Shadowcore

August 25, 2013

First (and last??) Warcraft card oils

I was just informed that I can now show my first oil-painted card illustrations I did early this year. These were for the World of Warcraft card game, a product I've been consistently working on in digital paint for the past 3.5 years. Unfortunately, things have been quiet on the WOW front and it comes as no surprise that the game as its currently published is no longer: http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/267188-world-of-warcraft-trading-card-game/

Its really a shame. WOW has been one of my 3 steady clients since I started freelancing. I had a blast doing these images in oils and was excited to continue doing more. WOW has been great to work on, being one of the top-paying clients for this type of work and a natural fit for my aesthetic. Also, I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Jeremy Cranford, the AD, and have found him to be a positive, nurturing influence. Hopefully this is not the end of all Warcraft work, but just a shift to new products or publishing arrangements.

Anyhow, here are my first 2 card paintings in oils.

Tauren Paladin

Orc Shaman

In a couple weeks I will be at Illuxcon again, but this time as a main-show exhibitor. I'm very pleased to have cracked the lineup after only one year of oil painting my illustrations. Unfortunately since I have not been doing this long, much of my work is still tied up in NDA so I cannot bring most of 2013's product. Nevertheless, I look forward to a great time catching up with my extended art family.

August 7, 2013

The Sundering continues....with Isteval

Late last year I designed a new character for Jon Schindehette at D&D. He was to be named Isteval. The writers at D&D provided me with an awesome description of an old paladin who's glory days were well behind him now, yet he still had some stature and pride.

Isteval Concept Art

Ultimately he was to be part of a large lineup of characters for the next Sundering adventure for Forgotten Realms. This was another layered image containing many characters I had addressed in some other covers for D&D as well as a few new ones.

The Sundering - Make Your Story Legend

Each character had to be on its own layer, very much like the previous Sundering image I created. Here are a few shots of some of the layers as well as a few closeups. The full image ended up being pretty enormous. I had a blast working on this one.

I also had to go into some detail for the stained glass window in the background.

The Sundering Stained Glass

Finally, the crew at D&D ended up putting together some pretty amazing stuff. They had a cinematic video created that featured Isteval in full 3 dimensional action walking around in a scene which also contained my stained glass window. I was completely floored when I saw all this. I never imagined my character coming to life like this. Huge thanks and congratulations to everyone at D&D that made this happen.

You can find the full video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W__zxJroio&feature=share

The main Sundering site: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/sundering.aspx

Jon also did a nice write up about mere here, discussing my time working with D&D over the years: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.aspx?x=dnd_4dreye_20130807

Much more to come. I am sorry for the delay in posting.

July 17, 2013

MORE recent monsters - Dragons, spiders, kitty cats... OH MY!

I have been neglecting my duties over here... which has resulted in a lot of monsters needing to be posted. Just got about every monster you could want here today, dragons, spiders, oozes, aliens... kitty cats. In no particular order I have for you today a bunch of my recent work...

P’an Ku

Ungoliant's Spawn

Eye on the Realms: Forgotten in a Chest

The Anatomy of Elemental Evil

Agathion Familiar

Angel Spell

Angelic Familiar

Shei

Tannagar

I had a chance to return to the Illustration Master Class again this year and managed to not spend the entire time in bed sick. I worked traditionally this year and picked the Game of Thrones assignment. Well, I picked the assignment that allowed me to do a painting of three dragons destroying a city...

The Three Dragons

24 x 14 - acrylic on board

Lastly, I have for you my second set of four Marvel Comic aliens that I redesigned for the very awesome The Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe REDUXE Edition (OHOTMU Reduxe) blog...

I think that should cover all the recent highlights... but don't worry, there is a lot more on the way! RAWR!

July 14, 2013

Reign of Winter parts 4,5,&6

Covers for Reign of Winter: The Frozen Stars, Rasputin Must Die, and The Witch Queen's Revenge. Art direction by Sarah Robinson, cover design by Andrew Vallas.

Grayscale

Color

Final Composites

June 1, 2013

New Magic Piece

Here is a new piece for the upcoming M14 set. The first pass at this painting the dragon didn't have the two arms. His arms were his wings. A couple of months after I had finished and been paid for the piece, I get an email from the AD and he says that their dragon designs have four limbs and wings. He apologized for not seeing it at first and told me he needed me to paint 2 arms into the piece within a couple of days because it was going to print that next week. In truth I felt the painting was lacking a bit and adding the arms helped. The trouble was trying to find a way to incorporate the arms into the original composition. In the end it all worked out.

The other good thing was that I upgraded my camera in between the revisions and was able to get a better shot of the painting.

Scourge of Valkas

16x20 Oil on Masonite

May 21, 2013

Lord of the Rings: the Black Riders

Black Riders - 14 x 36 in., oil on masonite

Hey everyone! Apologies for the absence, here's my latest piece for Fantasy Flight Games. It's box art for their Lord of the Rings card game, with this expansion focusing on the Black Riders. This one was quite a challenge in the beginning, oddly enough I haven't been asked to paint a lot of night scenes so I really had to think about how to approach this one, especially when it came to the color. I wound up focusing on the bluish light of the moon as the main source of color and moving out from there. It seemed to heighten the sense of dread and fear that the scene needed.

(As a side note, unlike the first two this one IS for sale so if you're interested shoot me an email)

April 12, 2013

More recent work - monsters, Monsters, and more MONSTERS

A lot of my monsters have come out recently and I thought I would share them all in one post. I will start things off with my contributions to the March issues of Dungeon and Dragon magazines. I got to do a portrait of the deadly Ogre mercenary Lubash as well as redesign and illustrate an entire army of Mephits...

Lubash the Ogre - The Village of Hommlet

Air, Dust, and Earth Mephits

Mist, Steam, and Water Mephits

Fire, Ice, and Magma Mephits

Heading now to a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. The mighty Icetromper joins the ranks of the ever growing Star Wars card game by Fantasy Flight Games...

Icetromper

Lastly, I have for you a set of four Marvel Comic aliens that I redesigned for the very awesome The Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe REDUXE Edition (OHOTMU Reduxe) blog. The blog's goal is to redesign and celebrate 1000 plus entries in the Handbook to the Marvel Universe. I started off my contribution to the project with these four aliens. You can see a side by side comparison here, Alien Races - Horusians to Judans...

RAWR!