Sketch-A-Day: Fantasy Factory Town

Here's a ramshackle town sketch I jammed out on the road this holiday season, and I thought I'd clean it up a bit for the blog. I think it would make a solid mini-town or factory compound for a mid- to high-fantasy setting.

This site is waiting to be labeled like a map and put into play. Feel free to use it for such, and if you do, please post a comment or send an email about it.

April Art Lottery - Infected Beasts of Hubris

Mike Evans was the first person to submit an idea for the monthly art lottery when I started back at the end of January, and this month that very first entry was drawn!

Mike runs a fantastic blog over at Wrath of Zombie, and he is perpetually writing gaming material, ranging from system adaptations to original campaign worlds. One of those worlds of his, a grim and grimy sword & sorcery world called Hubris, has gleefully commandeered much of his attention. And it kicks ass.

Mike wanted a Tetsuo: Iron Man inspired plague beast fighting and infecting body guards. When I asked Mike to elaborate, he ended up mentioning The Thing as additional inspiration, and that's when I found the look for the beast. Here's the scene:

Ultimately this beast doesn't have quite as much metal on his body as Tetsuo, but the cancerous ick makes up for the missing industrial ugliness.Cheers Mike!

As always, feel free to keep submitting ideas! The next drawing goes down on the 5th of May.

You can submit here.

Like So Many Monks Ablaze . . .

As a long-time participant in and recent refugee from the rock scene here in the Northwest, I sit in a unique position to be able to make artwork for a number of my friends' various musical projects. Of particular interest here in Missoula is the band Monks On Fire. They won the local college radio show competition and as a result get free recording time to finish up their second 7". I am working on completing the album art for both recordings as well as a number of other, more hushed projects for these gnarly dudes, but for now I would like to showcase the poster and sticker art I've made for them in the last couple of months.

Being the first poster I made for the Monks, this was a blast to design as well as an enjoyable bit of exploratory illustration. Prog rock's longstanding love affair with fantasy art made this an obvious match, and the Monks' bombastic drummer, Dylan, who commissioned the art, pretty much let me have free reign. After constructing the basic scene I used a little force perspective (read: took liberty) to get the assassin leaping down from the ceiling. I don't always use warm colors up front and cool receding, as it sometimes doesn't make sense depending on environment, but I felt the reds and purples put the assassin right where he needed to be when I squinted my eyes. I also kept the drafting lines a little loose, allowing some of my 'inking' to show - a practice I rarely use in digital paintings, but one which seems to function well for simplifying figurative work.

This piece was done for the end of August, when MOF played with another proggy, keyboard-laden post-rockish band called Modality (they kill it, three times over). The idea was to contrast the Monks theme with technofuturism. The result was a meditating colossus of fiberoptic cables, laser beams, and (of course) a human skull. I kept the base painting abstract, with patches of light to hint at searchlights in the night sky. Also, the ink lines were made most prominent, gestural, and simple. I dig pursuing a cartoonish feel now and again, and Dylan appreciated it as well.

I love drawing predators. I love drawing women. And I always enjoy the opportunity to render in black and white. This piece speaks for itself and will make for a wonderful sticker when they get back from the printer. I can't wait to put one on my laptop!

Monks On Fire have an upcoming show with a band called Reptillian Shapeshifter, so this image practically drew itself. Hazy atmospheric lighting, mountain lake background, and the dead tree add up to complete the intended menace of the lizard man's assault. I backed off the linework for this one, keeping a bit of the pencil work but mostly rendering with softer paint strokes using the round brush.

There are more Monks On Fire pieces scheduled to post this month, but before that I will post some about Arcane Knights and talk about process for the Zoetic Moon paintings for The Savage World of Krül, which were recently displayed over at Rogues and Reavers. Thanks!

Krül images of Violence and Conquest

I've been busy since my last post at the beginning of July, wrangling concept art and illustrations for a variety of clients. In the near future I'll be discussing what I can about the Arcane Knights video game, for which I am the 2D Lead right now, but for this post I want to talk about cruelty. Or rather, Krül thoughts . . .

Punning aside, Robert Parker runs an excellent game design blog Rogues and Reavers, where he actively develops The Savage World of Krül as a campaign setting and more. While we aren't discussing the full spread of media through which Krül will grow its cancerous tendrils, Robert has green-lighted me the opportunity to discuss some of the concept work I have done for and with him.

First up: The Barbarians of Oxala!

This piece started from a combination of Popular Mechanics covers from the 40's featuring monowheels and an excellent post on the variety of lizard men floating around the gaming world, which you can find at MonsterTV's Bleaklands gaming blog here. So there's that - Robert's barbarians, absurd military vehicle design from PopMech, and Lizardfolk! Cyborg barbarians are a full go on Krül, so how could I resist meshing all this together?
(Total time: 4 hours)

Next: THAGGADOOM!!!

 A few weeks ago Robert and I were cooking away on some dev for the setting, and a grand giant figure was mentioned for a particular desert scene under work. After soaking up some inspiration from Kirby's mutant monsters, Thaggy was born. Check out this repository of giants for more. I decided to use the exaggeration of the great ape's figure as an indicator of form, then apply the craggy rock textures and turtle-backed silhouette to the figure. Knowing that the Thagster had to possess both receptive and intimidating qualities, I opted to soften the facial expression a bit and counter it with the craggy, violent peaks on his back.
(Total time: 3 hours)

And finally: The Abandoned City of Izuma!!!

The Skardi octopi beings dwell deep beneath this pipe-riddled temple city, with the upper levels often inhabited by wandering tribesmen, barbarians, and creatures less savory. This was a great opportunity to explore mixing neoclassical architecture with some subtle sci-fi rumblings and a ruined fantasy finish. I imagined the tubes functioned as two-lane streets for the Skardi to navigate the levels of their city.The bylaws of this image: scale and description.
(Total time: 6 hours)

If you dig the concept art I generate for The Savage World of Krül, or if you would like to commission some work for your blog or campaign setting, feel free to comment or drop me a line! Thanks!