If you like DragonArt Evolution, IMPACT’s latest book by Jessica NeonDragon Peffer, check out her first two, DragonArt and DragonArt Fantasy Characters. Jess has a great style that everyone loves, so the more the better!

Learn how to paint an angel with watercolor in six simple steps with this free demo from Angela Sasser’s Angelic Visions. Sasser’s first IMPACT book includes more than 20 step-by-step demonstrations in luminous watercolor, pen+ink and colored pencil. Pre-order your copy from the North Light Shop today.

Materials You’ll Need

Watercolor Pigments: Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Cadmium Red, Chinese White, Lemon Yellow, Cerulean Blue, Naples Yellow, Payne’s Gray, Rose Madder, Sap Green, Ultramarine Violet, Van Dyke Brown, Yellow Ochre

Other Supplies: nos. 3/0, 18/0, 2 and 4 rounds; table salt

1 Paint the Background Lay a wash of Cerulean Blue into the background with nos. 2 and 4 rounds. While the wash is still damp, sprinkle table salt in key locations to create a sweeping starburst effect. Remember to wipe away the salt after it dries.

2 Begin Coloring the Figure With a no. 2 round, add subtle hues to the skin, cheeks and lips with light washes of Rose Madder. Lay in touches of Cerulean Blue to the eyelids using the same brush. Apply light washes of Naples Yellow to the wings, and add Burnt Umber towards the tops to create the subtle shift in the feathers’ color. Then, add a blend of Cerulean Blue and Ultramarine Violet to the crevices of the white cloth and a touch of Lemon Yellow to the centers of the lilies.

3 Add Shadows Still using a no. 2 round, lay in a wash of Ultramarine Violet to create shadows in the skin. Use Burnt Umber to detail the feathers in the wings and add shadows to the lily stems. Add deep shadows to the folds of the cloth in the white drapes and the sweeping lines of the hair using Payne’s Gray.

4 Apply the Midtones With a no. 4 round, apply a diluted wash of Yellow Ochre and Cadmium Red mixed with a dab of Chinese White to the skin. If the purple shows through too much, wait for the layer to dry and apply successive layers of the Yellow Ochre and Cadmium Red mix until you reach the desired skin tone.

Using the same brush, add the midtones of the hair with Van Dyke Brown. Again, if the underpainting seems awkward, apply successive layers of the midtone color to smooth the blending. Pick out the details of the sheer shawl with Cerulean Blue, and add color to the lily stems, buds and stamens with Sap Green. Then using your no. 2 round, add a touch of shading to the lips with Burnt Umber.

5 Suggest Backlighting and Adjust Shadows Using a no. 2 round and Light Cerulean Blue, indicate backlighting behind the figure, cloth, wings and flowers. Use the same brush loaded with Payne’s Gray to detail the lilies. Emphasize the deepest shadows in the hair and skin using Burnt Umber and a no. 3/0 round. The shadows tend to be most intense where the blue rim lighting overlaps with the shadows on the skin.

6 Outline the Main Elements and Add Finishing Touches Make the lines of the image pop by using your no. 18/0 round to detail the main elements of the drawing. Use Payne’s Gray to outline the shawl, flowers and flowing white cloth. Pluck out the main shapes of the hair and feathers, outlining them with Burnt Umber. Continue outlining the lips with Burnt Umber to emphasize their full shape and subtle texture. Finally, finish the flowers by speckling the petals with a stippling of Burnt Umber. Add small dabs of Burnt Sienna to finish the stamens.

……….

You don’t need to wait until books hit the shelves to get some divine inspiration– Angelic Visions by Angela R. Sasser is available for pre-order right now! Stop by the NL Shop today and save 33% when you pre-order your copy of this new IMPACT author’s debut book.

With Angela’s graceful artwork guiding the way, you’ll learn how to draw and paint angels and bring your own divine visions to life in watercolor, colored pencil and ink. Beginning with the basics and progressing through 20+ step-by-step demonstrations, you’ll learn how to:

• Combine the ethereal luminosity of watercolor with the subtle textures and striking contrasts of colored pencil and ink.
• Depict realistic anatomy, including bodies, faces, hands wings and skin tones.
• Suggest character and mood with accessories like clothing, weaponry, halos and tattoos.
• Create the perfect backdrops, including clouds, flowers, stone and stained glass.

Angels have been many things to many people throughout the centuries—emissaries of the divine, harbingers of holy wrath, symbols of enduring beauty and great power… With this book, you can follow your own inspirations to create angels unbound by convention and reflective of your personal spirit.

Learn how to layer form with watercolor in 6 easy steps with this free Dragon Pass demo from Tom Kidd’s OtherWorlds. When working in watercolor, you want to plan ahead and work from light to dark to create texture and a sense of atmospheric perspective. You can certainly make watercolor do exactly what you want and create perfect gradations, but you’ll find that your painting will be more interesting if you follow where the paint leads you.

Dragon Pass finished art

Materials
Surface: Fabriano Artistico watercolor paper
Watercolors: Burnt Umber, Indian Yellow, Manganese Blue, Manganese Blue Hue, Payne’s Gray, Permanent Rose, Phthalo Blue, Phthalo Green, Raw Umber, Titanium White (Opaque)
Brushes: 11/2–3-inch (38–76mm) sable flats, no. 1 sable round
Tools: HB pencil, sketch paper, kneaded eraser, rag

1. Finding the Right Scene with Idea Sketches
Use an HB pencil to sketch your ideas. If your sketch lines get too dark, press into the darker areas with a kneaded eraser to lift up some of the pencil. There are many different ways an idea can be drawn. Here you can change how close you are to the dragon, what level you’re viewing it from, its pose, the time of day or adjust your relative position on the planet’s axis. Each drawing will have its own feeling. It’s all a matter of what you want to emphasize more than it is a matter of aesthetics.

2. Sketch your Final Drawing Lightly
Unlike oil painting, watercolor is done over a detailed pencil drawing. Because watercolor is a transparent medium, the drawing will easily show through, serving both as a guide for painting and as a means to show texture. Make sure your final idea sketch is light enough to paint over.

3. Lay in a Yellow Wash
Using Indian Yellow place a yellow wash over the entire surface using a 3-inch (76mm) wide sable flat. The paper may have some wrinkle to it, but it will flatten with time. This yellow wash is intended to give the painting a subtle yellow shift with the other paint that you layer on top.

4. Lay in the Sky & Rocks
Lay a thin layer of watered-down Phthalo Blue into the sky area with a wide soft brush moving back and forth left to right. Let the paint flow a bit unevenly as if it’s a bit hazy in the sky. The Phthalo Blue will shift toward green because it’ll mix with the yellow ground. Brush in a layer of water to the rock forms. While moist, apply a layer of Burnt Umber to achieve soft edges to the rocks. By painting wet-into-wet, the paint will naturally flow to the edges of the water and form a sharp-looking edge when the water evaporates. This happens because of the water’s high surface tension. If you want to create a sharp edge with watercolor, let the water bead up some so the color flows to the bead’s edge leaving an edge to it. If you want to make an area softer, lightly rub it with a moist brush, rag or finger.

5. Soften Edges With a Rag
While the surface is wet, mix Manganese Blue into the umbers ofthe distant pinnacle and rocks to variegate the colors and create some atmospheric perspective. Mix Indian Yellow, Phthalo Green and Permanent Rose to make a warm green and place dabs here and there with your sable round to create bits of moss and vegetation that cling to the rocks. The blue picks up some of the yellow from the initial wash and shifts toward green to help enhance the atmospheric perspective. When you move a watercolor brush across watercolor paper, the paint readily leaves the brush to the absorbent paper. You can’t scrape away the paint or use it thickly as you can with oil paint. However, you can blend or wipe away some of the watercolor after it dries. This can be done to correct mistakes but primarily it’s done to give the paint even more character. The easiest way to do this is to wipe it with a moist rag. Allow the paint to create all kinds of interesting effects and later keep the ones you want and wipe down the ones you think are too ostentatious.

6. Darken the Shadows & Add Highlights
Use a sable on its edge and crisscross strokes to create more layers of watercolor. Create a mixture of Payne’s Gray and Raw Umber for the shadow in the foreground. Use Manganese Blue Hue for the shadows in the distance. Add the final highlights opaquely with Titanium White. Although it may feel like cheating, there’s no rule that says you cannot work opaquely with watercolor. It’s best to save such opaque details for the end to take advantage of the wonderful properties of this medium.

Tom Kidd has been a top award-winning fantasy art illustrator for over twenty years. His work has been featured in many volumes of the Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantasy Art series, and he is the author of Kiddography: The Art and Life of Tom Kidd for Anova Books/Paper Tiger. He has won multiple awards—including an impressive six Chesley Awards and four Hugo Award nominations—for his science fiction and fantasy art, which has encompassed book covers and interiors, magazines, films, and figurines.

Purchase OtherWorlds in the North Light Shop here.

Sadly, Halloween is over…technically. But does this monstrously horror-filled holiday ever really have to die, at least in spirit? Scary movies and supernatural beings are delightfully frightful year-round and IMPACT can prove it with (our horrible puns) and Creature Features!

Create your own monsters, aliens and supernatural beings from start to finish with this easy-to-follow guide. Creature Features is loaded with simple step-by-step demonstrations, tips, techniques and finished art. You’ll find out how to create specific details such as faces, hands, eyes and other body parts, as well as various types of costumes and accessories.

Werewolves are never boring and the Halloween movie franchise will never end. Draw on, little zombies, draw on!

“The Insider’s Guide to Creating Comics and Graphic Novels” won an Eagle Award last week! (The Eagle Award is comparable to the Golden Globe, just for comics instead).

Congratulations to Andy Schmidt, author, and everybody who worked on this book. Great job guys!

If you want to find out what makes this book so good, head over to the North Light Shop.