Aeris Eclipse Kicks Off World Watercolor Month 2017

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Just kidding it’s not actually Christmas, Christmas in July? Maybe but yeah it’s already July, it’s kind of crazy to think that half of the year is already come and gone and I’ve already written 80 blogs so far this year, which is a lot. Last Sunday was Canada Day which is kind of Canada's birthday despite it existing beforehand and this Tuesday is Independence Day here in America the day the Declaration of Independence was signed back in 1776. Lot's of fireworks and parties are going to be happening this Holiday so be safe out there and try not to blow up anything with the fireworks, alright?

While this month isn’t Christmas there is something big happening this month for artists and you art lovers. July is World Watercolor Month! 

This marks the second year of World Watercolor Month; it was first cemented back in 2016 by Art/Watercolor Blogger Charlie O’Shields and his blog Doodlewash. With Doodlewash launching back in 2015 after Charlie got into Watercolor. World Watercolor Month is a way of expressing your love for watercolor with the world as well as being a perfect opportunity to try it out if you haven’t.

My journey with watercolor began about two months ago now, I was already diving into art in general and I was very eager to try out new mediums. My more talented Mother and Sister were doing watercolor themselves and have been for years so similar to picking up my knitting interest I decided to give watercolor ago. I actually did not like watercolor at all in the beginning, this was most likely because I had no idea what I was doing. With some help from my family, Youtube videos and some bona fide practice and experimentation I soon discovered how great of a medium Watercolor is.

Watercolor can be very versatile and you can do a lot of incredible work but Watercolor can be stubborn and is not the easiest medium to use. If you are already an Oil or Acrylic user then prepare to put aside your knowledge of those paints because Watercolor is a very drastically different medium, it’s basically water with pigment. (I’m actually not an oil user so correct me if I’m wrong, I’ve never touched oil paints in my life.) Regardless of this don’t let this intimidate you and don’t do what I did and get all huffy puffy when things don’t go your way, keep at it! You may think watercolors are not for you but persist just a little and you might be surprised.

Anyway a lot is happening this watercolor month, for one Blick is holding a watercolor month challenge that you can enter: http://www.dickblick.com/landing/watercolorchallenge. A lot of other events are happening to but for the most part you can share your watercolor art on Social Media using the hashtag #WorldWatercolorMonth . Using this hashtag you’ll be able to share your art with others and be able to meet fellow watercolor painters. There’s also this challenge happening where you post 31 watercolor pieces every day but I’m not going to be able to do that due to life, don’t be intimidated to do the 31 day challenge just paint, share and have fun! You can read more about World Watercolor Month at Doodlewash’s blog: https://doodlewash.com/world-watercolor-month-july/! He’s got tons of other blogs related to art and watercolor so be sure to check him out! https://doodlewash.com/

For the first day of World Watercolor Month I dropped a big project I’ve been working on for a while now. Illustrations of a certain original character of mine named Aeris tend to be a reoccurring thing of mine, a lot of unfinished projects as well as I try to improve my art style. Aeris Eclipse has come a long way since I started drawing her and drawings and designs of her date back even further then that. Actually her character dates back many years though she’s gone through many changes, for one she used to be a dragon girl but that’s a long story. I’m rambling on however so let me finally show you guys this finished art piece!

I can safely say I’m absolutely happy with how this came out. The name of this piece is “Bridge over Bruadair River” and this funny enough started off as a random body sketch, I wasn’t even sure if this would be Aeris at first or if it would even have a background but with my confidence in painting backgrounds and watercolor in general I decided to make this a full illustration. Aeris Eclipse is a 16 year old girl and the star of Dream Eclipse a novel I'm working on and for this blog I decided to post artwork of Aeris in sort of a timeline kind of way.

A old doodle I did of Aeris back in Summer of 2016 before I even got into the art/drawing stuff or even started this blog up. I believe there are older doodles of her from years ago but I can't find them right now.

Anyone remember this? I made this using Krita, a Mouse and Vector Layers back in early March of this year. It's not bad for my first true illustration of her and first vector art of a human being. I got a tablet a few weeks after this. 

I doodled this not too long after the Vector Art. Wanted to see if I could actually draw using a pencil. 

My first full body sketch/drawing of Aeris. This was actually really good considering I barely drew anything before this. I turned this into a digital art piece using my Wacom Tablet my sister gave me.

Personality wise Aeris is extroverted (Outgoing), ambitious, passionate and adventurous. Her father’s genius doesn’t fall too far from the tree as Aeris is a highly intelligent girl eager to follow in her father’s footsteps and help humanity take its steps into a bigger future. Aeris is always looking to the future. With that said she has her quirks, she’s a complete goofball around her friends and you wouldn’t think she was a genius if you saw her when she was having fun as well as her tendency to space out. Aeris wants to live life to it’s fullest. Some insecurity from her past tends to resurface sometimes as well, hurting her confidence until she picks herself back up again. Aeris tends to hide her negative feelings inside of her and can sometimes carry too much weight on her shoulder but she meets friends who relive this weight, at least when Aeris isn’t being stubborn anyway. Aeris despite holding the world on her shoulders at times isn’t a loner by any means and prefers to be with friends and loved ones rather than on her own. One last thing, Aeris can have a bit of a temper when her or her friends are crossed, she’s not afraid to speak her mind either which tends to get her in trouble at times.

The digital art piece of that fullbody sketch. I really thought I did well on this but looking back her upper body is kind of weird in proportion to her lower body, I never noticed that until now. Also her eyes were super anime-like which isn't a bad thing but I never liked it on my artwork.

As far as interests go Aeris is actually kind of a nerd in some ways, she plays Video Games (And is pretty good at them, hooray for genius brain.) Aeris usually shares this interest with her high school friend and former online friend Cole Bradshaw. (They used to play games online together.) Another interest is music, she’ll jam out with Rachael any day any time and when she’s working on something she usually has music plugged into her ears. This might sound silly but she has a thing for 70s, 80s and 90s music, her fashion sense tends to revolve around that era as well. Aeris also loves tinkering with electronics, machines and even cars and bikes, which is why it’s become her passion as well as her career goal. Aeris ends up making a few gadgets that may or may not work later on.

Did some random character card doodles using Colored Pencils and Ink Pens not long after. Luna and Cole Bradshaw are both pictured in this by the way.

There's a lot more to Dream Eclipse then just a high school story, there's some pretty heavy Scy-Fi meets Fantasy elements involved, on which I'm trying not to dive too much into as it will spoil the story.

This was made when I first got into watercolor in April. My snazzy misty outline was supposed to be a snazzy misty outline but I didn't know what I was doing so it left these white gaps that didn't look good. I also gave Aeris freckles, which you'll not see anymore because I don't know how to paint them without them looking like pepperoni. This was the last time I illustrated Aeris for quite a while as I was really trying to improve my art style..

Notice a difference? Yeah it's a huge difference. After a while of heavy practice I finally got my art style to a point where I liked it, thus the return of Aeris. My anime-esque style was gone for a more realistic but still exaggerated style, I think I was going for a more western style. I also gave Aeris a new outfit. I did transfer this to watercolor but I messed it up big time.

Mistweaver! Yes with my new art style I decided to finally draw Mistweaver a superhero who hangs around the main city of Dream Eclipse's setting. I like superheroes, so yeah this is happening. Oh yeah this is my first dive into more dynamic poses, gonna work on that more.

The final illustration I did of Aeris though this is more of a watercolor doodle then anything. This time I had Aeris posed up next to Rachael her best friend. The bodies are kind of off in this, I might remake this in the future. After this the next illustration of Aeris would be the one you saw in the beginning of the blog.

Basically Dream Eclipse is a bit of Science Fantasy mixed with Superhero stuff, which means its most of my interests shoved into one story that’s actually coming together quite nicely. I tried to explain everything as well as I could without spoiling anything but as I’m not sure how long it’ll take to finish book one I’m going to be putting out more details and possible comics relating to Dream Eclipse. I hope I gave you guys enough information to properly picture Aeris it wasn’t actually easy to write this. Aeris isn’t the only special character in this story and her friends soon get wrapped up in the same plot along with her so I’ll be doing blogs on them too. Now I just need to actually draw more of them because the only two I’ve really drawn often is Aeris and Luna.

Before I wrap I want to show you guys a trailer for a new movie that just released. Everyone knows who Sam Elliott is, right? Sam Elliott is famous for movies such as Tombstone, Mask, The Quick and the Dead, The Big Lebowski and many more. He was really good in his cowboy style films and while I haven’t heard about him much in recent years Sam Elliott is coming back to the big screen in a movie which is also about coming back to the big screen, acting inception. I’m talking about “The Hero” where Sam Elliott plays Lee Hayden, a western icon with a voice of gold. His acting days seem to be behind him however and he hasn’t had a hit in years. He’s let himself go over the years but a sudden cancer diagnosis gives him a bit of a kick up the behind, making him realize he needs to set himself straight and cement his legacy with one last final role. It sounds like a pretty awesome movie and it released back on June 9^th in theatres. You can check out the trailer below!

It seems like this may be kind of based on Sam Elliott's life loosely in some ways, by that I mean the whole him coming back into acting after mostly doing just voice work and not really in any big roles for a while.

Despicable Me 3 just released last Friday as well. Gru and his Family are back in what could be the wackiest ride yet. With Balthazar Bratt on the loose (Apparently he’s a 1980s Child Actor who became a Villian… Haha.) Gru who’s part of the Anti-Villian league as of the last movie as well as his wife Lucy must take this guy down. Along for the ride is Gru’s not-so-bold lost twin brother, Dru. (Best naming in the world.) You can check that out in theatres as well now.

Wonder Woman, Transformers: The Last Knight, Cars 3, The Mummy and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales are still in theatres as well for those who didn’t know.

That’s a wrap for today. Be sure to post your watercolors to the world via the hashtag #worldwatercolormonth ! I can’t wait to see what you all have to offer, you are probably ten times better then me, haha.

That’s a wrap folks!