Just before my vacation, came across an absolutely fantastic artist named "Daarken" (http://daarken.com/ ). Besides the amazing creativity of his work, I really like the detail of his characters and the contrasts of his paintings. So, to help me come up with more elaborate creature designs and character practice (for next year's Illustration Master Class), what better way than to study his paintings and then draw from them.

The first step is to just work on the basic reproduction of his paintings. See where he emphasizes the character study, the facial descriptions and the clothing. Once I have a good feel for that part, I'll move onto seeing how he paints his creations.

An important factor in simulating his paintings will be to try to reproduce his fine art portrait work. I still have a lot of studying to do before I can get to the painting phase.