Thrudr - daughter of Thor

Did you know Sif and Thor had a daughter? Her name is Thrudr. I picture her as extremely strong and wielding a hammer like her dad, with an axe thrown in for good measure.

This is a work in progress, part of the Valkyria project:

Thrudr detail

Julycanthropy 2020 #01

I drew these on my live stream last night. You can watch me draw and talk about D&D and stuff on Twitch weeknights 9pm PST (Pacific Standard Time)

Lurking Goblin

Rindgrid - the Shield Destroyer

Geiravor the Spear-Bearer

Geiravor the Spear-Bearer for the Valkyria Norse Mythology project.

Detail

Patrons get a high resolution wallpaper along with a layered PSD file and work in progress examples.

Atmospheric Thumbnails Demo

Thumbnails Demo for Composition Class

Seeress

5"x7" watercolor on paper.

Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground

Sketching in pencil on parchment. Over the past year I’ve been studying animal drawing and drawing skills is important to understand their structure.

Saga of the Volsungs

King Volsung and his sons journey in three ships to visit Siggeir King of Gautland.

This was originally a pen & ink sketch drawn for Inktober. I was reading the Saga of the Volsungs at the time and was inspired by the stories and characters in it.
I recently got a new digital tablet, an XP-Pen and was playing around with doing digital pen & inks. I used this piece to experiment on and kind of like how it came out.

Creek in the Deep Woods Study

Ice Valkyrie Enamel Pin Design

This is the second design that was voted on by members of my Patreon. It is an Ice Valkyrie. A few improvements from the original concept are the replacement of Elder Futhark with Younger Futhark, the written letters actually used during Viking era Scandinavia. Also a little snowflake.
As with the other design I had to simplify quite a bit to conform to the specifications required for making an enamel pin. Only 4 colors + the metal color itself, and they must be flat, no gradients. The lines had to be made bolder as well. Some of the finer lines might drop out.

Here is the original design painted in watercolors.

Valkyrie Emblem Enamel Pin Design

I'm working on some designs for Enamel Pins. My initial concept images were way too detailed, but I knew that, I just needed to start somewhere. I took those designs and refined and simplified to match the specs required for the enamel pin process. Here is where I'm at with the first one. It is based off the painting of Reginlief I did quite a while ago.

This is for my Patreon and everyone at the Valhalla or higher level will receive one, other patrons will be able to get it at a discounted rate. If there are any left over they'll be on my website or at my convention appearances.

The original design was when I was making a bunch of Bind Rune paintings and used that format for a variety of other emblem designs. These were done in watercolor.

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.

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.

Deviant Art

I've had a DeviantArt account since 2009, but haven't done much with it until recently. I've been using it lately as it has a lot of stock photography and some of it is useful in a pinch. Also you can find PhotoShop brushes and vector shapes and a variety of other handy art references. In addition it provides interesting data when you post art; you can see who has favorited the art and what else they've favorited to give you some insight into who likes what you're posting.

It has become a place where I post drawing experiments. Some experiments include these mixed-media drawings I've been doing for fun with pen & inks coloring them with watercolors, colored pencil, and finishing them digitally. Here are some examples.

http://thomden.deviantart.com/

Trail to the Secret Waterfall

There is a trail we occasionally hike that leads to a hidden waterfall deep in the woods. The trail is strewn with huge boulders. The waterfall is a bit further down, it is a massive moss covered rock that water trickles down, or pours down during rainy season. The trail is mostly shaded with dappled lighting.