Dark Winter Dragon Part 2

So as mentioned in the previous post, I had done a bunch of sketches in my sketchbook and felt I was getting somewhere, until I decided my idea was too sweet and not me. Back to the sketchbook! Now for my sketchbook, I tend to use no nonsense pencil, but I have found in the past that sticking to one medium for too long tends to dry me out and that was the case here. Suffice it to say, the drawings I did were uninspired and not worth showing here. It was time for a change. I decided that to start fresh, I would go digital for the sketch and use a brush I hadn't used very much before. The main brush I believe I acquired from Kekai Kotaki's collection which he donated to Imagine FX magazine. I grabbed a texture off my texture library and went at it. After about 40 minutes here's what came out.

I finally felt like I was getting somewhere.....I felt like there's still a mother/child connection. What could be more basic and at the core of parenting than providing food for one's child? I had to make sure the dragon was dark, scary and a little demonic too; I like this juxtapose of an evil looking creature being a caring mother. I've kept the colors desaturated so the blood stands out more as well.

Dark Winter Dragon Part 1

Hello! Sorry about the lack of posts. A few weeks ago this showed up at the Dracopedia Project Blog....

William, you're a good man! The rules are simple enough; interpret 'winter dragon', any media, style, etc. Just make it cool...pun sort of intended. Off to the sketchbook!

This is one page of several I drew trying in trying to come up with a painting. As an artist, my thing is story. Narrative. I've never been a money shot kind of guy (you know, the scene where the hero is standing there looking heroic, but not really doing anything). There has to be something...going on. I played with a few ideas. At one point, I was going to have Santa Claus riding on my winter dragon! Why, not, Christmas is only 10 months away!
Finally, I stopped to think about what the term 'winter' means to me. Some people think snowmen and snowball fights, school days cancelled and hot chocolate by the roaring fire, but I think of winter in terms of cold environments, such as the Arctic. Terms that come to mind are white, cold, beautiful, unforgiving, harsh, survivors. Winter is a time of deadly beauty. So how do I tell a story around a lovely but brutal background? Well, I stumbled upon the idea of a mother and child struggling to survive. And here's a color rough of such an idea.

This is a mother winter dragon watching over her sleeping young in a cold, harsh mountain morning. I felt this had a lot of opportunities, artistically speaking. Most obvious is the unusual horizontal composition. I could also play with color, lighting and extreme atmospheric perspective. It has story, a sense of the epic, it's original and....sweet. Not me. I realized I would probably hate doing this painting. There's no action, nothing. And this contest should be about a dragon, I felt this composition was more about a scene that just happened to have a dragon in it. Also, these characters didn't have to be dragons; I could've put goats in their place and it would've worked. I did like the original idea of a mother and her young, and  I wanted to carry that, but I had to lose the saccharine sweetness.

Check in again on Monday to see where this goes.

Cheshire Cats

This past weekend was one of those weekends when inspiration hits from out of nowhere. Christina and I somehow landed on the topic of Cheshire Cats, so I thought it'd be fun if we sketched out our own versions of a Cheshire Cat.

 

Guess who did what....

And I figured I'd quickly paint up mine!

Battle For Macragge

For my 200th post, I present to you the Battle for Macragge! I really wanted to get across the idea of a noble sacrifice and an honorable death.

I definitely had the movie Gladiator in my mind while working on this piece.

This piece was a long time coming. This sketch was done sometime last spring, when I was suddenly hit with a lot of freelance work/ I chipped at it until about 2 months ago when my schedule freed up a little and I was able to get back to it.

The original pencils with an overload of details. It's a very busy pencil drawing, but I knew I'd rather put in too much detail and just make some disappear instead of making a simple drawing and trying to resolve the details while painting.

Wild Wargs

2013 is already looking pretty exciting! My first CCG card has been released, the Wild Wargs card. It is part of the Hobbit Over and Under the Hill expansion set.

And here's the original art. I have to say, Fantasy Flight Games does a very nice job with their printing and colors.

Happy New Year!

Well, Happy 2013 everyone!

I've never been much into writing, as those of you who've followed this blog for these past years might have noticed. My sentences never sound as eloquent as I would hope, so I tend to keep the yip yap to a minimum. All I can really say is every year, I do everything I can to move forward from the year before. Just a little bit. Not epic leaps but small baby steps. I just trust that the small consistent steps will add up over time.

I will say 2012 was a pretty big year for me. I've done some freelance work that is finally coming to light now, and I hope to share as much of it as possible in the next couple of months. I also know that my blogging was pretty weak throughout 2012, and I hope to change that this year. I'm not say the R-word. I'm just saying I will do my honest best to make it better.

So, without further ado, Fantasy Flight has released their latest Warhammer 40000 Deathwatch supplement, The Outer Reach.

I was honored to contribute a piece to this book, and a Space Marine at that!And a Librarian! I really really liked that!

Merry Christmas!

Another collaborative piece between my girlfriend and myself! Have a great holiday!

Ink Life Drawings

Hello! Here are some life drawings done with Japanese brush pen in a Moleskine sketchbook. Hope you like them!

New York Comic Con

So I'm a little late, but I just wanted to drop a line and say thank you to everyone who came by to visit my booth at New York Comic Con last weekend. It was my first time participating in a con's Artist Alley and it was a great experience, getting to meet so many new people, meeting up with old friends and presenting my art in such an exciting venue. Business wise, it was pretty successful too. I didn't leave filthy rich, but I did better than I had ever hoped to expect.
A word to other artists: don't wait until you feel 'worthy' to try out a table at a Con. When you have a large enough body of work (let's say 10 pieces) and the resources to commit to having a booth at an Artist's Alley, go for it. I spent roughly $700 in total, if that helps. But the experience is so worth it. You'll learn a lot of how people respond to your work, to you and you'll learn just a little bit more about yourself.

Ku'Gath the Plaguefather

My newest Games Workshop inspired piece is Ku Gath the Plaguefather. I decided to work more on textures for this piece. Hope it shows!

Also, I'll be exhibiting at New York Comic Con this weekend. Please find me at the Artist's Alley, booth Z6. I'll be selling prints!

Mûmakil

Hi! I'm a bit behind on posts, but today's post is something special. A job I did for Fantasy Flight Games was released last month as part of the Lord of the Rings Card Game. More specifically, this is for the Heirs of Númenor expansion.

I was really honored to be asked to paint a Mûmakil, one of the most iconic creatures from Tolkien's great works. We weren't permitted to use New Line Cinema's designs, as Fantasy Flight only has license with Middle Earth Entertainment and not NLC. Therefore, our designs could not resemble the movies in any way. I was more than happy with that as I wanted to come up with my own look and culture. I knew I wanted my Mumak to be heavily armored, wicked, yet exotic and cultured. Oh, and it had to have tusks. Big tusks. I ended up using Greek, Indian, Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian sources. 

I included a lot of gold to give a sense of opulence. The armor is taken from Indian horse armor. The wavy spikes are a classic Thai architectural feature. The red standard is a reference to the Serpent Lord.

Here's the final card, as taken from the Fantasy Flight website.

Salamanders Librarian

So sorry about the lack of posts! I just got back from my first Gen Con last weekend, and I have to say, even with the drama of the 1 stop flights, the lack of buses, etc., it was a really worthwhile event to go to! Thank you to Zoe Robinson and Mike Linnemann at Fantasy Flght Games, Ed Bourelle at Privateer Press, Sarah Robinson and Andrew Vallas at Paizo Publishing and Jeremy Jarvis, Kate Irwin and Jon Schindehette at Wizards of the Coast for your time, reviews and encouragement. In addition, here's a painting I just finished in time for the con.

Still Life: Part 2

Egggs!!!

Or just 'egg'.

Mind Flayer Mighty Mugg

A couple of months ago, Jon over at Wizards of the Coast put out a call for artists interested in painting up a Mighty Mugg as a Wizards of the Coast character. I volunteered to make a Mind Flayer Mighty Mugg.

Here's my pitch sketch!

All the parts of my Mugg all laid out. Notice also, my epoxy putty, to use to sculpt the tentacles.

The face drawn on and some epoxy tentacles. I added several layers of epoxy sanding in between each one. Unfortunately, the seller of the putty sent me very old putty, which resulted in some of the putty already being hard and not very malleable. Oh well. Can't win every time you shop on eBay. After that I spray coated my drawn pieces with workable fixative. BAD IDEA. Acrylic paint becomes very streaky and thin on a smooth surface of fixative. Oh well. That's why the smart people think you experiment with this first. I ended up painting over the whole Mugg with gesso. After several layers, I lost my drawing, but acrylic painting was adhering well to the gessoed surface.

 My only other progress shot. Sorry I was pretty bad at taking photos as I progressed.

The final painted Mugg.

He looks like a tiny Chthulu that fell in a vat of Welch's Grape Juice.

The obligatory human skin cape. If you're wondering, the cape is painted felt. I had to get a paint specifically meant for cloth.

I'm hoping he'll be on display at Gen Con; I'm not 100% sure that will happen.

Anyway, this was a fun break from digital painting. It's the first time I've used acrylic paint in about 6 years. Hopefully that isn't too blatantly obvious.

Zombie Princess

A new e-book cover!

Believe it or not, she's a zombie. She's probably the most alluring zombie I've ever painted. The zombie dragon was a lot of fun, but a word to the wise: give more time, and charge a bit more for skeleton armies!!! This took FOREVER!

Curing Ezra

A few months ago, my friend Jennifer came to me with a request for a special painting. Her nephew, 3 year old Ezra Jordan Fineman is undergoing treatment for a condition known as Hyper IgM Syndrome.
He's at Sloan Kettering recovering from an umbilical blood stem cell transplant which will hopefully cure him. In the meantime, this brave little toddler has a long recovery ahead of him.

 Ezra's a fan of the book Puff the Magic Dragon, based on the song by Peter, Paul and Mary and illustrated by Eric Puybaret. Jennifer asked me to create a painting for her nephew based on this book. Here's my painting, with Ezra standing in for Jackie Paper.

Ezra is a big fan of dragons, basketball, music (I heard he's really good with a guitar!), space shuttles and lighthouses! His progress can be tracked here. He will continue to need blood transfusions over the coming months. Information on how to donate can be found here.

Good luck Ezra, and may the God watch over you.

IF: Sight

"The way out is in sight!"

Uh Hi!

Eh...Greetings! Hola! Guten tag! Aloha! Shalom! Bonjour!

Okay, I have explaining to do. You see, I've been going about this blog all wrong. I strongly felt I could only put up my art here and not much else. You know, the whole 'being professional' thing. I'm a painting MACHINE! Now problems arose this year due to a sudden influx of freelance work...and all those pesky NDAs that come with them. So I have been painting all this time, but I still can't show you too much of what I've done. Hence the silence.

Anywho, after a lot of reflecting and despairing over the negligence of this beloved blog, I'm back. I'm going to start posting other things besides just my latest piece. Oh, don't worry, I'm not going to be posting about government conspiracies or any of that jazz. But I'll try to make this blog a little more about art in general, not just the desperate pushing of paint and pixels I've been monotonously posting for these past 5 years or whatever it is. I never talked about the shows and cons, or my peers or the masters who have inspired me! So hopefully, this blog will grow in scope, not just as a platform to show off my latest...masterpiece (stop laughing!)....I hope this becomes a place to check out to learn a bit more about art, to have fun, to see what this field is about, etc etc.

This whole thing is still a work in progress, so bear with me. Having been a teacher for 2 semesters now, my thirst to share what I know has grown. So let's see where this blog goes....

Oh but wait! I'm not going to leave you with no artwork, ohhh....no no no no no!!! And just to prove I have a pulse and a life, this is a new collaboration with my lovely artist girlfriend, Christina Skapriwsky. 

What you've never seen a polar bear during the dog days of summer?

Fall of the Minotaur King

Here's a book cover I designed. The book is 'Fall of the Minotaur King'. It was written by a college buddy under the pen name Dave Devine. You can find it for download on Smashwords. 

It's a pretty fun read, full of magic, kings, castles, dragons, minotaurs (obviously), etc., with a rather stinging sense of humor. And it's only $.99 to download!

Still Life: Part 1

Dusted off the old oils earlier this week and did a still life. This is the same setup for that last digital still life I did a few weeks ago. Clearly I need more practice!