Caraid

@caraid.bsky.social

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AKA Ilse Gort. Professional illustrator & cat lady, 35, she/her. WotC / Hi-Rez / MacMillan / Penguin Random House

Loose sketch of a dappled blue horse.
Acrylic painting of a stylized red lion on a solid blue background.
Two stylized acrylic paintings featuring a red lion on a solid blue background and a blue wolf on a solid red background.
The card featuring Blech. The card text reads "Whenever you gain life, put a +1/+1 counter on each Pest, Bat, Insect, Snake and Spider you control."
A photograph of the color rough of Blech. This was painted in acrylics on roughly A5 sized acrylic paper.
The color rough for Blech, done in acrylics on roughly A5 sized paper.
The sketch for Blech
A traditional illustration done in acrylics featuring Blech. Blech is a pest, a creature that exists on the plane of Strixhaven. Pests come in many shapes and sizes, often looking like something of a mix between reptiles, amphibians and grubs. Blech is a particularly large, chunky pest of mostly red and green coloring with a white underbelly. He has bright red eyes, many teeth and spines and is lazily lounging on a moss covered branch, surrounded by various small creatures of the forest.
A photo showing the painting of Ashling, Rekindled on a stand in front of a bookshelf.
The Magic: the Gathering card "Subterfuge" featuring the elemental illustration.
Sketches for Subterfuge showing the hybrid elemental creature in various poses.
A traditional illustration featuring a Lorwyn elemental. Lorwyn elementals are hybrids made up of all kinds of different animals and shapes, in this case the head of a dolphin, forearms of an iguana, body of a dolphin, body and wings of a dragonfly, body and wings of a bird and the tail of a dolphin. We see the creature partially under and partially out of the water as it breaches the surface.
The Magic: the Gathering card featuring the Flock Impostor. It is a creature that is every creature type, has Flash and Flying, and may return up to one other creature to its owner's hand upon entering the battlefield.
Three sketches for the Flock Impostor.
A traditional illustration featuring a changeling, a shapeshifter creature in the world of Lorwyn. In the image, the changeling has taken the rough shape of a bird, poorly mimicking the birds that surround it as it has kept its distinctive Changeling face with huge forward facing yellow eyes, and its entire body is blue. The changeling is looking directly at the viewer with an uncanny smile as the birds around it look either mildly confused or pretend not to notice the obvious impostor.
The color mock-up for Ashling, Rekindled painted in acrylics.
The sketches for Ashling, Rekindled.
Traditional illustration featuring Ashling, a humanoid fire elemental dancing on a rock in a forest creek in Lorwyn. In the background we see small waterfalls and a lush forest. A magical rock floats just above the water behind her.
A digital painting of a purple dragon perched on a rock, framed by a stormy blue sky and with a red firey glow in its mouth and eyes.
Acrylic painting of Ajani, Nacatl Pariah from Magic the Gathering painted on an artist proof (a white-backed MtG card).
The scanned illustration featuring the Jackalweres, two in anthro form of which one masculine and one feminine, and one in feral (quadrupedal) form.
First sketch I submitted for the Jackalwere illustration. I features a jackalwere in humanoid and in feral form, looking as though they were getting ready to ambush desert travelers.
A page from the 2024 Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual, featuring the stats of the Jackalwere for which I did the accompanying illustration.
My partner sat on a guardrail wearing Asterisk, a canine fursuit head that I made.
Acrylic painting of a phelddagrif: a hippo with a pair of green feathered wings.
A photo of the 2024 DnD Dungeon Master's Guide with the special edition cover by Olena Richards.
A sketch of a long-necked dragon.
My character Lhune, who is a blue tiger with the back end of a deer, appearing to be floating or falling with a feather.
A work-in-progress of the painting, showing the color rough top right which I was using for reference. The photo shows how I painted in the background first while protecting the dragon with a liquid mask, then peeled back the mask once the background was done, leaving a clean dragon silhouette for me to fill with paint.
A quick, small color mock-up for the final painting to test my intended colors and values and see if the composition would be balanced and read well once filled in.
The sketches for the above illustration. On the left, the sketch that was chosen to be made into the final, with the difference that in this sketch the dragon is looking at the viewer rather than slightly away to the right. On the right, it shows the dragon similarly perched atop ruined pillars, but from behind, as if were hiding in a corner and the dragon just turned her head having spotted us. Her long tail curving close by and disappearing towards the background.
A black dragon perched atop a treasure hoard in a damp cave. In the background we see waterfalls pouring down onto the treasure piles, moss covers the stone ruins that hint at long gone civilization. The dragon has a pale face that makes it look skeletal, while her body is covered in black spiky plates, and her back ridged with tall spines. She has an almost serpentine look with a slender body and an enormously long tail curling back around to her front.
Image showing the raw scan up top (that is, the unaltered digital file I received directly from the scanner) and the digitally adjusted final file below. The final is higher in contrast and vibrancy to ensure good legibility and print quality at card size.
The final painting in progress, showing the background mostly painted while the Felidar and the rock it's on are still in the sketch stage.
Photo showing the color rough taped to my working desk in the top right, while the intended final work is taped down in the middle, currently featuring a refined sketch ready to be painted.
On the left, the original color rough as it was done in acrylics. On the right is the digitally adjusted color rough, which is brighter and warmer and contrasts the Felidar against the background more sharply.
Two sketches of the above Felidar done in pencil and grey markers. One features the sketched version of the illustration above, the other has the Felidar perched in a more central spot in the composition, facing somewhere over the viewer's head in the far distance and showing off its impressive horns and ears in their full width.
A traditional illustration featuring a Felidar, a large and slender cat-like creature with crystalline horns perched atop a floating rock. In the background we can see more of the barren floating rocks and planes against a bright blue and distantly clouded sky. Its fur has a lined pattern of bright red, white and brown while its horns are a deep blue. Around its neck it carries a leather drinking pouch.
A "field guide" type illustration on stained paper featuring Ygra, Eater of All. Ygra is a giant elemental creature called a Calamity Beast in the world of Bloomburrow, and has the shape of a mountain lion. Her eyes and mouth glow green and she is partially covered in smoke. Everything alive in proximity to Ygra turns into grey salt.
The sketch for the above illustration.
A digital illustration of a red anthro basilisk lizard charging over the water's surface while casting a swirling fire spell with its outstretched claws. Its feet are on fire and leave a cloud of steam behind it as they make contact with the water.
A screenshot of a chat conversation between me and my partner. My first message shows a picture of my cat after returning from the vet with the caption 'he's on drugs and asleep'. To which my partner responded 'Wish that were me', and I replied 'me too.'
Traditional illustration featuring Ajani, a white lion planeswalker character from the game Magic the Gathering. In the illustration we see Ajani from a slight top-down perspective as he roars in rage and grief over his brother's loss. He is engulfed by a bright white light that explodes out of him in glowing arches as he ignites his so-called spark; the magical power that lets him travel between worlds.
A rough color mock-up of the Ajani illustration painted in acrylics on an A4 sized paper.
The sketches for the Ajani illustration, featuring him from three different angles as he walks up a giant tree branch with his brother. The sketches also show the intended card layout for the final piece.
A traditional painting of Ajani from the game Magic the Gathering. Ajani is a white humanoid lion, called a leonin in this universe. In the piece he is in Naya, the green-aligned world of Alara where Ajani was born. It is a lush forest region. We are looking up at Ajani walking through the trees with his brother Jazal visible in the background.
Myself outside the NFC venue wearing Niva, my blue tiger partial fursuit.
Myself in a black dress wearing Niva, my self-made fursuit head and paws of a stylized blue tiger. In the picture I'm holding a small cat shaped lamp.
Badge art featuring a bust portrait of Caraid, my Iberian lynx fursona.
Two convention badges, one featuring my main fursona Caraid, an Iberian lynx with braided hair, and Niva, a stylized blue tiger which is the fursuit I will be wearing.