Drew Baker, sans nda.

A new piece and two step by steps on WIPnation.com

2011-12-18T22:39:00.000-05:00

Over on my WIPnation page I've posted a few step by steps. The first two are of my Stalking the Unicorn and Stalking the Dragon covers. I've also posted how this dragon piece has come along from the pencil stage.

Creature sketch from Illuxcon

2011-12-11T14:43:00.000-05:00

Here's a sketch I did at Illuxcon, using a bit of Iain McCaig's process and advice from Allen Williams.

Speaking of San Diego: Heather Theurer

2011-09-21T01:54:00.002-04:00

At San Diego Comic Con I got my first good look at Heather Theurer's art. You would think with her recent Spectrum silver award her work wouldn't have had a chance to surprise me, but it did. And, I confess, I now have something of a school-boy crush on her paintings.

I just found out she's running a Kickstarter for an art book, and thought other folks out there may be interested, yet not already heard of it. So here are links to Heather's site, a couple of her dragon paintings, and her Kickstarter project. Have a look. Enjoy!

Heather Theurer's website
Air Dragon
Game of Chase
Heather's art book Kickstarter

Back From San Diego

2011-07-27T22:40:00.001-04:00

Thanks to generous sponsorship by Steve Argyle I was able to attend San Diego Comic Con this year. It was my first time, and thoroughly exhausting.

I now present a selection of doodles from napkins and a boarding pass:

I like to think I generally feel pretty free to play in my sketch book, but knowing these weren't part of that semi-permanent record seemed to be a bit liberating. Interesting. Well, to me, anyway.

Steve Argyle

IMC 2011:Firaxe

2011-07-16T02:13:00.001-04:00

I was fortunate to be able to attend the Illustration Master Class again this year. We were given several projects to choose from, and in keeping with tradition I worked on another sci-fi piece:

Oil on Panel, about 15"x23.5"

It turns out that assignment had been provided by Irene Gallo, and is the same story excerpt she offered up for the July/August challenge over at Jon Schindehette's Art Order.

Illustration Master Class
Story Extraction ArtOrder Challenge

There and Back (Montreal Kotei)

2011-06-07T14:27:00.000-04:00

I took a quick trip to Montreal for their Kotei the first weekend of June. I'm sorry I couldn't take more time -- there were people and places I missed because of time constraints. That said, I had a great time and look forward to visiting again. Thanks! Here's a sketch I did while I was there:

NM99 Sketching

2011-05-27T05:08:00.000-04:00

I started this piece not too long ago, and put some more work into it while we were recording the 99th Ninja Mountain Episode. I'm interested in seeing how it turns out.

Eowyn and the Nazgul

2011-05-16T19:23:00.000-04:00

Last month Jon Schindehette and the guys at the Muddy Colors blog put together a challenge. The topic was Eowyn and the Nazgul, from the Lord of the Rings. It wasn't until I was waiting at the airport, trying to fly to the Austin Kotei, that I found the approach I wanted to take.

There's been a lot of focus on the end fight, but I decided to look at what lead up to that. I settled on when the Witch-king takes to the field of the battle. Eowyn's horse Windfola panicked, and she and Merry were thrown (and since there's no specific reference to when her helmet came off, I decided it would be a fine time for that, too). I stretched things a bit having her bumped by the fell beast, but I wanted to show her resisting them. The Witch-king and fell beast, however, are cropped out of the picture to show they don't regard her at all.

Here are some of the steps I went through. The last is a photo of the painting as it stood last night. It's oil on paper on panel, about 15" x 21".

Art Order Blog
Muddy Colors

April 2011 Kotei Apperances

2011-03-26T03:16:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to post a quick note about the three L5R tournaments I'll be attending in April. On the 2nd I'll be in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. On the 16th I'll be in Austin, Texas. On the 30th I'll be in Louisville, Kentucky. I've included links to more specific information for those interested, and here are the thumbnails for a couple of new pieces I'll be showing at the tournaments. Come say hi!

Ottawa Kotei details: here
Austin Kotei details: here
Louisville Kotei details: here

"...Twenty To Thirty Minutes a Day."

2011-02-25T04:55:00.000-05:00

Alonso remarked on my Mark Kistler reference during the latest Ninja Mountain episode. I used to love watching Secret City on PBS, and was always trying to catch up with my older brother's skill whilst contributing to the family mural. I hadn't thought about it in years, but not too long ago we found his site and subscribed for my daughter. Here are sketches from a couple of episodes we watched together.

Mark Kistler -- http://www.draw3d.com/
Alonso -- http://monotremedreams.blogspot.com/
Ninja Mountain Scrolls -- http://ninjamountain.blogspot.com/

Talking about myself. What could be easier?

2011-01-16T01:39:00.000-05:00

Two things:

1: Next weekend, January 21-23, 2011, I will be a guest at Running Gagg at SUNY Geneseo. I'll be giving a couple of seminars late Friday and Saturday afternoons. The organizers have asked for the standard fare -- starting out,experiences, process, painting demo, those sorts of things. I was wondering if anyone had any questions they'd like answered, or topics that they'd like me to cover. What gets missed or glazed over in convention talks like this? If you're an illustrator, what do you wish you had heard starting out?

2: When I started my blog the plan was to only talk about work I did on my own, for myself. From my sporadic updates it would seem I'm not really doing a lot on my own, so I think I'll open things up to more work-work. I'm hoping that will make it easier for me to find interesting things to say -- or at least show.

Acrylics, Even.

2010-12-15T06:38:00.000-05:00

I'd been forewarned by some of my friends that Magic players like to get cards altered at tournaments. Rather than make a mess of things with a Sharpie I took some acrylics to October's Toronto GP, so I could make little paintings like these:

A few people were surprised I'd only been using acrylics for a few hours, but they trusted me with their cards anyway. Back home I decided to try them at a slightly larger scale -- and to compare my M. Graham acrylics with the newer Winsor & Newton Artists' Acrylics. Both boast longer open time than older acrylics, and WN's claim of minimizing color shift during drying was interesting. So during an evening at Tom's studio with Greg, Ben, Allen, and Chris, I did.

I think the M. Graham paints' longer open time was more important to me than the lack of color shift in the Winsor & Newton paints. In the end, though, I was glad I could go back to oils.

In conclusion, napkin doodles:

Painting in Feeding Hills

2010-10-28T00:47:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I was at the L5R charity tournament organized by Team Whiplash -- Eric, Ralph, Kevin, and... a couple of other guys I haven't talked with as much -- in Feeding Hills, Massachusetts. I go nearly every year (and nearly every spring, for the Massachusetts Kotei they organize), and this time decided to do some painting at the event. I brought along my oil paints and the tired ronin from July, in a convenient 5"x7" travel size. It was a leisurely day of chatting and painting, and ended with a nice visit with my older brother and his family. I don't see them often enough. Thanks for a fine day, everyone.

Here's a quick scan of where the painting left off:

Blight Mamba sketches.

2010-10-19T22:26:00.000-04:00

My work for Scars of Mirrodin came just as I was trying out my gridded sketchbook, so my early posts about it had to skate around the NDA-covered bits. I try to avoid for-hire work on my blog, but I thought some process sketches might be interesting and this is a good example. Also, since I'll be at the Toronto Grand Prix this weekend, Magic has been on my mind.

(I know it may not look like many thumbnails, but in my defense I do a lot of erasing. Any sketch that feels wrong at the outset gets erased and that spot gets another chance to be useful.)

And the final:

(I also talked about sketching in Ninja Mountain episode 83, if anyone's interested. I like to think there isn't anything particularly scandalous in the episode.)

Game Session Sketches

2010-09-23T16:00:00.003-04:00

Back when I was doing some work for Adventurer's Vault I got a copy of the D&D 4E style guide. I thought some of the ideas for the new dwarves were interesting, so when it came time for my group to try 4E my character was a female dwarf fighter, who I sketched during a couple of sessions:

Some time later I was talking with William O'Connor (Website Blog Dracopedia) who had done a lot of concept work for 4E. He told me they had made a concerted effort to make female dwarves interesting to players -- research had shown they were played even less than monster races.

So I guess their new marketing targeted me. I'm always surprised when that happens.

September is also sketchy

2010-09-01T02:20:00.004-04:00

Dragon*Con in Atlanta is this weekend. I'll be attending, and will have work in the art show. If anyone wants to get together, drop me an email. This will be my first Dragon*Con, and I'll be glad for an orientation.

I have a few more robot sketches, some of which are more giant than others. These were done pretty quickly on the heels of the last batch -- I was just slow sharing them.

Back Up To Speed

2010-08-19T22:51:00.003-04:00

Just some quick sketches today, as things get back to normal after GenCon.

I started with an old idea of a wyrm with a tower, which I've not been able to nail down, and ended up working on a few "woman with her giant robot" compositions.

GenCon Post

2010-08-12T00:21:00.003-04:00

The titular "post" in this case leaning toward "the station or rounds of a person on duty." This was my table in this year's GenCon art show. (Shooting at f/2 with the available light made for quite a shallow depth of field. Sorry about that. Next time I'll try a flash.)

This year I wanted to emphasize my paintings -- which were mostly new -- and my playmats. The playmats would easily take all the table space I could get, but I also wanted to have paintings on the table, where people could get a close look at them. While sketching some display ideas it struck me I could use an LCD desk mount. (I also considered extending the tabletop for more display surface, but let that idea go for another time.)

I think they worked admirably. The paintings were convenient for passers-by to see, were secure, and didn't interfere with looking through the piles of mats on the table.

The LCD arms I used are model 5402 from MonoPrice.com
I've also been asked about my panel extenders. They, along with the stiffeners and support bar, are from ProPanels.com. The GenCon panels are 38.5" wide, with dark grey carpet, if you're looking to match.

Centaur Doodle 4

2010-07-29T00:40:00.004-04:00

Last month I listened to Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, which no doubt influenced this centaur sketch.

In other news, I'll be in the art show at GenCon next weekend. No doubt I'll also be slightly frazzled.

Mind the (Graphite) Dust

2010-07-18T04:32:00.003-04:00

I did a couple of sketches for The Treasure Chest of Art. I put in some tone after scanning them, but this is the only record I have.

These are a couple of pages from my dot grid journal. I haven't used it all that much, as most of my recent sketching hasn't been aspect-ratio specific (and it doesn't fit in my pocket). I should have the top right one painted and with me at GenCon.

A Week's Painting

2010-06-25T18:05:00.011-04:00

I arrived at this year's Illustration Master Class with a couple of rough thumbnails, and spent the first day refining them into the sketch from the last post. Rob, Dan, and Donato gave me some good advice at the early stages. When it came time to work up the drawing Steve knocked out a quick model for me, and I shot fellow students -- Grant, Aaron, Kim, and Annalisa -- for reference. And, of course, I made stuff up.

The drawing -- which I mounted on a panel to paint over -- was roughly 17 3/8" x 12 3/4".

I started painting by glazing in the sky, roughing in the smoke on either side of the ring, and blocking other parts in. I'm trying to work back to front, and to stay patient.

Next I worked in the ring, and the spattered explosion. At this point the sky was still tacky, so I held off editing the spatter until I was comfortable I wouldn't pull anything back up.

More work in the ring, and the first stage of paint on one of the main figures.

The first layer of paint down on the first face. I wiped off the first three or four attempts. I also gave the sky and smoke some more attention.

The first layer down on the second face, and a second layer on the first. I also darkened the smoke behind the figures to help separate them from the background. A bit of paint on the midground figure too.

More work in the midground, foreground, and figures.

The week was almost up, but I was able to get a first layer of paint down on the remaining figure and the flag, and do some general trouble shooting.

And this is how the piece ended the week, photographed after I got home (and adjusted a little in Photoshop).

Pre-painting

2010-06-15T08:22:00.004-04:00

At the Illustration Master Class in Amherst I've pulled out the bottom sketch here for some more attention. Here's the new sketch and drawing. I should start in with oils later today.

Sketching in turns

2010-06-08T01:42:00.003-04:00

I'm sure it's no surprise I'm typically busy, absent, or both. Through June, I'm facing a lot of both. Things should let up some in July, but it's looking like this will be a tough month.

I think it was Faber who asked me about doing a naga piece -- probably while I was in Nuremberg. He wasn't the only one to have mentioned them, but he was particularly earnest. At this rate I should have something in just a couple more years.

Chicago, Pre-Milkshake

2010-05-20T02:20:00.005-04:00

During the second half of the inaugural podcast from the Drawn Today Blog Aaron Miller mentioned my joining his drawing session while I was in Chicago. Here are a couple of quick sketches from the session. I did feel much better after the milkshake, though.

Working on Progress

2010-05-13T22:39:00.002-04:00

I finally got back to this piece during an ensemble Ninja Mountain episode, and got in another 30 minutes talking with Torstein Nordstrand after the recording. He was up late waiting to hear back from someone in California, so I didn't feel bad that I was keeping him up.

Quick, Show Something!

2010-05-12T05:14:00.003-04:00

A couple more pieces for Cosscut Games, lest I get too used to not posting anything new.

More April Thumbnails

2010-05-02T03:46:00.002-04:00

Yes, I realize it's May now. Here are a few more sketches from my trip to Calgary last month.

April continues

2010-04-23T15:13:00.004-04:00

Thanks again to everyone who stopped by at C2E2. Also, special thanks to Aaron and Laurie, not just for putting up with me, but for doing it for an extra day.

I picked at this piece a little during the latest recording session, but was too busy listening to find good reference or make good decisions, so I don't feel like I made any progress. I'll try to be more prepared for next week.

Painting, Shooting, and Podcasting.

2010-04-14T14:43:00.004-04:00

(A quick reminder at the top: I'll be at C2E2 in Chicago this weekend.)

As if learning to paint weren't hard enough, I'll also have to learn how to photograph or scan paintings. One would think an array of color management tools would make the job easy -- that finding sun in Western New York would be the hard part -- but that doesn't seem to be the case. Anyway, here's roughly what the piece I started at last year's Illustration Master Class looks like now, after a couple of fits and starts of extra work.

I also worked on this piece a bit more, mainly whilst chatting with Socar, Patrick, and Jeremy.

April 2010

2010-04-09T05:59:00.003-04:00

I had an excellent time in Calgary and Saskatoon Easter weekend at this year's Iron Samurai L5R tournaments. Thanks again to all involved.

Here are a trio of sketches from the trip. On the left, I was half remembering a story of Tomoe Gozen. I worked it up a bit more whilst recording part of episode 60 of Ninja Mountain. After so many weeks away it was great to catch up with Jeremy and Socar again.

Another trip is coming right up: next weekend, April 16-18, I'll be at C2E2 in Chicago. I will be in the artist's alley, perhaps looking very much out of place. Still, you're welcome to come by and wish me a happy birthday!

Searching For a Solution To a Problem I Don't Know

2010-04-01T23:42:00.003-04:00

A couple of new sketchbook pages. I think there could be something to the last one.

Wait, I'm Home This Weekend?

2010-03-26T01:13:00.004-04:00

Yep, I've been traveling. Whilst in the Seattle area not only did I get to have a fine time at the Tacoma Kotei, I also got to catch up with friends I see all too rarely. Special thanks to (in roughly chronological order) Franz and Imelda, Jon, Mary, Jeremy, Richard, Greg, Leon, Drew, Dierdre and Raven. Obviously, I've left people out. Also obviously, it's because I'm a jerk.

Shortly after my Seattle jaunt I was off to LunaCon. It was my first real convention experience without a table to sit behind. I discovered things like panels, fresh air, lunch, people to talk with, and how an art show check in/out system works. (Also that if you don't follow the "whole dollars only" pricing rules you may get whapped on the head with a stack of papers. Repeatedly.) It was also great to see/meet Eric, Matt, Dan, Marc, Kelly, Hillary, Bill, Joe, Kris, Michael, Dan, Bob, Sue, Patricia, and... so many other people who also have names. I made no promises, right?

And look what my Golden Wyrm painting came back with! A hard worker, that one.

Crosscut Update

2010-03-10T21:46:00.003-05:00

I didn't mean to miss two weeks in a row. Sorry. If it makes you feel any better I did do some vaguely horse-shaped scribbles in my sketchbook, they just didn't make it up for one reason or another.

Here are a couple of pieces from my project for CrossCut Games.

I've also posted a new L5R piece over on DeviantArt. I'll bend my "sans NDA" rule a bit by mentioning it here.

Character thumbs

2010-02-25T07:24:00.002-05:00

The third of these really has the mood I was after (imagine gaunt cheeks and a graying beard). However, I wanted to have more action to the piece, so the search continued.

More Gridded Sketches

2010-02-18T08:44:00.004-05:00

Playing around with some painting ideas while in Canada. I'm pretty sure I went into these sketches thinking one square would equal six inches. Because, obviously, I have nothing to keep me from doing a 3.5x7 foot painting this spring.

Back From GAnime

2010-02-09T03:24:00.002-05:00

I'm back from GAnime, and had a fine time. The people were friendly, and though sometimes taken aback by my complete lack of ability with French, quite patient about it. One might go so far as to say friendly, even.

Special thanks to Luc, Frederick, Roxane, Stephanie, Andrew, Christina, Vincent, Phillip, Marc, Jean, Simon, Mike, and Doctor Who. Also to everyone who came to my panels and got to see, in turn, some of my terrible early work, and some tricks I've addopted to make my work faster and less terrible.

Upcoming Appearances

2010-01-24T04:24:00.004-05:00

My 2010 travel season starts early this year. Here's what I have planned for the next handful of months. I'll be glad for anyone who stops in to say hello.

February 6-7: G-Anime 2010, Gatineau, QC Canada

March 6: Feeding Hills Kotei, Feeding Hills, MA USA

March 13-14: Tacoma Kotei, Lakewood, WA USA

April 3-4: Iron Samurai XP4, Calgary, AB and Saskatoon, SK Canada

June 26: Utah Kotei, Orem, UT USA

Cat Oni Attack!

2010-01-14T06:12:00.005-05:00

I believe it was at the Aldershot Kotei in 2008 I talked with Mark Wooten about this piece. He had a drawing by his son Drew, and we thought it would be fun to take the design and work it up as a piece for an L5R card. I took some liberty with the design, but I think it's turned out well in the end. Hopefully Mark and Drew like it.

Ninja Party

2010-01-01T01:54:00.004-05:00

We recently recorded another episode for the Ninja Mountain Scrolls podcast. Beyond congratulating me on entry into the elitist cabal, we also talked about about these five pieces:

Mick Collins' Terrible Lizards

Jeff Johnson's Fire From Above

Nick Egberts' Lich Knight

Melissa Hitchcock's Vampire Hunters

Chris Burdett's Barbarian Essentials

Because it's such an easy thing to do I turned to doodling, so much of my contribution is these paint overs. Expect larger versions in the show notes, and hopefully some idea what I was thinking will come through the audio. More likely you'll discover I nicked any good ideas from Jeremy, Patrick, and Socar.

Earthquake Dragon Re-Revision

2009-12-22T16:12:00.005-05:00

I put some more time into the Earthquake Dragon. I really wanted to get back some of the texture in the dust cloud, and I did a few other things too.

Revisions: Bullywug and Earthquake Dragon

2009-12-22T01:43:00.004-05:00

First is my revised bullywug piece. I lightened the near toad's face and throat, and clarified some of the middle and background's value schemes (or something like that. It's been a couple of weeks. What Jeremy said). I also toned down the diagonals pointing into the corners.

Below that is my revised Earthquake Dragon. I posted the original version back in July. Flipping between the two now I seem to have edited out some of my favorite parts of the original. I guess another revisit is in order.

Playmats? Indeed!

2009-12-17T10:27:00.002-05:00

Just a quick note: at long last, my playmats are available. I'm offering both gaming cloth and foam backed mats. More at http://www.drewbaker.com/playmats.asp

Ninja Bullywug!

2009-12-10T16:32:00.004-05:00

I did this piece for Dungeon Magazine a while back. (Jon schindehette featured it on his blog if you want to see a larger version.) This week it faced the harsh eye of a Ninja Mountain critique. How did it fare? You'll have to listen to episode 44 to find out! Or wait for me to put up a post-critique version after the episode is released.

2009-12-03T15:47:00.003-05:00

I'm terrible at doing daily warm ups. I'm not great with maintaining a schedule, but at warm ups I'm truly terrible. Today I decided to sketch through an episode of Windows Weekly. It's been a while since my Drow/Mindflayer piece and I thought it could be fun to touch on D&D again.

An Obvious -- Yet Still Painful -- Confession

2009-11-22T01:20:00.004-05:00

I suppose it's pretty obvious from my work, but I've done practically no portraiture since art school. And I wasn't very good at it back then, either. I'm sorely tempted to make excuses, or couch this in words that would be gentler to my ego, but the truth is it's a fundamental skill I have left woefully undeveloped. I need to change that.

These are my third, fourth, and fifth efforts from today. I console myself with two things. 1) I'm making different mistakes each time. Surely this means I'll be able to get better, right? 2) The photo I'm working from -- taken with a terrible phone under the many banks of florescent lights in the GenCon art show a couple of years ago -- is exceptionally poor, as reference photos go. (See how I don't understand her far cheek? Clearly it couldn't be my fault, so it must be the vague passages of shadows, highlights, and reflected lights are disguising the forms. I'm just not good enough to cover for it. Drat.)

2009-11-20T00:53:00.002-05:00

This is for an upcoming board game from Crosscut Games, and they said I was welcome to share the project here. We had -- basically -- the one on the top left when I started this page of thumbnails. My plan was to see if I could find something we liked more. I didn't, so that's what we'll go forward with.

The next step is research and reference.

Extra Lines

2009-11-17T12:43:00.004-05:00

Last week at Borders I bought a Piccadilly graph paper notebook. The first few pages were used for estimating dye sublimation printing costs, nesting said dye sub images on fabric, and ideas for a game for my daughter's 5th birthday party that we didn't have time to make. Then I got to sketching in it, and it wasn't bad. The graph lines are a bit darker than I'd like, but once I got going they weren't disruptive.

Stomping Hello

2009-10-27T13:57:00.003-04:00

I hadn't realized my last post was a month ago. It turns out I've been busy. I took a break this morning and played with this centaur sketch again. It's always frustrating to lose a sketch's energy while the piece is refined. Over the years I've gotten a better at holding onto it, but I've still got a long way to go.

Anyway, back to work.

Today's Token Thumbs

2009-09-26T12:14:00.004-04:00

My schedule loosens up a bit next week, but until then some new thumbnails is really all I can offer. I may still consider it a victory, however small.

Some Older Sketches

2009-09-16T02:43:00.004-04:00

Sorry for the dead air. Here's a page of sketches from earlier in the year.

I was Surrounded by Ninjas!

2009-09-10T01:28:00.005-04:00

I had a lovely chat with Jeremy, Patrick, Socar, and Andy. If they decide I ruined things I can't hold it against them, but if not, I may show up on this week's episode.

To the best of my knowledge no one was stabbed.

Still progressing

2009-09-04T16:32:00.005-04:00

Of late my sketchbook efforts have just been flailing, with nothing fun or interesting to show. So I took a break from them to work this piece up some more.

Triceratops in the Morning

2009-09-02T23:38:00.004-04:00

Because I missed my flight to Greece I was free to join my wife and kids for a play group triceratops dig. We -- my wife and I -- hadn't had time to make the whole skeleton, but what we had held up to being buried, walked on, and dug up surprisingly well.

The kids came down on the foreleg first then worked toward the tail, which made for a good reveal when they went back for the skull.

Most Embarrassing -- and Publicly -- Blown Deadline

2009-09-02T09:15:00.002-04:00

I was up early this morning getting ready to travel. My phone was ringing when I finished my shower, but I missed it. Oddly, it was an international call, and I'd missed two of them. I got a text while I checked my email. My flight was early and Michael was afraid he'd missed me.

Wait, what? My flight is today. He must have mistaken my arrival date for.... Oh. Oh! Drat.

So, this time I really screwed up, and I'm afraid I won't actually be in Athens this week. Sorry. Ridicule is expected, and certainly warranted. On the plus side, I should be able to catch up on work.

EC Bound

2009-09-02T00:24:00.000-04:00

In a few hours I'll be heading to Athens for the L5R European Championships. I'm sure they have the internet in Greece, but you should all still expect me to be incommunicative. More than usual, even.

GenCon 09 Award

2009-08-22T16:23:00.002-04:00

Omar Rayyan made it clear it was his doing that my little dragon painting won the 1st Place Award at the GenCon art show. Thanks to Jon Schindehette and Steve Belledin for letting him have his way.

(Sorry it took so long to get a photo. Think of this as a dramatization, in the fine tradition of Unsolved Mysteries.)

Post Gencon... post

2009-08-18T01:51:00.003-04:00

I got home from GenCon Monday evening, caught up with the family, had a nap, and am getting ready to head back to work. I'm sorry I don't have a new image to share, but I should have one tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by. It's always fun to catch up with people again, even if it's just for a minute or two. I also have to give a special thank you to Jeremy McHugh for helping me out. Thanks, Jeremy. You're a good egg.

Yet Another Got Away

2009-08-08T06:00:00.004-04:00

For quite a while I thought I'd be able to miraculously pull this piece together for GenCon as an 18"x48" oil painting. I see now I've let my chance for that pass, probably two days ago. That's the price of goofing off.

With any luck I'll still be able to work it up digitally, bring prints, and revisit it with oils some time in the future.

Another sketch

2009-08-06T03:43:00.006-04:00

My commission ratio of lightsabers to protol droids is nearly down to 3:1, so I thought I'd try to nudge back in the proper direction.

I'm not really sure where I was heading with this one, but I kind of like where it ended up.

Hanging Around

2009-08-05T04:19:00.002-04:00

After binging on the Mindflayer I wanted a break from creature and fantasy stuff.

ArtOrder Drow vs Mindflayer

2009-07-27T01:51:00.004-04:00

Here's my piece for the Drow vs Mindflayer challenge over at Jon's blog. I think it turned out pretty well. It came together pretty smoothly, which was nice.

I've also included my (slightly refined from the original) sketch, since I think that sort of thing is interesting.

One Giant Leap...

2009-07-26T13:38:00.003-04:00

... so then I thought, "If you're going through the trouble to take the elephant to the moon so it can jump and caper about, go ahead and give it the mission commander's stripe to really make its day."

Earthquake Dragon

2009-07-21T22:08:00.003-04:00

I recently decided to be a part of the art projects Jon Schindehette is running over on his blog. This was for the Earthquake Dragon challenge that recently wrapped up. I've got an idea I'm fond of for the current Drow/Mindflayer challenge. We'll see if it works out.

More centaur sketching

2009-07-17T01:14:00.007-04:00

Another centaur sketch, and it looks like I was able to repair my scanner. That's nice.

Also, the Anguillian -- which I illustrated in Stormwrack, my first D&D project -- was recently called the #2 most retarded D&D monster. Be aware there are many profanities: page 2 of the article here.

Hida!

2009-07-14T13:39:00.002-04:00

A Hida Kisada sketch for a fan in Brazil.

Snowy Mountain

2009-07-11T00:11:00.004-04:00

I believe this one was in Henry's sketchbook. I thought a touch of Star Wars would be fun. Pardon the camera noise.

Centaur doodle 3

2009-07-07T08:38:00.002-04:00

Another centaur. I tried sketching some up on my tablet PC, but for this sort of thing pencil and paper are still much more natural. If only scanning weren't a pain.

Centaur doodle 2

2009-07-02T11:04:00.004-04:00

Most of yesterday's studio time went to revisiting abandoned paintings. They're still not presentable, so here's another centaur.

Centaur doodles 1

2009-06-30T14:46:00.004-04:00

Sketchbooks were passed around at the end of the IMC and Abby was asking for Centaurs. I did a couple in other people's books, and had so much fun I wanted to do a few for myself.