamcore that keeps it about a quarter of an inch off the baseboard. The dragon also has a lot of gel pen detailing, and a gob of shiny bits.

The stones in the ovals:

Blue is lapis lazuli Pinkish-red is agate Green is malachite Yellowish is "bumblebee" jasper (a trade name) Violet is amethyst The one to the right of amethyst is hematite, but it picked up a lot of green in the scan. The red-orange by the dragon's nose is fossilized dinosaur bone. The small one by the dragon's hand is a rainbow moonstone. The dragon is holding a small fossilized ammonite.

Along the outer edges are acrylic tiles, tiger eye (tawny squares), aventurine (green squares), and assorted metal beads.

...I think that's everything!

This art is 16x20 inches, and will be matted to about 22x28. I will eventually have prints available.

[rachaelmayo]

This is still a work in progress; the design itself is complete with ink, watercolor, colored pencil, and paint pen. Later, I will cut it out and put it into a setting that will have 3D embellishments and other fun stuff.

I've been working on this rabbit-dragon while waiting for the Paisley Dragon project to dry. This little in-between project is a full-body exploration of a dragon that appears in an older piece called Dragons of Every Dawn.

I went a little farther afield with the rabbit-dragon's color scheme, which has been the trend for the dragons I've done in the series so far. The dragon's color in the sequence was yellow-orange, but it evolved as I was coloring the stand-alone creature. So it reads much more orangey now, but I'm okay with that. I really like the way the wings turned out.