I primarily use Adobe Photoshop for painting illustrations. These full paintings take anywhere from two to twelve hours, depending on the complexity. While some of these were traced from my sketchbook before being colored, others were drawn from scratch on Photoshop.

I do not use AI generated artwork in any way, shape, or form, not even as inspiration. This is all human made.

Click on any of the thumbnails for a full size look! If you would like to see my full digital art portfolio, go here.

A young woman in Victorian-esque clothing walks away from the camera with a bug net over one shoulder. She leads her trust palomino pony through a field thick with poppies and butterflies.

The narrow image is split in two, with a young brunette woman with pale skin, red vest, and white shirt facing to the left and a black unicorn facing to the right. On the woman's side, the city is a Mediterranean-like haven, while on the unicorn's side, the city burns under a sickly yellow sky. — A header I created for the World of Elturas.

A cream colored cow in lavender robes admires a leafy garden, with hints of a palace peeking through the trees. — A character portrait for the World of Elturas.

The image has the dark colors of a horror movie. Barely outlined is a sphinx-like shape with glowing red eyes. Beneath her paws shoot cracks of red lightning-like magic, illuminating dead bodies of various creatures beneath her. — Concept art for the World of Elturas.

A griffin with the coloring of an osprey lounges on an archway decorated with ocean themed mosaics. He has a friendly, yet slightly mischievous look, like he might tell you a bad joke. Behind him is a terra-cotta and cream city dotted with cypress and Italian stone pines. The tip of the turquoise bay can just be seen. Mountains sit behind the city and the sea. — A character portrait for the World of Elturas.

A direwolf in leather armor stares off to the right of the screen. He is large and commanding, emphasized by the purple magical flames dancing around his paws. Behind him a formation of dragons fly across an orange sky. The city around them is nothing but smoking rubble. — A character portrait for the World of Elturas.

Illustrations

In my free time, I occasionally choose to accept art commissions that interest me. The majority of my recent illustrations have been completed for the publishing imprint Space Wizard Science Fantasy.

I have painted the interior illustrations for the following books:

Distant Gardens, an science-fantasy anthology
Farther Reefs, a sequel anthology to Distant Gardens
Lofty Mountains, a sequel anthology to Distant Gardens (coming soon)
The World of JUNO, a science-fantasy anthology that I wrote a story for as well as illustrated
Ardulum: First Don, a science-fiction novel by J.S. Fields
Ardulum: Second Don, the sequel to First Don
Ardulum: Third Don, the final book of the Ardulum trilogy
Ardulum: Tales from Ardulum, a collection of short stories starring the beloved characters of the Ardulum trilogy

Covers

I have also painted the cover for the following books:

Junk Junction, a middle grade horror by Sara Codair (coming soon)
The Rosewood Penny, a fantasy romance by J.S. Fields (coming soon)

World of Juno

Space Wizard Science Fantasy asked me to not only illustrate The World of JUNO, a science-fantasy anthology, but also to write a short story for it. I wrote Ashfall on Jade, the tale of a small family attempting to escape when a volcano’s eruption threatens to destroy their underground city home.

Badges

During the summer of 2020, I was hired by Curiosity Untamed to create a reflection to go over each of their badge images. Curiosity Untamed wanted a 2D Photoshop solution, as rendering a 3D version of 27,000 badges was possible, but an expensive and time-consuming task. The challenge was to create a layered painting where each badge could be imported automatically underneath my painted reflection to create a 3D look.

Using a reference photo and Photoshop, I painted the reflection and shadow by hand on a computer-created flat grey circle. You can see the completed reflections all over Curiosity Untamed’s website.

An example of the steps used to create the new badge reflection, from the original grey circle to the finished product.

If the image isn't working, you can find example badges on Curiosity Untamed's website. — Example of four of the thousands of badges Curiosity Untamed offers.

Social Media

During the summer of 2019, I was in charge of creating media via Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Spark for Curiosity Untamed’s social media accounts. I then regularly posted these images through Hootsuite. When Curiosity Untamed decided to modernize and broaden its curriculum, I taught my social media successor before switching to writing said new curriculum.

All of these images were created using Curiosity Untamed’s flat badge images and commercial-use, royalty-free images from sites such as Pexels and Pixabay. I used photomanipulation and painting to combine these images. On average, it would take me roughly fifteen to twenty minutes to create one social media image, depending on the complexity.

Katie Cordy

Professional Illustrations

Illustrations

Covers

World of Juno

Badges

Social Media