February 18 - nopamoart

Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.

~ Robert Bloch

nopamoart is a Fiverr graphic design artist from Indonesia, he suggested a custom badass illustration with his unique art style.  I contacted him first because his art really is on the darker side (skulls/coffins/zombies) and the pig is so ... not.

It wasn't more than a brief while when he got back to me not only with a resounding yes he could, but with some amazing initial character sketches.  So professional, I don't think he knew he was dealing with an amateur...

This was an amazing job, he made it his own and crushed it with his mighty fist.  This pig-ogre (pigre?) is incredible.  It's a boss I want to fight in a video game, and there are so many cool little details - it tells a story.  It has crusty clothes, perhaps it's not too intelligent (henchman instead of boss), but he's also wearing an ankle bracelet - a fondness for shiny objects or a clan status symbol?

I took an attempt at coloring the image, but I obviously have some things to learn - there was a color shift when I transferred the image to my desktop to post here.  I used the icon above as the base color which was blue-violet, and as you can see it's fuchia above.  Since colors seem to match when coming from this computer, I am curious as to what this will look like on that other computer now that I've redone it ..

February 17 - Microwavedcoffee

“I'm a sworn enemy of convention. I despite the conventional in anything, even the arts. I paint canvasses on the floor and drove one art teacher out of his mind. But that's just the way I paint best.”

~ Hedy Lamarr

This month I was looking for as many art styles as possible, Microwavedcoffee offered a commission that might scare some people off, you don't get to decide, just provide some sort of inspiration and get what you get - exactly what I was looking for.  The example images were a wild and colorful and abstract - it was exciting, like planting an unknown flower seed and waiting.

Microwavedcoffee has been an active artist on DeviantArt for a while with a portfolio that shows it, over 600 deviations shared with the world, I'm glad he was willing to work with me on one more.

Seriously -- how cool is this thing?!  Incredibly stylized, so colorful, really really awesome - I'm seeing this as a scene from South Park where Dr. Moreau is working on creating a hybrid frog/pig.  (... resisting the temptation to bring Miss Piggy/Kermit into this ...)

Tumblr: https://microwaved-coffee.tumblr.com/ (Most active)
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Micro_Mocha

February 16 - luthfihinelo

“The point of art is to inspire you to create your
own.”

~ Misha Collins

Luthfihinelo is an Indonesian graphic and character designer, illustrator and cartoonist from Fiverr, and I'll also add a masterful artist/image manipulator who offers among other things digital photo enhancements.

There is an incredible amount of skill, effort and time that went into this.  I really like the excited expression, and it fits in perfect with my own hunched over "I can't believe I'm up!" pose.  Also, those water droplets all look like little bubble balloons - awesome! Inspired!

If the Surf Dog shirt and orange swim trunks haven't done so already, let me spoil the "cool surfer" illusion - I'm neither.  This was a lesson I took with my oldest son on a family vacation and my heart was going to explode from exertion.  I now know why surfers tend to be so fit!

February 15 - NicaBreeze - Freya's Oracle

“You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.”

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

NicaBreeze has been a DeviantArtist for a while now and had some examples of work that just radiate "passionate artist".  It's the kind of art that you can't take in with a glance, emotional and hypnotic, something to linger on for a while and get lost in thought.

Its perhaps a bit ..  self-indulgent(?) asking people to use such goofy source material.  I felt shy even asking if she was willing to consider this even though I'm answering an offer she made, but so happy that she was willing to help, she created a masterpiece.

"Freya's Oracle" is like a Hunter S. Thompson dream sequence after an encounter with a sorceress.  Finally I'm not at a loss of words, because this is not the type of art you should try to explain to someone, it's an individual journey, it's an experience.  Take a moment to get lost in it. write your own story...

But because I wanted to learn more about Freya, let me share:
Freya is one of the primary Nordic gods  (death, love, sex, beauty, fertility, gold - so some of the biggies), she is sent half of the warriors that die in battle to reside in Fólkvangr, with Odin receiving the other half in Valhalla.  There doesn't seem to be a reference as to honor/worthiness was the deciding factor from what I'm reading , perhaps there was a Thanos-type sorting there at the end.

Anyways, with this admittedly terrible interpretation of internet discovered facts, I'm imagining Freya's Oracle to be the head priestess of a sect devoted to maintaining that balance.  Odin tries to disrupt by attempting to claim the fiercest warriors fallen in battle before they have been sorted.  (It's why he relies heavily on the Valkeries ... once a noble profession, now is no better than medieval ambulance chasers.)

NicaBreeze - 100% amazing - thank you so much for sharing!

February 14 - Destiniekirby

“I remember growing up, saying you’re an artist it sounds pretentious but now it’s one of the only dignified things that you can call yourself. ”

~ Marilyn Manson

💖Happy Valentine's Day!💘

Being Valentine's Day, this post should be an appropriate break from some of the beasts and monsters of late, Destiniekirby is a hobbyist artist from the US on DeviantArt that offers among other things these really cool stylized pencil sketches.

She is a long time member of DeviantArt and from her profile, she is Artist/Writer/Wife/Mother/Gamer. (5 out of 5 for a perfect score if you are keeping track)

I really love what she came up with - this could easily be a business logo, or a party invitation, or a coloring book page, or a page in a children's book, or 100 other things, such clean work.  (???)  Sometimes I feel my art descriptions are like my grandmother describing internet routing tables ... we both have no words for it, nor any business doing so.

Ball😍😍ns!

February 13 - CrowBoe

"The worst part of having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don't."

~ Arthur, Joker

CrowBoe (twitter, youtube) is a newer hobbyist artist from the United States on DeviantArt.  I am not sure if it's multiple people, but the account specifies "they" as the gender pronoun, so that's what I'm going with.

Sometimes being impulsive pays dividends, as is the case with CrowBoe.  The commission offering was only a few words but it included a bunch of cool horrific pencil sketches.

This was their creation, and it's nightmare fuel.  The image is a picture sent of the drawing, that's why you can see the grey gradiations from the flash.  I ended up doing some brightness/contrast work to try and get better line visibility without losing the upper right to darkness.  For anyone unable to read the text -- the one on the left is singing "Hi!  My name is *redacted*, what's yours?" and "Curiosity killed the cat.", whereas the ghostly spirit is saying "Come closer, Chuunks!"

It's freaking cool, it's crazy, it could be a page from the Joker's diary (hence the quote today).  Great job CrowBoe!  - but do keep on those meds. :)))

"... or do we?"

February 12 - blackcubic

“People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish... but that's only if it's done properly.”

~ Banksy, Wall and Piece

Blackcubic is a a Russian artist on Fiverr who does pencil caricatures and portraits in pencil, but is currently offering cg portraits of pets that have a very distinct style.

This is masterful image editing, but if his "Splashy Watercolor Style" is too busy for you, the other is similarly styled in grayscale with slight color accents.

As someone who has spent a good deal of time image editing, I can tell the amount of work and layers and expertise that went into creating this, it raises the bar to a whole new level.  Take a look at the drop shadow - it's angled on the wall behind.  The pig itself is colored to accentuate the features underneath the watercolor splashes.  My brain is boggled.

This deserves to be hung on a wall.