Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Hope you have a good one.

Badass...Liu Ji and Leonides

Badass...Justinian

Here is the illustration for Justinian from Badass.

Badass

I recently helped illustrate a funny little history book called "Badass", filled with vulgar language, but quite entertaining and educational. Written by the amazing Ben Thompson.

Here was the illo for Peter the Great, known for his hard drinking as well as his "badassness".

I illustrated this while at the height of my "ink splatter" brush fascination, so they were quite fun to do.

It's published by Harper Collins, so it should be available in most major retail book stores. It's also on Amazon.

Quiescent

A little digital practice.

Gnome, Ogre, Elf

Sketches for an illustration.

As The Crow Flies

Ogre Head Study

Snow Ride

Barsoom Canyon

Dragon Heights

Never tire of drawing dragons.

Tiemens Workshop

We just spent the weekend in Mendocino at a watercolor/gouache workshop with Erik Tiemens. One of the best classes I've been to. It really took me outside my comfort zone with color, and I was inspired by learning the classic pre-photography approach of doing several sketches on location and bringing them back to the studio to do a finish from.

This piece was done by experimenting with mixing gouache and watercolor by toning the board with very intense colors: neon green, yellow, and bright red. Then painting washes of more somber, realistic colors on top. This allowed the bright color underneath to "sparkle" through in some areas creating color combinations and harmonies I'd never think of doing on my own.
We were encouraged to try different papers like this warm gray Canson paper:
This final piece I did was done from location studies and memory and a bit of invention. Erik put some magic touches at the end that really added drama and pulled the composition together. I learned a lot.

Woodland Friends

Or foes?

Trespassers will be shot

By a Warden of the Northern border.

Enchantrix

Z-Day 1878

It is a little known fact of history that William "Rawhide" Cody prevented Z-Day in 1878 with his swift action on undead cowboys who had been inadvertently buried in a cursed Indian burial ground.

Saturday Morning Wizards

If I made a Saturday morning cartoon about wizards it might look something like this.

Storyboardart.org

My friend Sergio, who is a kick-ass storyboard artist, started a new website that is about all things storyboard. http://www.storyboardart.org/

Check out the interview with Robert Valley, who draws like fishes swim, only better.

Layouts

There was a time I seriously considered entering animation layout as a career. This is a style I don't post often on this blog, but I do like to explore and have fun with. These were concepts done for a "side scroller" type game.

Half Orc Shaman

A Half Orc Shaman type guy. Looks like he's getting ready to rock da house on da mic.

Seer

A doodle of some old wizardly type dude.

Shadowrift Blade

"Make it glow with a black aura." Huh? Um, okay.

Armored Elf

No one has ever drawn an elven archer before. Ever. This is the first.

Molly is amazing

But you might have already known that.

Congratulations on 10 amazing years!

Europe...the rest of the story

Some quick watercolor paintings I did in London and Rome a while back.
Trinity Square in London


View from the Spanish Steps, Rome

Roman ruins

Ferremanto plaza

Battlemaiden

Battlemaiden is such a cool word.

Phasing Arrow

An arrow that can phase through solid objects. This was for the new Adventurer's Vault 2 for 4th edition D&D coming out in a few days. Here is the article: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20090807

Notice the little hints of splatter brush? I love splatter brushes.

Knights & Castles frontispiece

For a book I did a while back. I like the simplicity of this composition.

How the West was Lost

This one (in 3 parts) has a painful history. Maybe someday when the trauma has worn off I'll tell the tale.

Sword and Planet

Been reading Edgar Rice Burrough's Mars books. I'm so inspired! And so excited that Andrew Stanton is directing the movie.

This one is real pen & ink, not one of my digital fakeries.

Mouse Guard

Comic Con was a blast this year! This is the first time in years I've gone as a fan not as an artist hawking his wares at a table. I saw many great things, but one of my favorites was David Petersen's Mouse Guard.

I read through it on the plane ride back and it was so good I'm looking forward to more. If you like good stories and good art I highly recommend it.

Flapper quick study

It's not often I use Painter, and even less often for quick studies. But I wanted to capture some thick buttery brush strokes in this sketch.

Castle

A quick little castle painting. Tried to focus on atmosphere and lighting.

Cursed Village

This was the original sketch, done while in some boring meeting.

Bridge

Castle ruins

Free Sword

All you have to do is pull it out of the stone.

Night version.

Daidoji Chitose

Samurai are always cool. This is one I did a while back for Legend of the 5 Rings.