Digital Painting; graphic novel style

I'm at work on a graphic novel (which I hope to debut here at some point). My first revelation?  Writing is hard.  Really, really hard.  But I remain determined - hopeful that eventually the zillions of bad ideas I have will distill themselves into the good ideas I'll need to make my story work. Writing resembles illustrating in that, much like making art, when you attempt to fill up a blank page, there are infinite possibilities. For success and for failure.

It's maddening, but when it works, it's magic.

So along with writing, I'm working to create a visual style.  This is a promo piece, hand-drawn and painted in Photoshop, which will go out to publishers.  I feel like it has something of the look I'm going for.  Maybe not totally there yet, but getting there.

A new painting - Violets

Here's a new addition to my flower series, which started with Jasmine.  Originally the headdress on these two ladies was going to be made up of masses of violets - which may still happen.  This is a digital painting and serving as a study for what will most likely be a 24"x36" work on canvas.  So the happy accident here is that I did a quick photoshop squiggle to indicate the headdress, but everyone seems to like it as is.  I'm thinking the larger painting will beg for more detail, and will likely end up looking quite different, but for now I like the look of this.

digital painting...Jasmine

This past year I spent some time in New Orleans.  I'd often sit on my balcony, enjoying the shade and watching horse drawn carriages roll by.  It was here I could smell the scent of jasmine; exotic and sweet, wafting through the trees.  Such a gorgeous scent.

I wondered what Jasmine would look like in human form...I did a pen and ink sketch, which was set aside and forgotten.

I found the sketch again, crumpled a bit and sandwiched between the pages of an old book. It seemed time to either throw it away or do something with it.  So I decided to turn it into a digital painting.

That's jasmine in her hair.