MAMORUS

Quick Sketch, pencil in sketchbook. 'Mamorus', for lack of a better name.

Part of my ideation process. Alien creature inhabiting ice and water moon of a larger planet. As a means to remember and for personal comparisons I've decided to write down which hand I used for each thing I post. This one, done with my left hand.

Clarity

Lately I have been feeling like I want my brushstrokes to be seen, every stroke and dab. I wanted to do something different for a bit of a break. So I saw a photo of this girl, started sketching and ended up starting there as an inspiration point for this painting. I painted the tarot cards pixel by pixel because of the size of the image. Came out alright.

For anyone interested the cards mean (please note I am not a tarot card reader, I copied this off of a tarot card site):

The hermit: Caution. Discretion. Need for prudence.  Counsel sought and taken.  Inner calm.  A need to reach into one's inner resources.

The fool: Beginnings, most probably of journeys which may be possibly mental, physical or spiritual.  The beginning of a new life-cycle.  Energy, force, happiness and optimism.  The overturning of the status quo or existing states by unexpected happenings.  Innocence, naivety, and spontaneity.  Important decisions to be made.

The hanged man: Devotion to a worthwhile cause.  Temporary suspension of progress.  Flexibility of mind and a willingness to adapt to changes.  Sacrifice in the present to reap benefit in the future.  A waiting period. Rebirth. Sacrificing one thing to obtain another.  Transformation.  Circumstances literally turned on their head.

The lovers: Harmony and union, choices to be made using intuition and not intellect.  Difficult decisions to be made not necessarily about love.  Some form of test and consideration about commitments.  Abstract thought, internal harmony and union, second sight.  Possibly a struggle between two paths.

Post Updated: 3 July 2011

I've been doing some editing. Here is some variations of 'Clarity'.

Pencil Sketch, Inked and Colored: part of sequential art.

Working on some sequential art. Here is the pencil sketch of one of the panels called 'spotted'. The first jpg is as it appears in my sketch book. The second is of the image cleaned up a little digitally. Next up inking and coloring.

...and a close up:

Surprise Assault at the Gate

'Urduin faces his doom' is the alternate name for this piece. Urduin steps forward, unprepared with his armor hardly on, to face what most likely will be his end. He looks back at us frozen in the moment as the huge Red crawls down the cliff to the gate. Hope you like it.

Dungeon Delve Challenge

This is my entry for the Dungeon Delve Challenge. Thinking back about the time I spent on this. It was, not only pure bliss but I learned a hell of a lot too. 

My adventurer slash hero has found himself out of his depth. As I was sketching and thinking about my character  I had this backstory rumbling through my head: He is a rich noble with aspiring ambitions of becoming an adventurer. He got lost after purchasing a dud map, at the local watering hole, of a nearby mountain 'dig' site that happened to be infested by all sorts of monsters. Gung-ho into the underground halls he went, ill prepared and under equipped. Got into a few tussles, badly wounded. A few days later he is lost and in deep trouble. Visit the art order site for cool posts from Art Director Jon Schindehette. Makes for some interesting reading.  http://theartorder.com/

Night Interrupted

Illustration:
Fairies, brownies, pixies, elves or just plain fairy tale folk. The backstory behind this illustration is that of a woodland night interrupted by a hungry creature. The creature might be looking for bugs only. It might want to eat the little folk as a night time snack. So either they're in mortal danger or they're really upset about their family home being trashed. If you opt for the ‘on the menu’ interpretation then the picture is supposed to show tension between the tight group as they try to remain hidden (they’re very obviously not doing very well at that) and the creature as it turns its head towards them.  Don't worry kids they'll probably get away ;) .

Lucille

Character concept:
This here is Lucille, the vampire. I liked the vamp I painted in my previous post called 'The Rise of the Vampire". I painted that vampire quite dark and and to fit the scene but wanted to do another take on that kind of character  so I took her as a base, painted over her to modify her into Lucille.

Rise of the Vampire

The undead have a new queen. A new vampire queen is born through a strange and magical ritual.

Loathar the reprehensible

This is a 'in progress' concept sketch of one of the characters from the Kei-Sylph world. Some background first. There are five monster clans living within the cliffs and mountains that form the plateau that border the city states and settlements of Kei-Sylph. Some also infest the 'roots' of the mountain/mesa formations that the settlements are built on. This character sketch is of Loathar, the chief of one of the clans. Clans are organized around the different species of the race's genus. His clan's species is extremely battle hardy and prone to meaningless violence though every once in a while a more intelligent and crafty member has been able to organise the masses into a powerful and well disciplined army (for their kind that is). Loather is one of these leaders. They're similar to toads because their physiological make up, their natural habitat and habits.

Since doing this sketch I've made quite a few changes, one of them is to add more toad-like features. I sketched out the initial character to resemble my roughs and added elements and changed proportions as I went. 

First post: environments.

Here are some development sketches and finals for some environments I recently worked on. I'll try to give more detail on this world in later posts. These environments are part of the same city/fortress/citadel or area. The hidden gate is lower down than the view of the dome and is nestled in a crevasse between the main plateau and the butte/mesa like formations often referred to as  'air islands'

The image above is a development sketch of the hidden gate. A long forgotten entrance to the citadel palace of Kei-sylph. Below is the 'finished' image.

The image below is a view of the dome and elevated boat ways of kei-sylph. Its a development sketch. The image below that one is a near 'finished' render of the environment.

Hope you like my work and my new blog. :)