May 18, 2012

Blitz'gor Fizzlebak


Hey everyone! Sorry for the lack of posting lately.. I've been busy with a lot of projects that I can't really go into and nothing I've done in the past 4-6 months is allowed to be shown quite yet, so I managed to squeeze a personal piece into my schedule! Originally it started out as a demo for the illustration course I teach at a near by community college, however I was so excited by the development, I decided to take it to a finish.  Many of you know by now how much I love Blizzard Entertainment, so my personal pieces tend to be card samples and other Blizzard inspired illustrations.  This piece is no different :)

I try to keep up with the expansions and create work that's relevant to where their games currently are, specifically Warcraft.  This is a Goblin Elemental Shaman wearing the Tier 13 Shaman Armor set. Hope you guys dig it.



May 15, 2012

A couple pieces for Into the Unknown: The Dungeon Survival Handbook. I've done a bunch of stuff for Dungeon and Dragon magazines, but this was my first assignment for a D&D source book, and I'm really excited to see how they look in print.
© WotC

May 3, 2012

Second set of painted illustrations.


In my last blog post I described the big step I recently took to doing my work in oil paints.  That experience was breaking the ice and jumping in head-first to doing a new mode of work. While I already knew how to technically paint, I was learning the practical aspects of using those skills for jobs on deadline.

My next set of illustrations was 5 more paintings for the new Pathfinder RPG book, "Giants Revisited". Completed in ten days (after finishing the drawings),  I did these ones in the middle of January during a week of -30 cold while I was sick.  Wearing a hat and snow pants in my studio with the portable heater it was still only 12c inside, but other than that everything went smoothly.

Below are my final drawings mounted down on masonite ready to paint.  For speed I just do the drawings on the computer, as I've found the process of oil painting takes about twice as long as digital painting...


Here is the acrylic underpainting and my board surrounded by various references...


Below is the final painting for this one.  I learned that I need to be better at quickly coming up with costuming ideas (the blue giant's costume is quite plain), but damn there are alot of things to do when doing numerous oils on deadline... there's really no time to pause and explore ideas.


Below are the 2 spot illustrations I did for this set.  I learned its not really worth it to do these in oils and I should allocate this time to improving the larger scenes.  I had cleaned these and the dwarf one (below) up on the computer and handed in layered files with transparent backgrounds.



The main thing I did differently in my second set of oils was to use figure reference.  This set of paintings went really easy, and the reference was likely part of the reason.  That being said, its obvious why few others are doing RPG work in oils, especially 5 at a time on deadline.  Its really hard to compete with digital illustration when the process takes twice as long and the digital artist is putting the time into finishing and detail while the painter is sanding masonite and cleaning his palette.


 At this point after my second set of oil illos, I've learned that the time it takes me to finish a painting is pretty consistent: from 2-5 days depending on complexity.  I've tried and learned lots of other lessons since doing these, but that'll have to wait till the next installment when I compare digital painting and mini golf: :)


May 1, 2012

Far Realm Fiends

I had one more Dungeons & Dragons piece released in April. Also in issue 201 of Dungeon magazine I contributed the art for an article titled, Far Realm Fiends. It depicts a giant nightmare creature called the Doom Hulk and a trap that warps time and space...

Doom Hulk and Geometric Impossibility
© 2012 Wizards of the Coast

Here is a step by step for the painting, it came together really quickly and I pretty much knew what I was going for from the thumbnail stage...

Doom Hulk and Geometric Impossibility - Process
© 2012 Wizards of the Coast

I was working on this piece at the same time I was working on the Scaladars that appeared in my last post here. A really fun pair of piece to work on. Never can pass on the chance to create something new for D&D. This also has some personal moody redemption brain garbage tied to it that I might share at some point... but really, does it have anything the paint...? :P

RAWR!