Last week I was nominated by my friend Darrenn E Canton to share my work on Facebook. While I'm not a huge Facebook person I took the opportunity to share my work. Here are the first 3 days of images I shared.
Day 1- Sketches
Day 2- Ink Drawings
Day 3- Digital Illustrations
Its that time of the year again, were lots of people all over the internet contribute to Goblin Week created by Evan Dahm. This year I will be creating more goblins for the Goblin Guild that will be added to the project I am working on that will include a brief history of the guild, the classes of members, and 2 short stories. So for the first day of goblin week I give you a line up of the goblin races.
Over the past few months, I've been creating and coloring many of the monsters of Orbis for a person project. Here's one of the finished character illustrations. By spending more time in photoshop, my digital skills have grown since September. Learning more color theory, harmonIous color palettes and experimenting has a major part of this project. It's one thing to read about color theory and another to put it in action. I hope by the end of January/ early February to have 50 inked and colored monsters to share as a cohesive work. Time to pull out the paper, grab a pencil, and get drawing.
Quick reminder character commissions and toned paper commissions are open. Order soon if you want them for the holidays.
Mimics are creatures that are able to replicate objects in texture and design to disguise themselves to trick others. There true form is unknown but they are thought to be an ooze that was infused with changeling DNA, that allowed the ooze to morph. Most likely created in a wizards lab and escaped disguised to multiply into Orbis' cities. It's unknown how many mimics exist or that an object is a mimic till it reveals it's face to fight back. Usually a mimic is harmless unless it feels threatened where it can change into a weapon and fight back.
Rus Dread-gouger, assassin for the Goblin Guild in the capital city of Orbis, Muruspatria. Known for his skill throughout the guild, he has been tracking his prey for days through out the city and he is ready for his move. With his dagger in hand and target in sight, Rus will king the city’s court wizard and take down the magical barrier to let the goblin horde invade.
For Twitter's Wizard Battle, created by Marek Jarocki, I decided to create a geomancer to enter as my wizard. Currently I am coloring the character in photoshop to enter in the contest tomorrow. Originally I was going to create a goblin wizard but wanted to do something more interesting since I've drawn a bunch of goblin magic users in the past. The other night I was unable to sleep, so while sketching in bed I drew a thumbnail of a rock character and thought it would make an awesome wizard. And today I sketched and inked the drawing to prepare for the deadline of September 9 for my wizard. Tomorrow I'll post the colored version along with the bio for my geomancer.
For this week's Monster Monday is a rogue goblin. The idea started as a sketch while I was working on a slow day. Then developed into a sketchy pen drawing then an ink drawing. This goblin is a thief in the Goblin Guild. He carries two swords on his back at hip level. The armor is leather with leather scaling for easy movement. Though he doesn't wear a cloak to hide his face, he uses his scarf to disguise himself. Like many in the Guild, he steals gold and supplies to help the guild gain power. And will do all in his power to get what the Guild needs.
A new 11x14 tone paper drawing of Goblin Rocketeer. This was recently completed after sitting on my desk for a while. The first drawing became to busy and dark, needing more contrast and less confusion. I took time before starting the image to study the first drawing to see what worked and what didn't. Which led to the finished drawing. The idea of the Goblin Rocketeer started in my sketchbook, pretty much like everything else I create. I'll have to do another sketchbook post again soon since I am nearly done with my current book.
The Goblin Rocketeer drawing will be traveling with me to the Illuxcon Showcase Friday and Saturday night were I will be displaying my work along with other illustrators.
This week's monster is a spell caster orc. It's been a while since I've experimented with color on toned paper. Instead of using marker and color pencil, I just used marker to try and replicate techniques I use when coloring digital. This piece was inked with FW Burnt Umber and white then colored with sharpies (I can't afford some of those fancy copic markers.) Over all, I liked the result and plan to continue experimenting with color on toned paper.
Remember if you want your character drawn, head over to my store for private commissions.
This week's monster is a goblin mechanic. It's a revisit of an idea from a while back and thought the idea would fit well into the Goblin Guild. It's done similarly with inks and a little clean up digitally after it was scanned. Next week, I will post another requested monster. Just have to work on bird anatomy first.
Late Night Monster Monday, the past few days have been busy between working shifts at work and creating new drawings. The last post was a Hobgoblin and decided to draw a Bugbear that would match. Added similar textures like the other piece. So far, I like adding more texture then normally. I was browsing notes from Illuxcon last year and was reading over the portfolio review notes from Chris Seaman. He talked about adding texture and pattern, which I am applying to my drawings. The textures also look good when I am coloring in photoshop. I prefer to create the texture with line then adding textures digitally. Next I plan to draw a goblin to match the hobgoblin and bugbear.
Next week I will continue with more requests, still working out some anatomy and design on creatures.
Another goblin, sometimes I feel like I draw them too often. This goblin is a shield striker. It can block with the shields on it's arms as well as hit opponents with the spikes or sides of the shield. Shield Strikers are heavily armored since they move slow due to the weight on their arms.
Later this week, I'll post the digitally colored piece that I am currently working on.
Sorry for posting Monster Monday a day late. Yesterday I had a chance to spend the day with friends and took advantage of it. This week's drawing is a green man that I drew for my Mom for mother's day/ her birthday.
Like the other green man I posted a while back, I created the face using different types of leaves. I didn't want it to appear too human and keep it's creature quality. The green paper is a card stock and the ink is FW burnt umber and white.
Another forrest elemental for this week, exploring different designs of what elementals can look like. I really liked the concept I shown last week and decided to create another one. I drew the elemental on bristol then scanned and colored the piece in photoshop. The piece was done last week since I knew I was going to be busy with Asbury Park Comic Con this past weekend. Tomorrow I'll post about APCC but now its back to drawing.
For a while now, well since December, I've been working on a drawing of Gothmog from J.R.R. Tolkien's the Silmarillion. It took a few tries at creating completed drawing before I created the image I liked. While listening to the Silmarillion audiobook, I was inspired to draw Gothmog. Balrogs tend to be tricky because of the details of the monster is more descriptive of the fear it created and a few details of how it physically looks. I created my own version of Gothmog the Balrog that is not similar to the portrayal in the Fellowship of the Ring film but based on how I imagined Gothmog as I listened to the book.
Another green paper orc, the black, white and green is a combo that works well. The piece started out as a break between working digitally and turned out well. So I inked and added whites in my usual method. The orc isn't involved in Orbis, just a typical fantasy orc.
Since a lot of the work I created lately has been more of the high fantasy side, I wanted my next piece to be more folklore based and not centered around weapons and warriors. The inspiration for the piece came from looking at illustrations by John Bauer. I was reading a book of Swedish Folktale with Bauer's illustrations in it. Like much of my work it starts in my sketch book and evolves into the final piece. I spent extra time playing in photoshop to create the lighting and mood I wanted.
I do plan to write a short story about the Satyr and the wisps, but it still needs more fleshing out before I release the tale. I haven't done any creative writing in 5 years and I feel rusty, so it may be a while from now when I post the story and some spot illustrations to go along with the illustration above.
This week's monster is based on drawing I created last year for Illustration Friday of the Goblin on War pig (can be seen in my portfolio). I wanted to draw a companion piece for the brown paper drawing for my sketch book I'm printing for convention season. The weekend provided time to design, draw, and ink the piece and I added color in the early afternoon today. This character spot isn't for a project but an exploration to a fantasy setting in the African savanna.
This week is a rock elemental from Orbis, my fictional world I'm currently building. Elementals of all types can vary in looks. Some may be giant and others can be very small. They are born of the element and land around them. Natural magic is the only way of creating elementals, most wizards have a difficult time conjuring elementals. Natural magic from the land can create an elemental with out help from a Wizard. Those tend to be avatars and are large. (The Dwarves of the Iron Halls believe that Dwarves were crafted from stone by a rock avatar.) Most avatars are peaceful and are the guardian of the land they in habit.
Elementals crafted by Wizards are often used as helpers or guards. Some leaders use elementals as guards because of their size and stature, often being feared since elementals are uncommon. Some Wizards use Elementals as guides to find new ingredients for potions because of their vast knowledge of nature.
Last month I created 2 spot illustrations to include in my portfolio. Drawing objects can have as much character as a figure and it's interesting to give objects there own personalty.
The first spot is a Alchemist's potion brewer. This idea was one of the first concepts I created in my sketchbook. The idea was to create 2 spot illustrations that played with light. This spot has two light sources, one being the fire at the bottom and the fire creating the glow on the bottle. I was taught new techniques that I used to create the glow in the illustration and will be really helpful for future images with creating interesting light source. This was a fun piece to draw and was helpful in to continuing my improvement in creating digital work.
The other spot I created was the dagger struck through the table. I like to draw super drippy candles, there almost like little sculptures created by the heat and not purposely controlled. The candle is the main light source that creates the shadow on the dagger. The same technique that I used to create the glow in the potion was used again, but taken to the next level by using multiple colors. I didn't want to go with boring colors on the dagger so I used the yellow, orange, and blue to add character. This piece turned out better then I could have imagined and I'm glad to have 2 more digital pieces to add to my portfolio.