Dungeon 212

Here's a couple pieces I did earlier this year for Dungeon Magazine issue 212.
These are always fun because no matter what the assignment, I get to paint any combination of creatures, arms and armor, and magic. What could be better? 

8"x17.5" Oil on illustration board

This one shows the famous D&D sorceress Iggwilv and her little demon friend, and a good reason to not invite her to dinner...Unless you like it when she turns your roast into a cloud of flies.

8"x17.5" Oil on illustration board

In this one, an angel catches up on some reading while he is trapped in a library, but he's not alone.

Spectrum 20

Back in 2001 I was a junior in high school. Art class was my favorite, and I tried to fill my schedule with as many as the school would allow. I had been drawing and painting since I was very young. But I didn't really think anything of it until later in high school when my teacher told me that I could actually make art as a living, and there were such things as "art schools." I was ecstatic, I knew what I was going to do. In high school however, you don't learn so much about different artists. Sure, we heard about the big guys that everyone knows about, but I was never told what illustration was and how it differed from fine art (it doesn't, but for the sake of categorization in the eyes of art history...). I knew I liked painting and I especially enjoyed painting things realistically, but at the same time I liked comics and video games and fantasy movies. 
One day while in Boston wandering around by myself as I waited for my girlfriend at the time to get out of photography class, I stopped into Virgin Records to look for some music. Shortly after not finding any music I came upon the floor with all of the books. I immediately saw this one: 

I picked it up and sat down with it to see what "Fantastic Art" was all about. It was filled with hundreds of amazing images. I couldn't believe how cool all of it was, and that people painted these things. I knew I had to have this book. 

I carried it with me every day to school after that,  and flipped through it any chance I had. I drew from it, I studied the artists names, I memorized every image in there. I hoped that one day I could be a part of this, but I knew that was silly....me? Nooo. 

Years later, as a junior in college, I entered my first pieces into the Spectrum competition. It became an annual event each year after. My friends and I would get our best pieces of the year together and send them off to the competition, knowing we had little to no chance. Most of the time I would even forget that I sent things in because of how much of a long shot it was. But it was still worth it to try.

Twelve years after I chanced across that Spectrum 8 I can finally say that I've achieved what I dreamed of when first setting eyes on it. I'm deeply honored and still completely awestruck to be included in this year's Spectrum 20. Thanks to all the judges, and the Fenners who have been publishing the series for all these years. Here's the piece that will we included:

Now I have to keep my butt in gear to hopefully continue to get in!

Also! In other Spectrum related news: I will be back at Spectrum Fantastic Art Live! in Kansas City in just a few short weeks. I'll have all sorts of prints, drawings, and original art to check out so come say hi at booth # 802.

Skull Soldiers

My, how time flies when you're busy! 

Between school and general freelance work i've been running like a madman these past couple of months. Luckily, in all of the lack of time to post anything here, lots of things have become available for me to finally show you. So hopefully i'll have time to get those things up more regularly for you.

First off, back in the fall of last year I started working with mobile gaming company Cygames, creating art for a card game called Rage of Bahamut. Though I think my work only appears in the Japanese version so far. It's a free app, so check it out if you want.

Similar to work I have done in the past for the Legend of the Cryptids game, the idea is that the player starts with a basic version of each character. Then by combining versions of the same card, the character is upgraded to an advanced version. With Bahamut however, the character can upgrade four times. So four illustrations are needed. 

My character was a basic skull soldier called Hell Lord Skeleton in-game. As far as i'm concerned if I can get a skull or skeleton in an image, it can't get any better. But it can! They wanted a skeleton leading an army of skeletons! And they are all being controlled by some kind of necromancer. So the idea was to start with a normal version that didn't have too many frills and very basic armor for stage 1. With each additional stage the armor gets more detailed and there's a few more guys in the background. In the final stage, he should be the ultimate skull soldier! Well needless to say, these were a whole lot of fun to do. Here's how they progressed:

All of them are 10"x12" Oil on illustration board.

MFA Adventures - Badru Sketch #1

Lately, i've been steady working both on freelance jobs and some images for my projects as a part of the Low Residency MFA in Illustration program at the Hartford Art School. If you remember back to this post I had done a quick book dummy for an alternate version of Jack and the Beanstalk set in an Orientalist setting. I may or may not continue with it entirely as part of my thesis project, but I still enjoy a lot of the imagery. So I figure I'll at least do a few of the spreads as paintings. Here's my first sketch for one of the paintings. 

Month of Love

I'm taking part in a bit of an experiment this month. 20 great artists, 1 sketch per day, all on the many incarnations of love. Stop by and check it out:

Banner by Jeanine Henderson

I should have some new art to share here soon so keep your eyes peeled!

Messing with Ink: Ningauble

So I've been meaning for a while now to play around with ink again, and last night I had a bit of extra time so started up this small drawing. I wasn't sure where to start since I haven't really used ink since school, but I had an extra piece of clay board lying around so I started with a quick pencil sketch on that. Then, I went in with a brush for the larger black areas, and detailed it out with Micron pen in some areas and scratched away with an x-acto (SO much better than those crap scratchboard nibs I had in school). I had a lot of fun messing around on this and I hope to continue to play with it in the future. The character is Ningauble of the Seven Eyes from the stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. 

5"x7" ink on clayboard

Princess of the Underworld Advanced

Last week I shared a new painting I had done for the app game Legend of the Cryptids. This week I'm sharing the second "advanced" version of the Princess of the Underworld. 

 In this version the princess went from being a more sympathetic non-threatening character to more powerful and intimidating. Her beloved skull from the "normal" version is also now incorporated into her staff, and she's brought all of hell to the fight. I definitely had a great time working on this one.

12"x16" Oil on illustration board

I'd also like to thank the AD, Misako, she was really a joy to work with. I think some American companies could take a cue from the Japanese. They really treat artists with respect and professionalism. 

Princess of the Underworld

It seems strange that lately I've been doing more and more work, and yet, I have less and less that I can share with you. 

Well, I guess something is better than nothing. 
I've just been informed that I can share some art I did for digital "card game" app, Legend of the Cryptids. Creating card art for a digital app game is somewhat of a new a thing lately, with quite a few similar games popping up over the past year or two. The idea of the game is that you collect various character cards through "quests" where you pit your characters against the computers, and earn rewards by defeating various levels of monsters and bosses. Now the interesting part for me as an artist is that each card is able to be evolved by combining two of the same character. Thus, it requires two pieces of art that start as a "normal" version of a character and somehow upgrade into an awesomer "advanced" version once it is evolved. I'll talk a little more about the evolution process in my next post.

But for now, lets talk about the "normal" version. Princess of the Underworld is her card name, but instead of having her be all dark and evil (which is probably where I would've went) they wanted her to be a bit more sympathetic. So outside of that, they didn't give much in the way of scene or character design direction, which was nice for a change. Anyway, here's what she ended up looking like.

12"x16" Oil on panel, digital additions

Next up, I'll share how she evolved in the "advanced" version. 

Paizo: Inner Sea Bestiary

Well, it's been forever since I've updated the blog here. Between freelance projects, school, Illuxcon, and holiday travels i've not had a spare moment to write anything up lately. Not to mention all the things i've done that are still under wraps, but! at long last I have some new things I can share with all of you. 
This past year I've had the pleasure of working with Paizo on some of their characters. I like doing characters because they're fun, and I get to focus on just the figure. It's a breath of fresh air not having to think about a background sometimes. Andrew Vallas was the AD for this project and he was a joy to work with. Check out the Inner Sea Bestiary here. All of these  are painted in oils on illustration board.

Lashunta- She's a sorceress who's race is know best for their tiny antennae on the forehead.

Noqual Golem- When I painted this, he was supposed to be made of glass, but I think in the book he's now made of metal. I still like to think of him as glass.

 Lorthact- Ex duke of hell. Painting dudes with hooves is always fun.

 Ghoran- Now, this was was a weird one. A race of people made out of plants who's face is surrounded by a cowl and made up of colored flower petals. Her stomach also needed to have patterning and coloration of a watermelon and a sort of orifice for a belly button. 

 Petrified Maiden- A female fighter turned to stone...at least on the outside. 

 Nightripper- And last but not least, this guy is my favorite of the bunch. A perfect combination of weird, creepy, and awesome. Nothing like a blood soaked jackal-legged albino demon to get the party started.

All images © Paizo Publishing 2012

Dragon 415: The Ghost Caravan

Hello everyone, it's been a while since i've posted on here...but what else is new? Things have been busy as usual around here. I've got quite a few things waiting in the wings that I can hopefully show soon. My girlfriend and I also took a little vacation to Norway two weeks ago. Maybe I'll get a post in about that in the coming days, but for now here's a new one I did not too long ago for an article in this month's Dragon Magazine. The article tells of a mysterious caravan that has been sighted on many occasions, and is believed to be ghosts, but is actually just a bunch of smugglers who travel in secrecy for the king.

8x18" Oil on illustration board