New Work for Monte Cook Games

Today I am sharing a couple of Character Illustrations that I completed for some new upcoming products for Monte Cook Games "The Strange" game setting.

The first is a kind of Frankenstiens monster.

And the second is a Victorian woman with Strange Powers....

Tuvara Characters

Some Fantasy / African characters that I recently illustrated for Kelestia Productions' new Product "Tuvara".
www.kelestia.com

 Rough Comps before launching into the final rendering.

The Making of " Kalikos Hero Quest" for the Guide to Glorantha

The Making of “The Kalikos Hero Quest”.

Final Print Version with Adjustments

Since the Guide to Glorantha is finally finished and on sale, I thought that I would post up another “making of” article to explain the process that I used to create the illustration “Kalikos Hero quest”.

As always, each commission that I am given by Jeff Richard at Moon Design is accompanied by a long and detailed document outlining the events to be depicted as well as includes many points of reference for me to consider. 

Here is the initial Art Brief:

It shows a group of heroes (and heroines) from the Lunar army walking through frozen wastes towards the edge of the Sky Dome. The stars of the Northern Sky (based on the attached Inhabitants of the sky picture) can be clearly seen.

Story: Each year, the Lunar Empire sends a band of its most talented magicians and most powerful warriors to travel beyond the edge of the world to strengthen the White Pillar God and defeat the God of Winter. They drag the Kalikos Boat with them, which brings the magic they will need to perform their heroquest.

Sky Dome: The celestial sky dome is a key part of this picture. The attached picture Inhabitants of the Sky show the position of the major constellations in the sky on New Years Day, when this picture takes place. Once we have the major constellations in place we can always add additional stars. We should be able to see a slice of the sky, from the North Horizon to the Pole Star, reaching out to the Love and War stars on the far right, and the Bagog constellation on the far left. Both the Red Moon and Orlanth's Ring are visible.

The God of the White Pillar: Glorantha's skies are a physical dome (like http://dcsymbols.com/mastersquare/mayan_cosmos.jpg), separated from the firmament by four pillars (one in each direction). The North Pillar -White Pillar -manifests as a huge, white-bearded god carrying a compass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:God_the_Geometer.jpg) and clearly struggling to hold up his corner of the sky. Our heroquesters are approaching the edge of the world and can see the dome and White Pillar god (as a shadowly figure in white who for some reason I imagine as being a muscular white bearded man drawn by William Blake) wreathed in the Aurora Borealis. The Aurora Borealis should look as magical and fantastic as possible (http://cdn.tripwiremagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Magical-Aurora-Borealis.jpg), it represents the transition into the Outer Realms of the Otherworld.

The Icy Wastes and the God of Winter: Our heroquesters are traveling through icy wastes (http://www.world-traveller.org/images/no05-s05-002.jpg), so cold that it takes on a white-blue cast.

Above the icy wastes can be seen the God of Winter, a huge giant, dripping with ice and a frozen beard. The giant is hostile but far away. Perhaps something like this: http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7v6ow7jQI1rbdu7po1_1280.jpg, although he is more likely to use a wintery sword (with icy winds that cut) than a club.

The Lunar HeroQuesters: We have a group of Lunar heroquesters - magicians and heroes who are entering the realm of the gods in order to strengthen the God of the White Pillar. There are at least seven of them, half are male, half are female. I have attached two pictures that give a feel for Lunar costume (plate01final and Pelorians-FINAL - here is another good reference picture http://i1163.photobucket.com/albums/q545/quicksabre/84b266a3.jpg). The Lunar heroquesters wear heavy cloaks of red or bear skins against the snow. The warriors are armored (bronze cuirasses, bronze scale, or lamellar, and with greeves on their legs) wear their shields on their back, trousers under their ornate tunics, and their leader should have a high golden helmet, similar to http://i1163.photobucket.com/albums/q545/quicksabre/84b266a3.jpg, but higher and based on this: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5h53igZ9lrkrA5OmWtvgx-e68fgup7dRD5cvTG-EjPT229BGULI5OWGixfsdcXu57e5PdFd8h5jBs3FhtCbk4XXaN1rxXS8CurwP2W-14TFhb_RStVQRwJjzJn5fa9TOotLRVefCZQp5d/s1600/Golden+Hat+Schifferstadt_sm.jpg

They are on horseback - their horses are laden with gear, and perhaps some are on foot, guiding their animals (http://www.suryaschool.org/images/post-images/2008/08-10-06.jpg and http://www.suryaschool.org/images/post-images/2008/08-10-06b.jpg for inspiration). At least one carries a standard like that attached as Lunar standard1.jpg, although it only has one star, not two.

The Lunars are dragging a sled behind them: the Kalikos Boat!

The Kalikos Boat: This is a reed boat (like the Egyptian reed boats - http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~catshaman/15Sailors/Image4799.JPG) on top of a sled like this: http://ancientweb.org/images/explore/Finland_Ancient_Sled_Reki.gif. The sled is being dragged across the icy wastes by the Lunar horsemen.

In the center of the boat is a pillar (like this: http://www.touregypt.net/images/touregypt/si-amun13.gif - but without the Egyptian gods or winged beetle). On top of the pillar is a glowing red rock, as bright as a star. This star houses the magic the Lunar heroquesters need to perform their heroquest, and must be defended by them with their life. Without this, their quest will certainly fail. 

Rough Thumbnails.

At this stage, I sat down and brainstormed a few ideas for this composition. I deliberately keep the drawings loose with and focus primarily on composition.

Final Sketches:

Usually, I only do one of these but after discussion with Jeff and my own personal taste, I thought that I would work up these two comps to a more refined stage. As you can see, we ended up going with comp#1.

References:

Now that I have a plan for the final illustration I begin “gathering” references and information to help me put this piece together and “fill in the blanks” for what is to be depicted. Luckily for me, this image was commissioned in January and since I live in Canada and my mom owns some horses, I did not have to go too far in order to get some relevant references. For this picture, I stood on my mom’s balcony while she walked her horse off in the distance a couple of times. This allowed me to get a pretty good approximation for the horse’s anatomy and perspective as well as some additional information for the environment.

Next I went to trusty old google Sketch up and put together a quick 3d model of the boat and riders and took a few shots of them in perspective. Sketch up can be a great tool for this kind of thing.

Lastly, my good friend Owen McManus is a 3d Guru and he whipped up a quick lighting setup to give me some more information regarding lighting and scale for the scene.

I also took some reference photos of myself posing as a struggling Northern giant/ god but we won’t be sharing those ;)

Lastly, I saved only a few process shots but at least you can get a bit of information regarding how I combined all this information into the final image.

Finished the Questers.

Blocking in the Dome.

Adding the Constellations. A lot of noodling went on in this process. I think I have 4 or 5 emails from Jeff discussing the subject and a few versions that include the Red Moon and more. This is what we ended up with.

Add the "Big Guy" and some atmosphere.

Finally we have several layers of snow effects. I really wanted to give this piece an epic " Lost in the Barrens" feeling type of snow storm. As if the weather was on the brink of turning for the better or for the worse.

Thanks for tuning in and if you find these of interest, let me know which image from the guide that you would like me to do a write up on next and I’ll see if I can’t accommodate you.

Cheers!

Numenera Character Options Book

Yesterday, I received my copy of Monte Cook Games newest Numenera product " Character Options". I ended up completing 4 illustrations for this book several months ago and now I am finally able to share them.

Take a look!

Asag, Son of Anu. Utukku Demon

Hey Gang,

Sorry I missed posting in February but on the bright side, I've been swamped with work and as a freelancer, that is not necessarily a bad thing;) So for today I am posting a personal piece that I finished up and submitted to the art book for the upcoming Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo.

This piece is a depiction of a Sumerian Demon called an Utukku.  I recently had an opportunity to illustrate one for an unreleased project and this image is based on one of my unused concepts. The final design that I ended up doing for my client ended up quite different than this version. I had an unused concept sitting around that I really liked so I asked for and received permission from my client to polish up that concept and that is what you are seeing here today.

Enjoy!

Laboratory of the Forsaken...

Happy New Years!

2013 has come and gone and with the new year, I am able to share a few more pieces of work. I think I wrapped this one up last spring for Crafty Games and it was just released in time for Christmas. I did 2 pieces for them and I expect the next one to be released soon as well. You can find more about the product here and you can order it here.

Harrek and Jar eel

Hey Gang,

It looks like the folks over at Glorantha.com have released a teaser to their upcoming "Guide to Glorantha" which has one of my pieces in it. I figure that it is now safe to post up so here we go...

Basically, this image is meant to be a wall mural that recounts the mighty battle between Jar Eel and Harrek during the Hero Wars. (Harrek won ;))
You can find the teaser link here  http://www.glorantha.com/layout-from-the-guide/

Cheers!

Blade of the Iron Throne Pt1

Recently, I completed 2 series of 3 narrative illustrations for Iron Throne Publishing which is due to be released in the next 3 weeks or so. I have received permission from Iron Throne to post up 2 teaser images so here goes!

To find out more about Irone Throne and their upcoming products, you can view their web site Here.

Evolution of a Trolllkin

Hey all,

I thought that for this post, I'd share some insight into the development process I went through with the good folks over at Kobold Press while working on their new character race the Trollkin.

I'm a longtime D&D gamer and in fact I cut my teeth on 2nd Edition and Dragon Lance modules and I'm always "game" to work on fantasy ip's.  So when the team at Kobold quarterly approached me to help them develop this new race for their setting, I was pretty stoked at the opportunity to create something relatively "New" to the fantasy world.  No Pressure right?..

So, the initial brief was for a playable race that is half human, half bad guy called a Trollkin. Trollkin are the product of interbreeding between a monster race like a Troll / Ogre and a human. Genetically, they are very diverse and it was very difficult to nail down a "look" for these guys. Well, it's pretty tough to nail these things on the first pass so I whipped up some really rough sketches to show my Art Director a couple of options for the Trollkin's look to help us hone in something that works. This first image is simply a series of heads to indicate some character and a sketch of a humanoid creature with a spear.

After this stage, the AD was able to have some visuals and was able to identify what he didn't like and provide me some direction moving forward. Next we have another image which is again pretty rough but it contained enough information for the AD to see that we were on the same page.

Ok, so now we are getting somewhere. Next I moved on to a tight drawing that incorporates all of the accumulated information thus far.

 

 Once again, I sent off another email to my AD to show him this image and get some final feedback and approval to move onto the finished image.

 

Finally, we arrived at the completed image that everybody is happy with. You'll notice the differences in this last image are rather subtle but do give the image just enough extra " Umph". Some things we changed were the addition of a shield, more pronounced claws, bigger spines on his back, more and "bushier" hair etc.

All of these images were completed digitally in Photoshop and that is the primary software that I use for illustration. I hope that you found this article informative and please drop me a line if you have any questions.

Cheers!

Nights Watch RPG

Hey All,
I'm excited to be able to share some of my work I did for Green Ronin's Song of Ice and Fire " Nights Watch" Campaign Setting rpg.  I was pretty stoked to get an opportunity to contribute to such a popular IP like this one. Prior to getting this assignment I was only familiar with the HBO series Game of Thrones but since then I've consumed all of the books and I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment. My favorite parts of the series all involve the Nightswatch and I consider myself fortunate to be able to illustrate them.

Anyways, enough geek gushing and onto the artwork.

If you are interested in ordering the game click HERE.

DragonLance and Fantasy

In an effort to round out my portfolio I drew a few " Old School" Dragon Lance and D&D images.

The first one is from one of my favorite DL Modules # 6 Dragons of Ice. No one has ever written a story that does justice to this part of the DL saga. I always enjoyed it and it was a chance to draw all of my favorite characters.



The following are two Marko Durjdevic inspired character designs. This guy is the Dragon highlord Feal-Thas who I feel never got the exposure he deserved.



Here is one for the Major character Laurana.






This last one is my version of a Beholder. I know it does not conform with the present depictions of these beasts but this is how I always envisioned them and so that's how I'm going to draw em!