More Pinnacle Work: Hell on Earth

I wanted to post a couple of the full-scene pieces I did for Pinnacle recently. I was pretty excited upon completing these illustrations, as I usually don't paint this many figures/creatures in one scene, and it was a really nice learning experience. I need to force myself to do bigger scenes like this more often. I hope you like the work!

Worm Attack for 'Hell on Earth' ©Pinnacle

Templar Defender for 'Hell on Earth' ©Pinnacle

Grim Prarie Trails - Monsters

I had the pleasure of doing some work for Pinnacle Entertainment Group's recently published 'Grim Prairie Trails', the latest Deadlands Reloaded book. I contributed 3 monster spot illustrations which you can view below and enjoy some descriptions of the creatures as well!

Hodag

 First up is the Hodag. In short, it's a zombie bull. I was particularly excited to tackle this piece because I knew there would be a lot of opportunities to flesh out some nasty looking details. I threw in some maggots and flies, purple and green discoloration to show that it's rotting, lots of uncovered and torn muscle, and some flesh slopping off into puddles. The only downside to working on a piece featuring this much gore is the reference hunt in preparation for the piece. I looked up a lot of depressing photos of dead and decaying animals, some more brutal to look at than others, but this kind of research is ultimately necessary in order to come up with a successful piece. I probably wouldn't have thought to add in the purple discoloration if it weren't for some of the photos I came across.

Raven Mocker

 Next up is the Raven Mocker. This one was a bit of a challenge for a couple reasons. For one, I had to paint the creature appearing out of smoke, which is something I haven't really done before and it took me a few repaints to get something I was happy with. In the end I'm happy with how the transition turned out. The other challenge was that I had to show that the creature ethnically appeared Native American. I thought the easiest way for this to come across would be by skin tone and facial structure, but the description in the art order specifically stated that they have pale white skin. So I looked up a bunch portraits of Native Americans on good-ole Google and I noticed a particular hairstyle that seemed to come up in a few of the images, so I tried to use the braided hair to allude to the ethnicity of the beast. This was another brutal search for reference though, as the creature had to look emaciated. It was pretty tough to look at some of the reference, though again it was very crucial to making the piece successful.

Terrormental

 Lastly we have the Terrormental, probably my favorite out of the batch. Throw earth, wind, water, and fire into a blender and you get this walking horror. The idea of having to incorporate all 4 elements into this one creature was a little intimidating at first but through sketching things out I came up with a way to blend them all together. The walking mountain of mud makes up the earth, the swirling leaves hint at the wind, the waterfall coming from the tree stump for water, and the molten core shows the fire. This piece was a huge blast to work on and I'm really happy with the end result. I got lost in painting all of the slopping mud and the fiery glowy parts.

Thanks for checking out my new work, I hope you enjoyed reading about the pieces. Don't forget to swing by the Pinnacle Store and pick up a copy of 'Grim Prarie Trails' where there's much more art to be devoured. Until next time!

Goblin Test Pilot, creating my own art for an exisiting magic card

New piece!

"Aiyeee!"

I'm a big fan of Magic: the Gathering. Whenever a new set comes out I make sure to look up all of the new cards coming out as well as the artwork for each one. In the latest set, Dragon's Maze, (part of the Return to Ravnica block) they have a card called Goblin Test Pilot, illustrated by Svetlin Velinov.

Card

Original Goblin Test Pilot illustration by Svetlin Velinov

I really love this card, it's flavor is really silly which is reflected in the really fun card mechanic and the illustration is completely badass. Svetlin did an awesome job on this piece and he's become one of my favorite Magic artists. You should really check out his other work HERE.

However, back in the original Ravnica block, another one of my favorite Magic artists, Matt Cavotta, did the illustration for a card called Goblin Flectomancer, which I absolutely love as well. The expression of the goblin, the outfit, the pose, all emphasizing the silliness of goblins. By the way check out Matt's work too, he has a great sense of humor in many of his pieces.

Card

Goblin Flectomancer illustration by Matt Cavotta

 I have a tender spot for goblins due to their silly and somewhat dopey nature. And while Svetlin's goblins are super cool and look intimidating, I really love seeing silly goblins like Matt's. So I decided to take the concept being the Goblin Test Pilot card and make my own art for the card, focusing on more light-hearted and silly idea and execution. How do you prefer your goblins??

Mock-up of Goblin Test Pilot featuring my art

I'm really happy with how the piece turned out. I tried some things I've never done before (like paint a figure upside down and tried my hand at some architecture) and I think it's a good step forward for me. I still think Svetlin and Matt knocked their work out of the park compared to what I made but I took cues from both of them and it helped me create a piece I'm proud of.

Mind Eater Process and Thoughts on Revisiting Old Sketches

Meet Skully Mc-Slurp-Your-Brains

Not too long ago I finished the above painting, however it was started way back in October 2012, when I came up with this sketch:

Birthday: October 2012

At the time I thought there was a cool idea in this piece and there was some potential, but for whatever reason I lost steam with it and left it sitting in folder full of sketches. Seven months later, I was having trouble coming up with ideas so I flipped through my sketches folder and saw the sketch, suddenly wanting to rework it. Here's a step by step...

Working up the face and skull

Adding some brightness, giving the face some form

Adding the magic glow from the skull and the head

Rendering skull, adding more magic effects, trying out ideas with the eyes

Darkening the edges of the image, reworking the eyes, adding more detail to the skull

Added chains to fill empty space, removed pupils from the eyes, added some more glow effects

I'm pretty happy with how this piece turned out. I think if I tried to take this piece all the way to final back in October when I first came up with the idea, it would have fallen short. It reminds me that it really pays off to hold onto your old ideas, you never know when you'll look at a sketch and see it differently and get inspired to push it to something cooler than what you originated with. I hope you enjoyed the process!

Silent Still - A Silent Hill Still Life

Here's a personal piece I've been wanting to do for a long time now. As many of you know I'm a huge Silent Hill fanatic, and it's been too long since I last did any Silent Hill fanart.

The Crimson Ceremony

This piece depicts four important items from Silent Hill 2: White Chrism, Obsidian Goblet, Book of Lost Memories, and the Crimson Ceremony Book. In the game, the player must collect the four items in order to achieve the special "Rebirth" ending. The red square in the top right of the image is a red piece of paper that is used as save points throughout the game. I wanted the piece to look like the viewer is stumbling upon this scene of a ritual in progress.

1. Preliminary drawing. Here I'm figuring out where to place all of the items in the composition, and nailing the basic shapes of the objects.
2. Underpainting. I put the drawing layer set to Multiply, and I blocked in the colors and some hints at value and lighting.
3. Here I start rendering the scene. I decided that bringing the red cloth down to the table would help the piece flow better and be more interesting. This is around the time I thought it would be a good idea to add the red-paper save point to the piece.
4. More rendering, and adjusting the lighting. After looking at the some in-game screenshots of the items, I realized the Book of Lost Memories (the green one) was looking a little too big, so I re-sized it and adjusted the surrounding items accordingly.
5. Render, render, render...
6. Brightening up my lighting a bit with some adjustment layers (levels).
7. Added some drops of the white chrism on the table to make the scene feel more like it was recently inhabited (the lit candle also helps achieve this). I also add the text to the cover of the Book of Lost Memories, as well as the page-text for the Crimson Ceremony book which reads:

"Speak.

I am the Crimson One.

The lies and the mist are

not they, but I.

You all know that I am One.

Yes, and the One is I.

Believers hearken to me!

Twenty score men and

seven thousand beasts.

Heed my words and speaketh them

to all, that they shall ever be

obeyed even under the light of

the proud and merciless sun.

I shall bring down bitter vengeance

upon thee and thou shalt suffer

my eternal wrath.

The beauty of the withering flower

and the last struggles of the dying

man, they are my blessings.

Thou shalt ever call upon me and

all that is me in the place that is

silent.

Oh, proud fragrance of life which

flies towards the heart. Oh, cup

which brims with the whitest of

wine, it is in thee that all begins."

8. Some final texture detailing, and detail adjustments. I thought the left page of the open book was looking a little too bare and uninteresting, so I decided to add a ritualistic symbol. I used visual imagery that I remember from the games to come up with the symbols, they're not just random. Can you spot the references (there are a total of 3 specific references)? I also added some texture to the book pages to make them look old and well used. I added a few drops of blood to make the scene a little more unsettling. Here's the symbol I drew (before wrapping it along the page surface) for anyone who wants a better look:

Original illustration created for the left page in the Crimson Ceremony Book

If you're a fan of the game, I hope you enjoy viewing this piece as much as I enjoyed making it. And if you aren't a fan of the game, I hope you can still enjoy the mood I tried to achieve with this piece.

Would you like to hang this piece on your wall? You can buy a print of this piece from my InPrnt Shop!

Thanks for stopping by!

Bloodsport 14 Update

The results for Bloodsport 14 judging were recently announced on the Crimson Daggers livestream and my pieces were selected as a runner up! Dave Rapoza, Dan Warren and guest judge Anthony Jones talked about the pieces created by each runner-up and 3rd, 2nd and 1st place winners. I got some really great feedback and advice and I wanted to push my pieces a little further. Here are the new versions, I hope you like the changes!

Bloodsport 14: Beast Master

Last night (more like early this morning) I finished up my 2 illustrations for the Crimson Daggers Bloodsport 14 Beast Master Challenge! It was due way back on April 5th, but between having some freelance work and my part-time job I decided from the start I was going to go at my own pace and just focus on making 2 solid portfolio pieces.

In short, the challenge required you to create 2 illustrations the first depicting a human donned in armor that reflects it's more powerful monster form, which is the base for the second illustration.

Here are the final illustrations:

BeastMaster form 1

BeastMaster form 2

I based my character design on an African tribesman, specifically looking at the Zande Warriors. I learned about the Zande and their weaponry from watching a neat TV show called Deadliest Warrior. A typical episode takes a look at 2 different groups of fighters throughout history from all over the planet and compares their weaponry and fighting tactics. It's glamed up a bit for TV but it's pretty interesting and it's a fun watch. If you like weapons you'll really enjoy it. Anyways, I based my costume designs on various Zande dress and armor, and I tried to make their weapons feel more authentic by applying what I learned from the TV show.

Part of the Bloodsport Challenges requires that you do studies to work up toward your final piece, in order to familiarize yourself with your material so you can better execute the final illustrations. Below are some of my studies:

Here are some progress shots:

I'm pretty happy with what I came up with. I didn't look at any of the other entries until I finished my pieces so not to influence my decision making. There are some really impressive pieces that you can see for yourself in the Bloodsport 14 WIP thread HERE. It was fun participating and I hope to eventually participate for real and meet the deadline at some point on a future Bloodsport Challenge.