"Dragon vs. Phoenix" Custom Artoyz Elements Earth Completed!

If you've been following along w/ my WIP pics for the past week or so, then you know that I was working on a custom Artoyz Elements Earth figure. My design, "Dragon vs. Phoenix" was complex and detailed, but so worth it after it was all finished! Props to my very patient client for waiting!!! Hope you like it! Go to my Flickr account for larger pics!

As a little extra bonus, decided to make a print of the computer design I was following along with and signed and framed it, to go along w/ the custom toy!

That completes my WIP thread! I hope you enjoyed it, and if so, please let me know! Or if you have any comments/suggestions, I'd love to hear it! Thanks for following!

Work in Progress (WIP) Pics - Artoyz Elements Earth Part 6!

Part 6 already? Lol, sorry for the late (again) post, but finally have a chance to post up part 6 of my WIP pics of Dragon vs. Phoenix. I hope you enjoyed this so far, and this custom is pretty much almost done!

Last time I left off w/ dragon side being somewhat done. There are a few more steps from this point, as I want the entire figure to be yellow colored. To do that, I have to color in parts that are white to yellow. Sounds simple, but tough since you have to be careful not to overlap the lines and if you do, go back over them w/ color again.

Here is the dragon side ready for yellow:


Here is the phoenix side w/ yellow already painted in:


Side of custom w/ yellow:


The other side w/ yellow:


The completed dragon side w/ yellow painted in:


Now at this point, for some reason, I just kept going and going and kinda forgot to take pics of my WIP! But the only thing left to do was figure out what color to make the hands and feet. I didn't really want to paint them a different color, as I think it may take away from the colors of the dragon and phoenix. So I thought about painting them yellow to match the rest. Pics of the final will be shown later on.

Also, I forgot that the blossoms are missing some inner details; the lotus blossoms as well. I hand painted the details of the lotus blossoms, but the details of the cherry blossoms were harder, so I had to use a certain technique to get details in places I can't do by hand (can you figure out what that is by looking at the cherry blossom?):


To teach how I do that would be another thread on its own! So will skip that for now, unless I get asked to do so later on!

Anyway, that's mostly it for this time. The custom is FINISHED and all I need to do is varnish and post the final pics, which will come later this week.

I hope you enjoyed this and almost done!!! Thanks and would love to hear any comments and/or suggestions!

Work in Progress (WIP) Pics - Artoyz Elements Earth Part 5!

Friday afternoon update - most people are probably waiting till 5pm to run out the door for the weekend, and here I am updating my blog w/ my latest WIP pics! Sorry for the late update, but better late than never. Here we go:

Last update I finished half of the dragon outlines and the scales; I wanted to clean up the scales a bit, so started doing that and finishing more of the outlines:


After some time being picky w/ the scales and outlining, I finally finish the dragon:


I start outlining the other elements: blossoms, waves, etc:


I should note that I also went over some of the colors 2x to make sure they are filled in and bright. That's how I roll!

I finally got my favorite masking tape in and started to mask out the black background areas - this is to just make the lines nice and straight. I masked out 2x for each line - 2 tapes to make the white lines, then 2x more for the black areas:


This is a very tedious process, which I honestly hate sometimes. I feel I can probably just free marker it in, but being the picky guy I am, feel it's not good enough. ARGH!

Here you can see how I use the masking tape to color in the black areas:


FINALLY, after some hours and days, this is the completed dragon side:


So this is my progress for these past few days! I hope you enjoyed this session! Almost done w/ this custom! I don't know how some of the other artists out there get customs done so fast, but guess mine is just a tedious and long process! Hope you enjoyed this session, more next time!

Work in Progress (WIP) Pics - Artoyz Elements Earth Part 4!

Sorry, after a nice weekend, I am a bit late w/ part 4 of of my WIP Artoyz Elements Earth, Dragon vs. Phoenix. Last time we left off, I was outlining in black the rest of the Phoenix. I completed that side of the figure and will keep the final look of a secret till later! Right now, I concentrated on the Dragon side of the figure; I taped up another piece of paper + paper towel to keep the Phoenix side safe while I work. The paper towel is to prevent any unnecessary bumps or scraps against the Phoenix side.

So I start w/ the Dragon, since he is the main figure of this side by applying gold and red:


Now at this point I realized I didn't draw in scales for the Dragon, which it doesn't really need it, but think it would look so much nicer if it had some scales (would also match the Phoenix). So, I whipped out my pencil and started to add scales; problem is, the pencil didn't really mark well w/ the gold paint, so used my black paint marker to add them in:


Instead of continuing to do all the scales, decided to stop at a certain point and go slowly and make sure everything is nice and neat and continue on. So decided to paint up the lotus flowers:


Next the waves:


And:


Next the cherry blossoms and "Love" kanji:


Now with most of the major elements colored in, I wanted to start outlining in black the head:


Continue down to the flames, hand and fixing up some of the scales:


Till finally:


I spent a few hours on this tonight and am exhausted after awhile! I think it looks pretty good up to this point, and will stop for today. Will continue tomorrow, thanks for looking!

Work in Progress (WIP) Pics - Artoyz Elements Earth Part 3!

Ok part 3 of of my WIP Artoyz Elements Earth, Dragon vs. Phoenix. I left off w/ a few colors on the custom toy, time to keep adding colors.

I started by adding the black colors to see how the other colors 'pop' out:


I used some small masking tape I got to mask off the lines of the black parts to make them straighter, but the masking tape I got does not do corners so well. That's what I get for buying cheap tape! I had to order some better masking tape, which should get here by next week, so for now, I'm going to skip the black background parts and concentrate on the black outlines. I usually save the black outlines for last, but instead of waiting around, I'll jump to this step.

I outline the phoenix head in first as practice:


I continue w/ the rest of the body:


And finally:


Now, I had to go over some of the areas w/ more color, to make the colors more filled in and to pop more. Be careful since working w/ paint markers, too much color can cause them to clump up. Make sure your markers have a good flow before going over them again.

That's all the updates for now, will post more when I get a chance!

Work in Progress (WIP) Pics - Artoyz Elements Earth Part 2!

Ok here is Part 2 of my WIP Artoyz Elements Earth, Dragon vs. Phoenix. For those that missed part 1, just scroll to my last post. I left off w/ finishing the Sharpie outlines of the Phoenix,, now it's time to add color.

People ask me how do you color in something so small and detailed, and my answer? Very carefully!

I started to add the red areas in first:


Golds and yellows next:


Why not silver next?


Flowers next - pinks and purples:


Waves are sky blue:


Completing the waves are dark blues:


Looks easy through my pics, but it's tough to go slowly over all the lines, making sure all the colors are consistent. I may have to go over some of the areas 2x to make sure the colors are nice. This whole coloring process took a few hours!

Stay tuned for Part 3!

Work in Progress (WIP) Pics - Artoyz Elements Earth!

Been working on this complex design custom for a little bit now, and w/ the consent of the owner, allowed me to post some work in progress (WIP) pics of it. Decided to do this so show how I work, how meticulous I am, and what goes into each AW177 art toy. Hope you like it and enjoy!

Artoyz Elements Earth - Dragon vs. Phoenix

After some time to come up w/ a nice design on computer, I translate that design onto the toy w/ pencil. The Dragon side has already been added and covered w/ paper, and this is the in-progress Phoenix side:


You can see the Dragon side visible through the paper:


This is the completed pencil side of the Phoenix:


After penciling the design in, I go over it again w/ a black Sharpie:


This is the completed black Sharpie side of the Dragon:


Will work on the Phoenix side today; big props to the patient owner of this piece and more WIP pics to come! Stay tuned!