Shadowcore

October 30, 2012

Lord of the Rings LCG: The Long Dark

I received a pleasant surprise the other day in the mail, I found out my illustration for a Lord of the Rings Expansion LCG pack I worked on well over a year ago was used for the packaging cover. This is the first time I've had this happen so I was pretty excited when I opened the box and found out. It's also funny seeing work a year old because it feels like ages ago since I worked on this piece. A special thanks to Art Director Zoe Robinson for all her input for me on this project.

"Vast and Intricate"

October 24, 2012

Rise of the Underdark 3

Well, I finished these Rise of the Underdark images many months ago (nearly a year), but the time has finally come to show the last piece in the set. Here are the previous ones if you missed them. Underdark 1, Underdark 2.

This project certainly took some doing as each piece got a little more complex as we went along. When I reached the last image the AD, Melissa Rapier, really wanted an explosion which the other pieces would lead up to. The burning of the world and the complete rise of the Drow and the Underdark.

Some details

Here is some process work.

Initially I had a pretty different idea with a large monster behind the main figure. That was scrapped and a larger scene with more figures and depth was worked out.

We also played around with the main figure and how he should fit in the scene. In the end I opted to have him set back more in the haze of fire.

Here is the final pencil before I got into all the layered figures.

Finally, here is how all the layered played out.

October 16, 2012

Recent Legends of the Five Rings pieces - Seeds of Decay

Here are three new Legends of the Five Rings pieces that I created last year. I was asked to design and illustrate and new character for the game and since it turned out to be a 20 foot tall mutated samurai I took on the challenge. Hida Kaiji needed to be big and mutated, but still needed to retain some of his humanity... he also gets to wield a tetsubo that is pretty much just a tree trunk, and that is pretty cool. Here is how they turned out...

Hida Kaiji
© 2012

Ruthless Onslaught
© 2012

Determined Challenge
© 2012

This set had a super limited early release at Gen Con this year and I was able to see some of my cards in person when folks brought them by for me to sign. I am still waiting to have all three in hand but thanks to the internet we can see how the cards turned out...

October 15, 2012

New card art

Here are some recent Magic and Warcraft cards...

I actually did the magic ones about a year ago. They are redoing the guild signets for the latest card set and I was asked to visualize these crests. Still feeling like I hadn't established myself with this client solidly, I wanted to make sure the art showcased more than just a simple logo, so I worked some scene elements and figures into them. The trick was to add stuff but at a small size still have the card read as obviously a logo.

Another interesting thing was that the original card art for these signets was done by the late, great Tim Hildebrandt, one of my original art heroes, and whose painting of a Snow Giant, bought 10 years ago adorns my studio wall.

October 8, 2012

Stone of Tymora

A little while back I completed a cover for R.A. and Geno Salvatore's latest novel "Stone of Tymora". I worked with the always awesome Jon Schindehette on this one.

Here is a little closeup of Asbeel, the main villian.

October 2, 2012

Pathfinder: Curse of the Lady's Light

For the past few months, I've been working with Paizo on their awesome Pathfinder game on multiple pieces. A special thanks to Andrew Vallas for all his help on working with me on the projects. I just received my copy of this batch in the mail so it's safe to finally post. These were my two first half-pagers (plus a character illo) with them and I had a lot of fun working on the project. Dwarves, hammers, fire, stones. Oh yeah.

Priest of Torag in a Fight

Priest of Torag

God of the Forge

September 24, 2012

Kaijudo Art

Right, so I have been quite occupied recently and it has been a bit quiet around me here at the Shadowcore blog. Not only have I been working furiously on my new website, I am also currently doing a lot of art for the new Kaijudo Trading Card game by Wizards of the Coast, it's a bit of a different style than what I'm usually drawing and painting so I wasn't so sure if I should post it here on the gloomy Shadowcore :P but Craig convinced me, it doesn't matter. So, here we go:

... oh, and if you wanna check out my new website:

www.eva-widermann.com

Thanks! :)

September 19, 2012

Lucas Graciano

Thanks Craig for the invite into a crew of amazingly talented artists. I feel extremely honored to be a part of it. Some of you I've gotten to know pretty well and the others I will look forward to getting to know better.

I live in southern California with my unbelievably supportive wife and our beautiful 1yr old daughter. I attended the Watts Atelier of the Arts where I got all of my formal training. I now teach a couple of classes there and am proud to be a part of such a special school. I was a self-taught digital artist until I started training traditionally. I fell in love with oils and now paint strictly traditional.

My client list includes Wizards, Pyr, Sony, Paizo, and Blizzard among others. For the last year I've been trying to figure out how to balance being a stay-at-home dad and a freelance illustrator - not sure if I've figured it out yet, but it is getting a little easier. I hope I will be a worthy addition to an already overwhelming group of great talent.

To kick off here is a panorama shot of my studio and few new and not so new pieces.