alystraea

Started painting in May 2015 because I wanted some art for my Tolkien fanfic on Fanfiction.net. Total newbie to digital art, and had no art lessons, so the first few months were very rocky. Made progress with lots and lots of pose references, endless inspiration from the amazing art here on DA and on Tumblr, and COPIOUS use of eraser tools and the Undo button. Getting better at light and shadows & choosing colours. Getting better at anatomy too, but must have pose refs for almost everything.

Some of my best Tolkien fanart is on DA as annamare (renamed AlystraeaArt). So far it's all Silmarillion-based and mostly within canon. This account was originally for my Tolkien fanfic-related art, but it's been so dead that I'm going to add assorted sketches and practice pieces here too.

Art software:

(1) MyPaint 1.0.0 (Simple to use, FREE, and has proven more stable and compatible with my Windows 10 laptop than the newer versions of MyPaint.)

(2) Clip Studio Paint Pro (Used for a while in 2017. AFFORDABLE. But I missed the feel of the brushes in MyPaint too much, and the program and I didn't get along. I now mostly use it for cropping my art and adding text once I've completed it in MyPaint. It's a waste, I know, but I can't get CSP to behave for me.)

Tablet:

Began with a Wacom Intuos tablet (regret buying the medium, think small would have suited me fine) on an Acer laptop. Now using a Huion H640P which has been working fine for me so far (the connecting cable acts up and needs to be unplugged and plugged again sometimes).

I write on FanFiction.net and AO3 under the name Alystraea. archiveofourown.org/users/Alys…

www.fanfiction.net/u/6992737/a…