artorder

Just sent to Jon at the ArtOrder blog. Not that bad for a few hours. Will try to spend more time on the next. Concept is property of Wizards of the Coast. Goodnight.

Sent to spectrum

Fingers crossed, I sent my menacing mouse pawn image as well as these two Lovecraft-themed images to Spectrum for review. The drowning man is "The Shadow over Innsmouth", and the shadowy seated figure is "The Music of Erich Zann". Wasn't sure how I felt about these when I was working on them..I like them now that I'm coming back to them with a fresh eye. I probably just had artist's rage before as I did a re-paint for each of these. Both are mixed media: pencil, ink, watercolor, oil, and digital(like the Pawn)
These are two stories I love, so I'm sure there will be many variations on these through the years, as well as others. Hopefully becoming even more bizarre and unsettling as my mind truly drifts off into...

The Music of Erich Zann

Here is a color rough for my weekend project. I finally have some time off in my schedule, just enough, I think, to finish this piece. Its an illustration inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's "The Music of Erich Zann". The story's title character is an old, weathered man that lives in a strange apartment whose window happens to be a gateway into a dark dimension of unnamed terrors; he keeps these shadows from the stars at bay with his bizarre, haunting, and horrific violin melodies.
I hope to actually finish this over the long weekend so that I have at least one painting I could potentially submit to Spectrum this year. The other potential piece is a secret...I'll post progress once any is made.
Also included in this post in the charcoal under drawing. Enjoy it while it lasts, 'cause it'll be covered in gesso by tomorrow. That's right its a free-wheelin' painterly painting. An attempt to repeat, if not improve on my results from my "Frank" painting.

D&D

Had some time to post today. On another film, so time is a true rarity...Here are the published images I did for Wizards of the Coast this past year. The Cockatrice was for their latest Monster Manual released awhile back. The other three were for the Eberron Campaign Guide that was recently released. I did two other paintings for Wizards that didn't show up in the books, so I can't show them to you yet, in case they use them later on; but in the meantime enjoy these. They were great to work for. I'm hoping to make some time to drum up some "client specific" portfolios, one of which would be a Wizards style related collection; a handful of images that are my take on their IP. All images and concepts are property of Wizards of the Coast.(And yes the Rakshasa Tiger Demon's hands are supposed to be reversed...and you thought I goofed)

Frank

I did this oil sketch of my Grandpa from a JamesDean-esque photo we have of him in his younger days for my dad this father's day. Frank passed awhile back and it was really hard for our whole family to see him go, so I thought this might bring dad some good memories. I was really happy with technique, likeness, and the piece overall, so I thought it deserved a post. Oh, and it was done in only three hours. Tons of fun to do. I will try this technique in the future with full color, see if its still fun...

Nurgle Terminators

I had some time this past week, so I started up a few sample paintings. This was a fairly quick one for Games Workshop. I remember reading in some of their submission guidelines that they need to see how I would paint some of their characters. So here are some grimy, bloated Nurgle Chaos Terminators standing over some fallen Biel Tan Guardians. This was really fun too do. It's 100% digital, and literally started as a page of scribbles, which was a venture for me, because my art ed. background is as a draftsman. Worked out pretty well though. Scratchy, messy, dirty (like Nurgle should be) was great fun to paint, especially when contrasting it with the well-designed Eldar. Hope you like.
The next two sample paintings will be primarily for Irene Gallo over at Tor Books. One will be the robot sentry oil, and the other is the undead ambushing adventurers in mixed media...

the PAWN

I'm working on developing a new painting system, at least for me, where oils are layered on top of water colors. Normally I don't know if this even chemically works, but with the magic of fixative and matte medium, boom! Oils on water. Then I add digital paint to refine detail and alter color tone. Here's a little one I did of a PAWN in a series I'm working on where the units in chess are woodland/field critters caught in a gritty world war. The orange-tinted one is the oils on water color (actually its ink this time around), the grey one is the final with digital paint.

Blog Portfolio

The Feeding Pool: finished

Here's the final version of the piece I did a color rough for a couple days ago.
I like it. I haven't used this style for awhile. Kinda nice how certain skills stay with you. The finish has a sort of creepy Frazetta edge to it I think. Triangle composition, scantily clad amazon warrior confronting a slimy tentacled fiend. By the way, legally, the creatures and concepts related to the creatures are property of Wizards of the Coast, I did not make them up. One thing I did add is the small pyramid on the Mind Flayer's head. I thought it would be a cool/decorative way for the Flayer to protect his brain from rivals.

The feeding pool

Here's a color rough of another sample I'll be sending to Wizards of the Coast soon. Hope they enjoy it. This time I'm using one of their creatures from D&D, the Mind Flayer or Illithid. Squid head, zaps your mind, sucks your brains out...cool.