Step X Step: "The Monster"

I'm Back! And I Brought the Cap'n

Hey All,  

I have been busy lately, and haven't had a lot of time for blog posts.  I'm going to try and remedy that in the near future.  In the mean time here is a series of shots from a Captain America commission I finished recently.

 

Step X Step: Yesterday's Hero

Towards the end of last year I was asked if I would like to illustrate the cover for the sequel to "No Hero" by Jonathan Wood.  Some of you may remember that I did the cover to that novel as well.  I enjoyed the first one tremendously, so of course I jumped at the chance.

For the art brief I basically got an outline of the book along with a list of new characters, which was extensive.  Included was a willingness from the A.D. and the author to continue the movie poster theme from the first cover.  Whereas with the first cover I went in with the idea of doing a sort of spoof on 80's action movie posters, on this one I wanted to try and do more of a straight take, and pay homage to Drew Struzan.  These are the thumbnail sketches I came up with, which are basically a montage of all the coolest stuff from the book, including many faces both new and familiar.

The client decided they liked the composition on the bottom left best, so I moved on to a tighter sketch

I got an enthusiastic thumbs up from the A.D. and moved onto the final

Approval went quickly and I find myself hoping Jonathan gets the chance to right a third chapter in the adventures of Arthur Wallace and the rest of MI37.

Sketch Redux: Dragon Age

Hey all,

Here is a piece I finished a while back for a Dragon Age RPG published by

Green Ronin Publishing.

Description:

The illo should show an Orlesian Chevalier mounted on a charging steed lancing a darkspawn. Ideally, the Chevalier will be charging towards the viewer with the darkspawn in the foreground and the lance bursting out of its back.  We want this hero to have a face, so either give him a helm with the face mask up or no helm at all. He should look grim and determined as he rides this horror down. His horse should be a mean looking warhorse with barding. For the darkspawn let's make it a Shriek. You can find out about them here: http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Shriek Perhaps his head is thrown back in an ironic death scream. You can suggest a larger battle of Chevaliers vs. darkspawn but the focus should be on the main figures just described.

With this description in mind I executed these thumbnails

They client liked number 3 so I progressed to a more refined sketch.

The client liked the sketch but informed me that the shreiks had been redesigned, so I reworked the sketch accordingly.

Comments: If you can figure out a way to get a little more force into that lance arm, awesome. But the creatures are all good to go. can't wait to see the next stage! 

So I took another shot at it.

Comments: I think that what seems off about this composition is the lancer's relatively back-leaning posture. It looks incongruous to me given how far that lance is impaled in the darkspawn. Ditto the horse's rearing. Those two factors say, "Get this thing off the end of my lance!" instead of "DIE, FOUL CREATURE!" to me.

No more half measures, I decided to completely rework the horse and rider.

With final sketch approval I began painting

Comments: Not sure how you would actually work more gore in there – maybe some blood on the stairs from the Shreiks previous victims or some ribs shooting out of the one getting stabbed?

The guy on the right looks odd – maybe because he’s a floating head and shoulders with no body? Lol, Where are his legs? As is he looks like he might be some ornamental pilaster or something as there are no other footmen in the picture there is no additional angle.

A few last revisions and...

Step X Step: Necropolis

Hey all,

Here is a little step x step of the cover I recently completed for the novel Necropolis by Michael Dempsey, published by Nightshade Books

Christmas Relay Demonstration

For the last five years, at the Watts Atelier Christmas Party six of the instructors have done a "relay demo" from the live model. This year we were fortunate enough to have Fred Vrabel pose as Santa for us. Each instructor does a 15-20 min sitting on the painting and then passes it on to the next instructor.

picture of our model Fred

Erik Gist 20 min

Stan Prokopenko 20 min

Ben Young 15 min

Lucas Graciano 15 min

Meadow Gist 15 min

Jeff Watts 15 min

Step x Step: Elsa Lancaster "Bride of Frankenstein"

Just mixing things up a little, trying to learn more about charcoal and likenesses.

Step x Step: FVZA

Here is simple step x step of a cover I did for a new book coming out from Radical Publishing towards the end of the year.

Hecatomb Step x Step

Here is one of the first commissioned illustrations I ever did. It was for a long since discontinued TCG from Wizards called Hecatomb. The card was called Hush.

Zombie Step x Step

Thumbnails

Rough sketch

Reformated to fit cover and shadowed to guarantee PG13 approval

Final

final design

Wilds Step x Step

This is a cover recently finished for WotC

Thumbnails


Rough Sketch


Finish