simch84

[simch84]

New short fic done for the monosyllabic challenge. Gale and Astarion have sweet morning sex in the sun thanks to Astarion's ring of the sunwalker.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/66291535

[simch84]

My acrylic portrait painting process.

A vaguely step-by-step showing of how I painted my recent study of Astarion's golden ear mods from Afterlife by @cweepa and @dumptruck. Check out their amazing cyberpunk fic here, my original post of this art here, and available Inprnt prints here.

My supplies for this piece:

--Golden brand fluid acrylic paint

--Golden brand acrylic mediums (specifically GAC 100, high-flow medium, and dry-time retarder)

--variety of brushes. Mostly for acrylics I use Royal & Langnickel Zen brushes

--a wet palette. Mine is a Game Envy Exemplar one but they're all basically the same

--random 5x7 canvas I already had, literally no idea what brand lol

Step One: Sketch and Tone!

I start with a sketch on scrap paper because trying to draw on stretched canvas with a pencil sucks and this lets me erase as much as I want. Once I spend forever and a day messing with pencil lines I ink it so it's clear what my final lines are (you can see here though even as I was inking it I changed my mind a few times. Art is a process lol) and then I use tracing paper and the graphite transfer method to transfer it to my toned canvas.

I always tone my canvases first with a solid color, even in cases like this where the base colors were pretty opaque (due to all the titanium white). It ensures that no white dots of canvas are showing through in the final piece. Also, any of tone that does show through the final paint layers help bring cohesion to the overall piece. It helps to not be staring at a white surface when you start, I think. Less intimidating.

In this case I painted the whole thing with Alizarin Crimson. For warm skin tones I typically use Burnt Sienna, but Astarion is cooler-toned.

Also, side note, the vibe of this color is already good for vampire.

Step Two: Base Colors

I follow my sketch and lay down flat areas of color. When I mix these I use as few pigments as possible so the colors don't get muddy, especially since we're going to be doing lots of thin translucent layers on top. This is one of the main reasons I love Golden fluid acrylics--great color payout and pigment load with many options for single-pigment colors.

The hair is two different mixtures of titanium white and carbon black (normally I wouldn't use straight black in portraiture but I wanted a really neutral grey base layer here), skin is titanium white with more alizarin crimson and a tiny touch of phthalo green (blue shade) to tone down the pinkness. Still pretty pink but whatever. Ear cuff is straight raw sienna. Ear lines are more alizarin crimson--those are just so my sketch isn't totally lost among the flat colors.

The hair chunks here are very gestural and only meant to get an idea for how the hair will lay. Some sections change a bit later on.

Step Three: Create Form and Depth

Here I start to build things up to start to look 3D as well as hone in where I want bits of hair to fall. At this point I am still using limited pigments but we're bringing in more colors. Payne's Grey in the hair so it's isn't so black-paint-flat. Violet oxide and Van Dyke Brown in the skin.

Here is also where I start to use some mediums. I add a bit of dry-time retarder to my colors and I keep everything on a wet palette so my mixes don't dry out. I do both on-palette mixing and on-canvas mixing at this step. Some blends are already pretty smooth but some are a little choppier. The skin here is still a little too pink for my liking but that's fine! Things will be toned later.

Step Four: Details

Now we're building up the details that will be fully seen in the final piece.

For the skin, I'm now doing mostly on-canvas blending. I will add some GAC-100 (basically clear acrylic paint base) to thin the colors a bit so they blend more. I put down two colors and then use a clean fluffy brush to blend at the edges. Kind of like eye shadow?? Idk. I didn't go to art school, y'all, that's just how I do it.

Once I have a good blended base, I then start adding a TON of layers of thinned paint. I combine a little bit of a color with a mix of GAC-100 and high-flow medium. This basically creates toning washes of color, similar to how you create solvent-based washes in oil painting. Some washes go across the whole skin area (like a wash of burnt sienna to make the whole thing less pink) or selective washes in specific areas (phthalo blue in the shadows, for example).

For the hair I used a striping brush and created layer upon layer of increasing light lines. I had the same pool of mixed grey (titanium white+payne's grey) and kept adding more white to that same pool as I built layer on layer of little strands. That way it was all the same color family but just lighter tints.

Note that brown crease line wouldn't normally be that dark or harsh if this were a normal ear but I wanted to make sure it stood up to all the little details I was about to paint on top.

Now, I meant to take at least one progress picture of the ear cuff, the little attachment tabs, and the scarring but I totally forgot (got ADHD hyperfocused for too many hours straight, whoops). But I added the final art below so you can look at it while I explain, at least.

I shaded the whole cuff and the attachment tabs first before adding any details. That way I could ensure that the shadows and highlights made sense and I didn't have to worry about covering any details. Also at this point I added that second little arch. I put a base layer of raw sienna down to make sure the hair there was fully covered and then shaded it like the rest.

The details were all unplanned and spur of the moment. I poured out some pyrrole red, cobalt teal, and burnt umber and just went to town with a tiny brush.

The scaring was done by first creating the shape with a similar white+crimson mixture to that first flat base layer we did at the beginning, then building up translucent washes of color and adding tiny shadows around the edges with Van Dyke Brown.

I also tweaked the shading on the skin just a tiny bit more (again, using only thin translucent washes of color) and added a few more little hair swoops using basically pure white to make them pop.

Final Step: Tone and Seal

Last step is simple. I added a couple drops of a blue shade (I think I used Anthraquinone blue?) to a bunch of GAC-100 and did two layers across the entire canvas. This seals everything together, helps add a little UV-protection and anti-yellowing protection, and most importantly very slightly tones the entire thing so that the colors meld well together. Sort of like putting a filter on a picture but irl. You just have to make sure the blue is VERY lightly tinted.

Final, Final Step: Forget the Sign the Damn Thing Because You Were Too Excited to Post it

Et voila! It was ready to scan. Note the progress photos look way warmer than the final scan due to the overhead lighting. Looking at it in person it looks way more like the final scan.

Thank you for getting to the end if you are still here. If people are interested I can post more of these process insights in the future!

[simch84]

Astarion's Ear Mod

Astarion's golden ear mods from Afterlife by @dumptruck and @cweepa

Golden acrylic paint on 5x7 canvas (scanned)

I was working on non-Afterlife art, I promise, but then I got art block and painted this to break me out of it. Goes to show how inspirational the fic is, though!

Link to fic

Link to print

ALSO I JUST REALIZED I FORGOT TO SIGN THIS???????? whoopssss

[simch84]

PRINTS!!

Excited to announce the launch of my INPRNT shop, just in time for Memorial Day sales!

Shop Link

All the above pieces are now available as prints and I will add prints as I create more art. All art based on ideas from other authors' fics are available with their blessings!

[simch84]

Link to Print

I wanted to show some appreciation for Hot Mess by @patheticfangirl

Painted with Daniel Smith watercolor and Holbein gouache (small lettering is fine liner pen) on watercolor paper (scanned)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/54887011/chapters/139130665

[simch84]

Link to Print

Gale Dekarios

Painted with Golden fluid acrylics on 8x10 composite wood board (scanned)

[simch84]

I was cleaning up stuff from my last Bloodweave painting and preparing for a new original fanart piece and saw these two little pots of custom mixed color (among others) and isolated them out next to each other, thought “this too is Bloodweave”, and had to share the stupid brainrot moment

Please help I’m losing my mind here

[simch84]

Link to Print

Little tooth-rottingly sweet slice of life moment in Astarion and G-413’s apartment, with their two bears cuddling on a shelf.

If y’all haven’t read Afterlife by @cweepa and @dumptruck , just do it.

Holbein gouache on 140 lb watercolor paper (scanned).

I started painting this more realistically at first but then fell in love with the idea of doing it more like a storybook page, given the subject matter (teddy bears, not Afterlife…the fic is NOT a storybook and I mean that as a compliment).

[simch84]

Link to Print

From Afterlife Perfumery comes two new scents:

G-413: lavender, bergamot, sandalwood, motor oil, ozone, steel

Astarion: rosemary, bergamot, brandy, soap, exhaust

Once again I am back on my bullshit making art inspired by Afterlife by @cweepa and @dumptruck.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/56939380/chapters/144787198

Painted with Golden fluid acrylics on a 8x10 composite wood board (scanned).

The scanner didn’t pick it up super well but the cap of the Astarion bottle as well as the gold strip around the label is metallic gold paint.

[simch84]

I could use an opinion! I need a signature/logo for Astarion for a new piece I’m working on and I had too many ideas for how to do it. Some of them play with the idea of the A as a star but I’m not sure if that looks weird. I’d love some help deciding—Vote for your favorite?

(Also these are rough sketchbook ideas so the cursive isn’t perfected)

[simch84]

Link to Print

“The sky, it’s—”

Oops second Afterlife fan art in three days. I fear my ADHD might have a new hyperfixation.

Please, everyone, if you haven’t, go read Afterlife by @cweepa @dumptruck

https://archiveofourown.org/works/56939380/chapters/144787198

Painted with Holbein gouache on watercolor paper (scanned)

*5/22/25 Updated with new scan that doesn't cut off edges!

[simch84]

Link to Print!

I have been rabidly reading the entirety of Afterlife by @cweepa and @dumptruck for a little over a week, and holy shittttt. It is a masterpiece. I cried, I laughed, I got the stomach whooshes. And this little moment stuck in my head so much I had to paint it while I sit here internally screaming until the next update.

Painted with Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors and Holbein gouache on watercolor paper (scanned)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/56939380/chapters/144787198