Pencil Sketches Hairstyle Studies

Blackwing soft pencil on copy paper.

Gullinkambi the Rooster of Ragnarök

In Norse mythology, Gullinkambi is a rooster who lives in Valhalla. In the Poetic Edda poem Völuspá, Gullinkambi is one of the three roosters whose crowing is foretold to signify the beginning of the events of Ragnarök. (Source Wikipedia)

Tiny Little Watercolors

I keep a little watercolor set at my drawing table and occasionally do a little painting when taking a break from larger work. I find the medium to be relaxing and fun.

You can see the little watercolor kit I made here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn9OxIbUrcs

November - the Month of Drawing Ravens

So I filled my sketchbook up with drawings of ravens. Trying to really study them, understand their anatomy, their feather patterns, and how they moved. I don't do this kind of deep dive enough and am endeavoring to do more of this kind of study. Next up will be wolves in December. You can follow my art journey on Instagram: @thomas.denmark

Throwback Thursday - Painsaber

This was a digital illustration from quite some time ago, probably more than 15 years old. When I found this recently while organizing some old files it seemed to need just a few tweaks and a bit of atmosphere, probably less than a half hour of touch ups.

The Petty Gods Cover that Wasn't

Some years ago I did a cover for a group project called Petty Gods. It was the last time I did a full acrylic painting for a freelance commission, since then my work has been digital.

This was one of the roughs I turned in, there are things I like about this composition and think it had potential. The idea was this giant sentient stone head that could summon vines to entangle interlopers or turn their legs to stone, or something like that.

The final cover ended up being a lot more involved with multiple figures in a lush jungle environment.

This was how the final cover turned out. It's an homage to a classic era of Dungeons & Dragons.

picture via https://clawcarver.wordpress.com/2015/05/23/petty-gods-in-corporeal-form/

Rework of an Old Painting. War Angel --> Rota: Valkyrie of Sleet

Recently I've been going through my old Hard Drives and organizing old art files. While I've lost many files to various crashes over the years, I'm occasionally surprised by something I find. However a lot of that old art makes me cringe! I keep wanting to fix things, of course that would get crazy time consuming. Some artists rework old art to great success, and some lose the charm of their old work, I don't know where any attempts to revise, improve, or rework any of my old art falls, but the temptation at times is too strong.

Especially when it comes to work I did for my card game Dungeoneer I made almost 20 years ago. The reason is some of that had such a tight deadline I was doing 2 or 3 cards a day, when I should have been spending at least 2-3 days per card or more.

This was a character called War Angel during production, the card ended up being called Frost Bound Celestial. I reworked it, gave her some appropriate clothes for the weather, and tweaked some other things. She also fits in nicely with the Norse Mythology themed project I've been working on. She could be Rota: Valkyrie of Sleet.

Comparison New and Old

The Last Unicorn

Seeing The Last Unicorn in the theater as a kid I really liked the art style and story. It was a real alternative to the stuff Disney was putting out. Rankin and Bass had such great style to their animations. Someone recently told me some of those who worked on it went on to start Studio Ghibli. Is that true?
I've been reading the book with my daughters, and made some fan art for them. This was done in Procreate on a tablet.

Kreimhildr

This is a sketch of Gudrun the Valkyrie, sometimes known as Kreimhildr.
It was drawn using Procreate, a drawing and painting app, on an iPad Pro.

Here is a video of the process. You can see a little diversion where I experimented with a 3d model, before going back to the original freehand sketch.