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.
Dwarf Paladin Process
Lately I've been working in photoshop more then usual to improve my digital skills as well as color theory. Over the past 2 weeks, I've colored a large amount of character drawings and about half way done with my new full illustration. The other night while sketching, I drew an interesting Dwarf character that I knew I had to bring to life as a colored design. I created a step by step process tutorial of each major step that went into creating the final illustration.
Here's the final image on it's own.
Overall I'm pleased with how the paladin looks in the end and I learned new ways of approaching color with this piece. Now to take a similar approach into my next illustration.
Monster Monday- September 8, 2014
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.
Monster Monday- August 25, 2014
The past week has been busy preparing for Illuxcon along with working on new drawings and illustrations and a part time job. But that didn't stop Monster Monday from happening, this week's monster is a Fate Spirit. A Fate Spirit is a creature I imagine that lives in ancient tombs to protect secrets or treasures. It uses the ancient rock to craft armor and weapons that it used in their former life. The Fate Spirit reminds me of a creature that could be used in a role playing game where a group of adventurers have to enter an ancient city or tomb. It would have multiple levels in order to create different challenges for the party and end with a battle with a fate spirit of a king or warlord.
The Monkey King
The Art Order is holding a challenge to create a piece of personal art. Some of the prompts were mythology and folklore which got me thinking about mythology that isn't as popular. That led me back to mythology and stories I was researching early in my first 2 years of college. I was interested in learning more about Asian mythology since I have a martial arts background. Soon into my research Monkey King came up. After reading numerous academic articles and stories, I knew I had to create an illustration of the character.
Now a few years later, I was stumped on what to create for my next illustration. I draw European fantasy often and wanted to do something different. While looking through an old folder of drawings I found my first drawing of Monkey King and was immediately inspired to create a new piece based on the character. I got to work and created the new personal piece that I am happy with.
Gandalf the Gray
For the past few days I've been listening to the Lord of The Rings audio books while drawing. It didn't take long for me to start sketching some of the characters in my sketchbook. Gandalf was the first to be drawn followed by other wizards of Middle Earth. Which is going to be a small series of Gandalf, Radagast, and Saruman. Each one will be drawn on a different color of toned paper to make the color that is associated with the color of each wizard. I may even draw each dwarf from the Hobbit, but that's in the future.
Monster Monday- July 21, 2014
This week's monster is a Hobgoblin based off of a similar design I created a month back inspired by AD&D. The design follows more classic idea of pig nosed orcs and goblins with a nonstandard nose. In this case a bat nose. These goblins live in dark caves and have larger ears to hear better down the tunnel systems. They also can see better in the dark then other goblins. In the caves the goblins mine for different metals to create armor and use rocks to create weapons. The bat nose goblins are rare and are only seen if one ventures into the tunnels they inhabit.
Monster Monday- July 7, 2014
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.
Monster Monday- June 30, 2014
This week's monster is a Catoblepas from Ethiopia, one of the monster requests I received on Tumblr. It's said to look like a boar or buffalo with spikes along the spin. It's breath turns people to stone or kills them. For the creature's design I looked at oxen reference since they have an interesting silhouette and a strong build. For a future I plan on using the Catoblepas for an illustration.
Ice Giant with axe and sword
Ice Giants are scattered all over my sketch book recently. I have done drawings on toned paper in the past few months and only one digital piece. I felt like I was neglecting photoshop lately and needed to get back into digital coloring. Last week I drew a toned paper version of the Ice Giant that did not turn out as well as I hoped. Redrawing the piece on bristol turned out favorable results. Then the photoshop magic begins. Though I do not consider myself a photoshop wizard like my friends.
The original drawing will be traveling with me in September to Illuxcon, where I will be displaying my work in the showcase on Friday and Saturday night.
Bonus line drawing
Hobgoblin Dungeon Crawler
Yesterday after I got home from work, I was checking out twitter to see that Sketch Dailies topic was Hobgoblin. I haven't drawn a Hobgoblin since the ink drawing that was published in Dungeons and Dragons: Against the Slave Lords book. This piece became a nice break from working on larger pieces. Tony DiTerlizzi's D&D work are some of my favorite illustrations and I was inspired by his ink drawings to work on adding more texture to my own work. So far I liked the results of playing with adding texture and pattern to my work.
Monster Monday- June 16, 2014
A few days ago on my tumblr, I asked for requests of monsters people were interested in seeing drawn in my style. There were a bunch of great creatures, some I never heard of. So in the next few weeks for Monster Monday, I will be drawing some of the monsters. The first requested monster was a cyclops from Greek Mythology. The cyclops' design is more on the traditional side but with less greek influence on the armor design. Had a good time creating the drawing over the weekend as a way to relax after shifts at work. This week I will be posting a large toned paper drawing I have been working on in the past two weeks. I was going to post it over the weekend but after scanning I realized I need to add more texture to parts of the illustration. And I'll be showing a new process I've started to use to streamline my process.
Online Store Open
This afternoon I set my new online store live. There are prints, books, and original drawing for sale. Make sure to check it out and soon I'll have private commissions available through my store as well.
Monster Monday- June 9, 2014
When in doubt, draw a Satyr, this week's monster was created as a practice for inking. I bought a few new brushes to try out to see if the brushes would be an improvement from the Blick brush I usually use. I bought a Princeton Preferred synthetic brush and really liked the way the brush moved on paper. After the ink test I began to use it to ink larger illustrations I am currently finishing up. Later this week will be a process post on a new toned paper drawing. Stay tune.
Moleskine Sketchbook
I've drawn in many types of sketchbooks over the past few years, I've been taking my sketchbook with me everywhere since High School. I decided to buy a sketchbook that could handle the abuse of travel. And so far the moleskine has been handling the travel.
Usually the spine of my sketchbooks break and tapped together to keep the book from falling apart. I've been carrying this book around for over a month and it's still holding up. Attached to the book is a pen with multicolored inks so I don't have to carry multiple pens. Plus I'll never forget a pen to draw with.
Here are some pages from my current sketchbook.
Monster Monday- May 19, 2014
This week's monster is a Minotaur. I've drawn minotaurs in the past but wanted to have a more unique looking design with long ape like arms. When it rests, it lays it's hands down on the ground similar to a gorilla. This design is one of the creatures of Fable Wood, which I have two stories on their first draft. Minotaurs will play a role in a few of the short stories and are helpful builders because of their strength.
Toned Paper Experiments
For a while now, I've been using the toned paper with ink. I saw some illustrators using color pencils and markers on the toned paper getting interesting results. I decided to give it a try.
My first successful attempt was the Eye Squid. It took a few tries to figure out what worked. Inking the piece first gave a clear drawing. Then I used some markers and colored inks to lay a base color. I applied some of the techniques I used in photoshop like using a flat base to render on top of. Then I tested each color pencil on a random piece of toned paper to see how the results of each color. After I began to add the pencil on the drawing and created the final image.
Since the technique of ink/markers with color pencil was a result I liked. I drew a larger creature, a Fate Warrior, and used the same process to create the drawing. The creature was designed in my sketchbook and decided it would be a good character to experiment the color technique on the toned paper.
I've only drawn Quillkins a few times and thought it would be another creature to use as practice. This time I used other colors to help enhance the base colors. For example, the belly was colored with a muted yellow then I used a bright yellow color pencil then an orange pencil to add more interest.
The toned paper, ink/marker, and color pencil technique has been an interesting experiment, there are many drawings I started that turned in technicolor nightmares. But it was worth the time in order to create a basis of how I plan to use color on toned paper in the future.
Monster Monday- May 12, 2014
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.
Monster Monday- May 5, 2014
When in doubt, draw an ice giant. Drew this over the weekend to have a smaller toned paper drawing to sell while displaying my work for free comic book day. The drawing is 5 inches by 8 inches. The giant has different horns then I would usually draw, gave the giant deer antlers. And other details set the look that I currently use for Ice Giant designs. Over all was fun practice piece.
Monster Monday- April 28, 2014
A new ink drawing for this weeks monster. It started out as an idea of what a Shambling Mound from Dungeon and Dragons Monster Manual 4.0. But it became more of a Fungus Behemoth. Originally the head was a different design it was similar to a log but after drawing the creature out, it made more sense that the character's head be a mushroom.
This weekend I'll be at the Comic Book Shop of DE, for free comic book day. Stop by for free comics, star wars characters, comic artist and writers as well as illustrators.