Monsters O' Sin

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Here are a couple of monsters I did for Open Design LLC. It's a series of modules for the Pathfinder setting, called the "Monsters of Sin".

It's been quite awhile since I've done flat black & white. I forgot how much I liked it. It's a whole new set of challenges.

There are quite a few of these. These are just a couple from each module.

Links to the modules are below.

Ok, enough talkie talkie. Here are the pics. Enjoy. Or don't.

Hoard Golem

Embodiment of Avarice

Echo Doppelganger

 

Embodiment of Envy

 

Monsters of Sin "Avarice"

Monsters of Sin "Envy"

How I spent my Independence Day vacation

I worked on paintings alot last week. I still have work to do. This is actually another productive (slightly) procrastination day. However, it is a holiday. Everyone's headed to the river, lake, or whatever thing they do outside to enjoy the day off. Much like my childhood, while those people were outside, I was inside drawing and watching Star Wars. It is Independence Day after all.

Anyway, this was my break from painting. Something different. Partly, to see if I could do it, partly to try some new techniques, partly a thinly veiled excuse to draw a semi-nude lady.

Whatever, I just wanted to zone out and have some fun.

For those that don't know (you should), this is Dr. Ms. The Monarch from the Venture Bros. I love that damn cartoon. Yep, I'm a fan boy.

Expose Annual

Expose is an annual art book by Ballistic Publishing.

"EXPOSÉ  showcases the world's best digital artists at a level of quality that only Ballistic Publishing can deliver. From established artists working in games, film and publishing to undiscovered artists showing their work for the first time"

I'm happy to say that I got 3 pieces in this years book. I've never submitted before, but I've been checking out the books for awhile. They are well done, look great and it's free to enter. Oh, and it's exposure too.

 

Productive Procrastination Once Again

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I'm in the middle of promotion. Lots of research, emails, typing, etc.... It's exciting and sometimes fun. I try to make it entertaining for myself. I've been at it for awhile now, so today I decided to take a break for a few hours. This is what happened.

Whenever I do these quick little portraits, I try to find something new to try out. A technique, palette, composition, etc.. This was an effort to try the watercolor brushes, in Painter.  I found some that I really enjoyed actually. Some.....not so much. I was trying to stylize my drawing a little too.

I've always been a fan of the Dragonlance world. This is Raistlin Majere. He was always my favorite character in the books (and everyone elses too). Don't worry, he's not jaundiced. It was some magic misfortune.

Ok, back to emails.

John Carter is busy!

This little painting is earning it's rent space in my portfolio. I created it for an ArtOrder.com competition. The contest was to do an image based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel, A Princess of Mars. I didn't get to enter the actual contest, but I still wanted to do the piece.

Yay! #1- So now here we are in the present. I recently received my free audiobooks from Tantor Audiobooks. They include an ebook with the original text from the book, and several John Carter related images. Including..........wait for it........my John Carter painting.

Yay! #2- I was recently contacted by someone wanting to use Mr. Carter for their book cover. I can't give alot of info on it at this time, but well...yay!

Yay!#3- This is the big Yay! Yippeekayay!? No. That sounds weird. Anyway. Recently Mr. Carter was accepted into the Richmond Illustrators Club juried show.

I am completely honored to be accepted into the show. There are some amazing artists in the show. Including my studiomates Leslie Herman, Richie Pope, William Godwin, and a friend of the studio Jeremy Wilson

The preview opening is Thurs. night at Ghostprint Gallery in Richmond, followed by the opening on Friday night during First Friday.

It should be a great time. I will be there both nights hanging out, acting awkward in public, and wishing I had a beer. Feel free to come introduce yourself. It will be a welcome distraction from looking awkward.

Come out and see Mr. Carter in his sunday best. (mat and frame).

Ghostprint Gallery

220 WEST BROAD ST.

RICHMOND, VA 23220

Image Descriptions

Well, in an attempt to clean up my gallery, I'm getting rid of the image descriptions. I kind of liked having some of them there to add a little something to the image. However, we must make sacrifices. So I'm going to put a few of them here, with their image descriptions so they are still on the site. Also, I can go back and retrieve them if and when I ever come up with a better solution to my gallery.

Run Away Little Girl, Run Away

'Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this evening's presentation! Tonight, things are not what they seem, for tonight, your eyes may not be trusted. Take for instance this quiet, elderly woman, waiting for a visit from her granddaughter.  Surely there is nothing to fear from this sweet, gray-haired old lady. But don't let me pull the wool over your eyes. See for yourself what lies beneath those covers. And now: On with the show!'

 

 

 

 Have You Met My Girlfriends?

 A man of noble birth, Strahd spent much of his life serving causes of goodness and law, most notably as a warrior and leader of armies. Years of such service took their toll upon him however, and by the time he reached middle age, Strahd came to believe he had squandered his life and his youth. With this dark mood upon him, he came to conquer the region known as Barovia, and assumed lordship there, taking as his residence the pre-existing castle known as Ravenloft. From this position of power and security, he called for members of his family "long unseated from their ancestral thrones" to join him, including a younger brother named Sergei.

Some time after this reunion, the Count himself fell in love with a young Barovian woman, Tatyana, though she rejected his affections in favor of the younger Sergei. Filled with despair and jealousy, and brooding a growing hatred for Sergei, Strahd sought magical means to restore his youth. In a moment of desperate frustration, he "made a pact with death - a pact of blood." On the day of Sergei and Tatyana's wedding, Strahd murdered his brother and pursued the grieving Tatyana until she flung herself from the walls of Ravenloft. Strahd himself was shot down by the arrows of the castle guard. Even so, he did not die, but went on to rule the land of Barovia as a vampire.

Strahd's curse is that although he is absolute lord and master of Barovia, to the point where he can enter private homes unbidden because he owns them, once every generation he will meet a woman whom he believes is Tatyana reincarnated. He always tries to woo her, but the scene of his damnation is replayed, and the woman inevitably dies.


The Mists of Ravenloft, which surround and protect Barovia from outsiders, also trap Strad inside for eternity.

Nightsister Lyssa

Yet another ArtOrder competition. The only restrictions were one sentence.
Lyssa - A young female human wizard with black hair who always wears white trimmed in gold.
TheNightsisters were a group of Dathomiri Witches (usually exiled from one of the other clans) whose magic was powered by the dark side of the Force. Not to mention they use a Light Whip instead of a Light Saber. How cool is that!?

Productive Procrastination Again

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I had busy work to do last week, and didn't get alot of art done. So I did this over the weekend to quiet that nagging voice in my head. The art voice anyway. The other voices require different things. One would like a cigarette. One would like alcohol, another would like a Big Mac, yet another would like a human sacrifice. They really do keep me busy. Enjoy (or don't).

Oh. Some of you (out of the 5 people that read this) would like to know particulars. 2 hour (or so) painting, using exclusively Painter 11 for this one, from a photo. Yes. "Reference Used"

Figure Doodlin' Night VIII - First Contact

Uhhh....First Contact = My first time using compressed charcoal on newsprint. Yeah. That's it. That's the ticket.

The first one is a 1 or 2 min. gesture. The other 2 charcoals are 5 min. I think. And then the pastel was a 30 min. I got too precious with that one. Not enough confidence in the lines and it needs better mark making.

I guess that's why we do this. If I was perfect at it, I would quite trying. It's like golf. The whole day could be absolutely horrible, but there is always that one perfect stroke that gives you hope and brings you back the next time. Yeah. Sports metaphors. Just what every artist likes to read about. Next week,Rugby!

Shiny things!!! ------->

 

Productive Nerd Raging

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I was working late in the studio, and ended up sleeping on the couch. When I drug my carcass off the couch this morning to get to work again, I decided to procrastinate. I was toolin' around the interwebs and saw some promo stuff for the new G.I. Joe movie.

Honestly, I wasn't a fan of the first one. However, I don't think it was made for middle aged men that still hang on to their childhood with a death grip. I realized that when my friends kids, LOVED IT!

I won't go into all of my complaints about the movie. I am curious why the hell they changed Cobra Commander's mask. He had two that were cooler than that stupid plastic see through thing from the movie. Both of his masks were iconic. Changing his mask, would be like someone changing Darth Vader's mask. I'm sure Lucas would not survive the nerd rebellion if he did that.

So anyway, while I was nerd raging, I decided to take a break from my portfolio for a couple hours and do a quick painting.

I have no idea how to make a long story short, but I am very adept at making a short story long.

I'll shut up now.

 

The best laid plans......

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This piece was a nightmare.

I went through my process like any other piece. Thumbs, sketch, better sketch, etc.. Then I started working on the finish and quickly realized that my masterpiece was not going to work.

A problem (definitely not the only one) was that it's hard to let go of ideas you already have.

So, we will start with the story. I wanted a World of Warcraft piece. I used to play the game. As far as addictions go, it's up there with smoking and drinking. Just doing the research was enough to make me contemplate loading up the game again. Which of course would lead to the wonderous bliss of gaming life. No showers, heart attack inducing amounts of Diet Mt. Dew, and alot of Red Baron pizzas. Sounds wonderful, I know. But, I digress...

I wanted an iconic event of WOW (learn the lingo, noob!) One of those instances that everyone talks about being so much fun. Again, I went to the collective nerd brain (my friends). The one event that was mentioned multiple time was Karazhan and the "Opera Event".

So without completely nerding out and explaining every last detail about the event........Your group enters the opera, and the evenings show is announced. There are three "plays" that can happen at this point. Hood, Oz, or Romulo and Julianne. I think you can figure out what stories these are based on.

Here is a little video for you to watch, if you are interested. You can even hear them talk in that foreign gamer language. Karazhan Big Bad Wolf

The "play" that everyone remembers is Hood. So obviously (oh of course!)  the point is to kill the Big Bad Wolf. While you are in the process of trying to do this, the BBW will yell out, "Run away little girl, run away!" and turn someone into Little Red Riding Hood. That persons only option is to run like the wind, or be squished like a little red bug.

So how to tell this story in one image.....

I liked the poster idea above, but it didn't have the action that I thought was fitting.

I decided on the big action, dramatic pose, with red running around in the back.

So the sketch was done, the line drawing was ready to start painting. I'm a genius! This will be epic! I'm L33t!

I started working on the grayscale. I quickly (not so much) realized that this wasn't going to work. The cut out house didn't work. There needed to be something in the foreground. My drawing was horrible. To name a few things.

These should have been relatively easy corrections. However, I am a dedicated man. Dedicated to making things as difficult as possible for myself.

 Ok, so we will throw in a dead "Tank" in the foreground. It will add to the drama. Red is in some serious shit without anyone to protect her.  Here is where I should remember the words of William Faulkner. "Kill your darlings". Meaning, have the courage to get rid of the elements that you love so much yourself, but that don't really add anything to the whole - or, even worse, actually weaken it.

That dead body wasn't going to work for me. No matter what pose I put him in. As you can see, I tried and tried and tried and tried........and tried......

Finally, I got it through my thick skull and went for the standing pose, getting ready to take on the BBW.

Finally at this point, I thought I was home free. Just add the color and finish up. Oh, if only......

I was trying to use the WOW palette that they used in the game. However, I didn't really set up my value structure of the image to fit this quite right. I grew progressively more frustrated with the colors. This lead to the very simple palettes that I tried with the black and red. I didn't want to do just the greyscale image with spots of red. That seems to be everywhere right now. Seriously, go to a Gamestop, and look at the video game covers. It's popular. I tried adding just a little blue. Ugh. Nope.

 

Finally, I got something working. After discussing it with Sterling and the rest of the studio, it was decided that it was too chalky and the palette was all over the place. Hence, the warm wash. Not only did that help the palette, but it also added some atmospheric perspective to add depth between the BBW and the Warrior.

A few adjustments and we have the image at the top of the post. TA DAA! It really is magic!

So the moral of the story? Sometimes you do everything you are supposed to, take all the steps to a successful image, and it still doesn't work. You have to learn to roll with the punches. And kill your darlings. Kill them with impunity! Die! Die! Die!........I'm still working through some of the frustration.

I should have gone with my friends idea. A pile of dog crap on a stage, with a little piece of red cape peeking out. Simple and elegant.

Figure Doodlin' Night VII - Trail of the Pink Panther

I'm trying some different things with my color. I used a much darker blue, which enabled me to use my pink as kind of a midtone, hence the title (yep, I'm a genius). My gray works as the "light" tone.

Not perfect by any means, but figuring out some things I like with the color, tempered my murderous rage. Nobody died. Minor injuries, maybe. I think someone got pastel dust in their eye. It was their fault though. I didn't have anything to do with it. They shouldn't wipe their eye after using pastels. It's not my responsibility to tell them what can happen. It's common sense. I'm not McDonalds and the pastel can't burn your lap...............What the hell am I talking about?

Ok, I now present the shiny! Imagine a curtain slowly opening, building the excitement, building the tension.............the music reaches a crescendo .................. to finally reveal...............................some average pastel figure drawings. Awwww. That was a bit of a let down wasn't it. I'm not crazy.

5 Minutes

20 Minutes

Figure Doodlin' Night - Episode VI Return of the Jedi

I am not nearly so arrogant as to call myself a "Jedi". It was simply the last time I would be able to use a Star Wars title. It's better than "Curse of Michael Myers" or "Jason Lives".

This week did go rather well though. So it is a return. Maybe "Return of the mildly competent".

My mark making was alot better than the last couple of weeks. I think so anyway. It was good to go home in a good mood this week.

So here ya go. Here's the shiny.

I think these were mostly 10 min. poses.

Figure Doodlin' Night V - The Final Frontier

Uhhh....I could probably tie that title in somewhere if I really put an effort into it. The truth is, there are few movie franchises that have gone to 5 (without rebooting). I'm going to be in trouble in about two weeks. I'll be down to  Harry Potter and James Bond movies.

I will also spare you, my banal bitching about my drawings this week (Like how I still fit it in a little bit though?)

They are what they are. I would have preferred better, but I think that will happen until I die. So I might as well quit bitching about it. At least until later this week.

We missed a week for spring break, these are from the week before that, when I was being lazy and didn't take pictures before I left the studio. Confused yet? Probably not, because I'm talking to myself here.

Here are the shiny things

An excuse to do Star Wars

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Lyssa - A young female human wizard with black hair who always wears white trimmed in gold.

That was the description, and the only restrictions for yet another ArtOrder contest.

It was wide open, and the history of the project from Scott Taylor at Black Gate Magazine was a huge draw for me. I actually read Black Gate Magazine and had read all of the entries for Art Evolution.

If that wasn't enough motivation, one of the one of the judges, Jeff Easley, was one of the reasons I got into art (and D&D for that matter). I still like looking at his images. His stuff from Dragonlance is some of my favorite work by anyone.

 Also judging the contest was Todd Lockwood. His work is everywhere. He is one of the most popular fantasy artists working. His work is great, and once again...you guessed it, I'm a big fan! It's another guy that I study to try and improve.

Ok, on to the project.

I normally try to give myself restrictions on each piece. Otherwise my brain starts going haywire and I can't make a decision. This usually ends in a nap. I had no time for naps though.

So if you look back at all of the great Lyssa's done for BGM, most of them were fantasy types. Wizard is a keyword that just brings fantasy to mind first. Not all of them were fantasy, but the majority were. That lead me to the first restriction I gave myself. No fantasy.

 

My 2nd restriction was the attitude of the image. I didn't want it to be a pin-up or have the concept art character development feel. I had a feeling alot of people would be going this direction. So no half naked, hot chics with a pretty face.

 

 

Now, whenever I think of  a character in white, the first thing I think is clean and holy. A healer type. Not my Lyssa.

Look at some of the bad guys that have worn white. They seem that much more sinister. Stormshadow, Stormtroopers, Boss Hog, the "Man in White" from family guy, and obviously the White hat in Spy VS Spy.

So I reached out to the nerd collective (my friends) for different "wizards" in different games, books, movies, etc.. As soon as I heard the words Star Wars, I knew I had my Lyssa with the Nightsisters

The Nightsisters were a group of Dathomiri Witches (usually exiled from one of the other clans) whose magic was powered by the dark side of the Force. Not to mention they use a Light Whip instead of a Light Saber. How cool is that!?

I did some research, reading up from gaming manuals, watching Star Wars The Clone Wars, and reading excerpts from books. That was rough. I mean, reading and watching cartoons!? Just pure torture!

So on to the thumbnails. I got some opinions from the studio mates and cut them all down to three that I worked up a little more. The one looking down on Lyssa was too "serene" for me.  The last two were in a tie until I held someone at gunpoint to make a choice. Just kidding. It was knife point. I can't afford a gun. Still kidding. I bought them a sandwich and begged. I'm pitiful.

Once it was decided, I shot some quick reference of one of the studio folk. I got out the tracing paper and started working up the drawing and her outfit.

 

When the drawing is pretty tight, I scan it in to Photoshop and start adding some values. (I obviously didn't notice her eyes were all jacked up)

I explained before how I add color. However I usually try to have a direction instead of just blindly adjusting colors. I look at "those that have gone before" (say that in James Earl Jones voice...Epic!) to see how they handled a similar painting with a similar mood. This one was dictated so much by the whip having to be red, and the clothes being some form of white. I just had to make the rest work.

After I have the color pretty close to what I want, it's on to Painter. I like using the brushes in Painter for the final mark making and blending and such. It just adds a touch that I like that makes it look a little less digital (hopefully). I also like using the paper libraries. I've been experimenting with those more and more.

Oh, and the light whip shapes were just vector shapes with some fx thrown on.

And now, how do I promote a Star Wars painting?

"Check out the Star Warsing Star Wars I just Star Warsd! Star Wars is so Star Wars, that I was just Star Warsing all over the Star Warsing, Star Wars. Star Wars!"

It's like filling out a Mad Lib with just the words Star Wars.......I'm an idiot.

Figure Doodlin' Night - Episode IV - A New Hope

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Like

I wasn't

waiting for

the chance to

do that title since

I started this stupid

string of titles. How does

it apply to this week? Uhhh..

I thought this drawing was horrible

last night. I thought I wouldn't have anything

to post today, because figure drawing night did

not go well for me last night. (You will soon find that

I say that every time, but this time I really mean it. Seriously.

I do. I'm not kidding. No joke..Really....I couldn't be more serious...

stop looking at me like that) I took a picture of the only drawing that

was even recognizable as a human figure, and went home feeling very

despondent. This morning I loaded up the shots of last nights drawing. As

I looked at it for awhile, I realized there was.........wait for it..........................

A New Hope!

*a cheer goes up from the crowd*

It doesn't make me want to cry and break my own hands. Yep, that was a very

long way to go for a really crap joke, but if you can't tell; I'm doing this to entertain

myself, more than you. Now on to the shiny! 15 Min. Pose - NuPastel on toned paper.

Was that funny? Not really. Was it hard to read? Certainly. Does it look more like a christmas tree than the original Star Wars scrolling text? Unfortunately. Do I care? Nope. I was giggling to myself the entire time. Have a good weekend!!

Figure Doodlin' Night III - The Search for Spock

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How old is that dumb ass joke? I'm going for the Steve Martin thing. I'll just keep using it until the fact I'm still using it, becomes so ridiculous, it's funny again. That should be about a year from now.

Anyway, things didn't go so horrible last night.  I have two whole images for you to look at! Wee! Aren't you all excited. They aren't perfect by any means, but there are things I like in them. I'm not telling you what though. Tee hee!

Yeah, all right. Enough blah blah! Here's the shiny stuff.

The first one is pretty rough, but there is something I like about that.

These are both 15 min. poses.