Acrylics, Even.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.