Amanda Kastner⬥StorySeamstress

This month my instagram feed was full of artists participating in MerMay, so I decided to join in! (Actually it was mostly an excuse to make myself draw polar bears.) I only finished three ink-and-watercolor pieces for this arctic fairy tale mashup--you can see larger images below--but here are super-scribbly sketches for the end of the story! The original 5"x7" watercolor illustrations will be up in the shop soon, so check back or join the mailing list to be notified!

"Get back here, Calcifer! I'm still cooking breakfast!" Howl's Moving Castle is one of my (many, many, many) favorite books--sorry to all you movie people, but I'm definitely a book purist!--so it's kind of surprising that this is only the second piece of fan art I've done. (We'll have to fix that.) I scanned my inks and decided to color it the lazy way! I ran the GMIC colorize lineart filter in Gimp which gave me a wonderful patchwork of colors, then used the fill tool to combine larger areas of color and define shadows in Sophie's dress and hair. I selected Calcifer and colorized him, which unified the colors, but kept a variety of values. (Calcifer is two layers--a blue one and a yellow one, with layer masks to blend the two together.) I finished it off with an ink-and-tea texture I made recently. Drop by my Gumroad store to download a  FREE minimalist wallpaper for your desktop or device!

Happy New Year! Here's a peek at the original illustrations I did for two of the top-tier backers for my She Coloured  Kickstarter! They both chose quotes from  Pride & Prejudice . ...He looked for a moment at Elizabeth, till catching her eye, he withdrew his own and coldly said: “She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me; I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me.” Mr. Bingley followed his advice. Mr. Darcy walked off; and Elizabeth remained with no very cordial feelings toward him. She told the story, however, with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous. — Pride & Prejudice , Chapter 3 This was a super fun quote to illustrate; Lizzie tells her friends the story of Darcy's snub with "great spirit" and a pose somewh