IMC 2011:Firaxe

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

Eowyn and the Nazgul

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

Earthquake Dragon Re-Revision

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

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.

Ninja Bullywug!

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.

ArtOrder Drow vs Mindflayer

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.

Earthquake Dragon

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.