Large paintings, coasters and cups!

Oops! Bit of an absence for a few weeks - but that's cos my mum was visiting me! :) I still managed to get stuff done though of course :D

So first off, I've been commissioned to do a large canvas painting, based on the bird colossus from Shadow of the Colossus, in silhouette form (my usual way of painting :) It's pretty large, at almost A0 size, was *great* fun to do! Pretty tricky at times tho, with 2 longhair persians being very nosey and wanting to see what's going on! Would love to do some more huge canvas pieces like this (feel free to request!)

The final piece!

Some WIP! As you can see, Curry and Chalky were very interested...

 Next up, I've been playing around with those funny little plastic beads that you can use to make colourful pics, or in my case, coasters! Why not have a nice colourful coaster to rest your cup of coffee/tea/alcohol on? ;) Some of these are gifts...I'm especially fond of the 'shit' one, it just looks so colourful and happy ;)
 

I know these are usually given to kids to keep them entertained, but hey, I'm a big kid ;p

A sense of scale for ya!

And of course, there's a new cup! This is for aunt back in England, she requested one of Kebab the hedgehog - here we see him inspecting a small flower in the snow! (He has his trusty friend Brush in tow too :)

 

Cups, cups n more cups!

All for now, I can get back to doing more stuff again (tho I am ofc sad to see mum go back home to London ;_;) Am sure there'll be another update very soon...

Cups, teacups and phone stickers :)

 Got a little production line of hand painted cups going! Trees, oggs, cat paws, whatever you want! ;) And if you reading this would like one, feel free to message me! I ship all over the world! And hey, it doesn't have to be only cups - plates too, whatever you like. :) This is good fun tho, all this cup painting :D
Coming soon....and A2 canvas painting request! I will post some making of images of it as soon as I start it...

This one's for a friend who wanted this particular style of tree :)

An 'ogg' cup! Actually quite small, but a little cutie

For a friend who loves this cat paw, and also the little poem from Big Bang Theory

 Oooo and hey look! I requested the 'Kebab and Brush' iphone cover sticker from my shop, and it arrived today! Quite nice quality, sticks very well. :)

Hunger Games cups gift!

More cups! Yes MOOOORE. A friend of mine wants to give a gift to her sister in America, and asked for Hunger Games themed cups, specifically 1 of Katniss, and of Finnick, so here we are. :)

The Katniss cup, with her famous bow and arrows. Also had the idea to have Rue sitting in the tree (and no she's not aiming at her!)

Finnick, with his trident, approaching a forest with the crazy monkey mutts, and then the bottom images shows both cups and saucer together. :)

Moar cups!

More cups! Mugs and teacups with saucers, to be precise! I've been doing different designs - there's now a mug version of the dragon popping out the trees, and also the saucer to accompany the teacup. :)

Dragon mug, teacup and saucer (that mug is for you Matthew Lee, if you're reading!)

 Here's all the cups together so far - more on order, and I need to bake some of these guys and get them sent off to those asking for them. :)

Cup collection - Domo-kun guards them to the right...

A 'Fleacup' ;)

Busy painting cups atm! Have a little order of them (check a previous post to see what I mean!) Thought I'd experiment with a teacup too, and a different design - a monster (and Flea) exploding out of the trees, raaaawr! Painted on bone china too, how fancy :) Have to wait 48 hours for the pen to dry properly, then it has to be 'cooked' in the oven. :) Would anyone like any of these too? I might do the saucer to accompany it as well! 

 Gonna get back to do some digital portraits again, it's just nice to do 'real' art once in awhile too ;)

More older environments

Here's a couple of older environments from work I thought I'd share on here; each one was done rather quickly, hence the lack of super polish, but I still think they're kinda nice-ish. :)

They live in a big tree and have robins as transport!

Home sweet home

Inside one of the 'rooms' in the tree - disco ball (why not?) and pet ladybug

A time-lapse pic

Another time lapse pic, getting overgrown

A place to buy prints and other goodies!

Ooo look, a little shop! http://society6.com/AstridCastle

Now you can buy little (or large) prints of mine, as well as framed, stretched canvas, iphone covers, laptop covers, greeting cards and t-shirts! It's pretty cool! I'll be adding more designs to this too, just nice to have something available there so far - so go on, you know you want at least a little print :)

Here's what it looks like:

Flea cup!

Omigod, a cup - how amazing is that?? Well, there's more to it; I painted it. :) Decided to do the first double page panel of Flea's Journey, slightly modified on a porcelain cup. Was having my usual wander in the local art shop, and strayed accidently into the more 'crafts' area, and spotted the cup and magic pens. :D Needed plenty of layers on there, and then 'fired' in the oven. Just a bit of fun!

Flea's Journey - coming soon!

Just thought I'd mention that I'm getting a children's book I made, 'Flea's Journey' published by a small publishing company here in Germany. :) Should be out around June/July, take a look here:

http://www.khorshid-verlag.de/?cat=281

and here's the cover :)

Overgrown city

As the title says! Overgrown cities are very popular these days - I think we all secretly love the idea of seeing the place we live in covered in trees and jungle. :) Nature and man-made exisiting in the same place!

Nice...eyes ;)

Ooooooooo, doesn't she have great....eyes! ;)
This my super sexist, totally impractical, warrior woman design ;p (obligatory at some stage for all artists ;) She's joined by Flea, her trusty side kick.

Faces!

Faces!! Just wanted to play around with a 'template' of a face, different styles, makeup and the like. :)



And here's the original face :)

Sci-fi lady!

A sci-fi lady!! Bit of a figure-hugging suit she's got on there, but hey it's sci-fi ;) Fun to do, spent just a few hours on it...more to come!

Portrait ahoy!

Another study, trying a differently lit one! Time for a full body, I reckon...

Another portrait!

Another day, and another portrait! Just practising more, really. Wanted her to have a cool/weird eye tattoo thing (if only they were socially acceptable! I'd have one ;) Having fun with this!

An (almost) non-cute update!

Been wanting to attempt doing a realistic face, so here's a little face study I did today - was tons of fun!! It's of course based on a photo, but I wanted to see if I could do such a realistic face. Think it turned out ok! I actually way more prefer drawing characters as opposed to environments (I think it shows) so...expect more characters now ;D



Can't have an update without asomething vaguely cute, so here's a painting I did for my bf - an 'Ogg' :D

Older environments!

Thought I'd share a few older pieces...I actually quite like them! Need to do a nice detailed one like these again, I think. :) I'm not usually such a fan of drawing cities, warehouses etc, but they really are a challenge!

The Mythical Flying Alpaca

Ssshh, quick, hide behind the bushes and don't make a noise!.....There's one of those mythical flying Alpacas up ahead! :O

Wanted to do an environment piece, something nice and colourful, and somewhere I'd like to hangout. ;) Gonna be doing some more environment pieces now, maybe some much quicker ones too.

Bembel the Flying Alpaca!

Is that a flying Alpaca I see?? It's lots! Bembel likes to change his costume and fur colour a lot, he can't decide which is his favourite...
Just going for a bright, bold, colourful style. :)

Dragon brush!

Some late night fooling around with brushes - and then a dragon appeared out of it! :o Too much Skyrim playing, maybe...

Zommm-beh!

Oooo, long time no update, naughty me! So here's 1 - zombies!! Always time for zombies, right?? Too much cuteness recently, need something a bit nastier. : | Might do colour versions of these, shall see!

Original artwork for sale!

Hey look - I have a shop now! You can buy and own an original painting by yours truely! They're pretty stylised silhouette pieces, both cute and weird, and brighten up any wall - you know you want one :D Here, have a look:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/astridcastle

If you have no time to browse (lazy!) then here's the 3 paintings on sale so far :)

Vote!!

Allo guys n gals! I entered the competition for Florence and the Machine - it was to design a single cover; the winners are put on vinyl and then auctioned off for charity - cool, eh?? So here's my entry - please vote me, I'd love it and would send you imaginery cupcakes <3

http://www.talenthouse.com/creativeinvites/preview/afb0de173960ff5b5ed2dc9611377d46/383

Here's what it looks like below :)

My Big Fat Update!

'Appy new year, everyone! Let me start by saying 'oh dear oh dear oh dear' - what an age it's been since my last update! Apologies...*offers cupcake*
Buuuuuut - what we have here is an 'Epic Update', or 'My Big Fat Update' :) I've decided to post many of the little tests I worked on (not saying who for ;) and also the many canvas paintings I've done for various gifts :)

First up, a character I was asked to design and a mock screenshot :)



Next up, a small weird hut (I decided on a Hut of Sacrifice!) and also a little cutesy princess design. (They look nicer as .swf files, but can't upload them here)



Next is a fashion style character, as well as a strange chair prop, and ad banner.





Also, a Christmas version of an existing game, and small icons/props to accompany it.



And lastly we have a series of different canvas that I made in recent months. Sorry about the picture quality on some, they're photos on the canvas in different lighting! :)







Phew! See, I'm not just sitting at home playing Skyrim all day ;)