WoT vignette tutorial--?

recently a good buddy of mine, jeremy saliba, and i were graciously asked by the illuminator's guild to do a Q & A session over at dragonmount regarding our fan art of the series--i think the Q & A session will be held in the forums section, under the illuminator's guild or the artist's chapter house threads, if anyone is interested in checking it out--anywho, a small tutorial was suggested, so here it goes--well, tutorial is a bit misleading, because it implies that i actually know what i'm doing--i'll just call it a step by step process that i use to complete a piece like this--

first, i start out with a plain ol' line drawing, digitally sketched using a wacom tablet in photoshop--

next, i'll insert the paper texture background to give me some sort of value to work from instead of just the white background--mostly because it makes it look all fancy-like--

then i'll start laying in basic color with a rough sense of light and shadow--

i'll start to detail things out after that--dents and scratches in the armor, etc--

once i'm at the stage where i'm done with all the details (or i'm too lazy to add any more), i'll go in and pick out some highlights and try to fix areas i might have missed before--


finally, add in the border details and i'm done--generally speaking, these usually take anywhere from 4 hours and up, depending on how complicated the character is--

migration--

whew--finally sat down and finished something--at least for now....i was watching that planet earth dvd at some point, and they had this crazy big caribou migration that was shot from the air--pretty cool looking--anyway, i was thinking this particular primitive culture would be the kind that would need to follow the food to stay alive...that's what those little dots are down there--caribou or some such--not rice--

i haven't had much time to really sit down and spend a lot of time on anything, so i've been reduced to quick sketches when i can get them in--which brings me to another wheel of time character--albeit small--hartha, one of the deathwatch guards...i've always been really obsessed with this guy--on a scale of 1 to cool...he's pretty awesome....i've tried to sketch this guy before, with little success...i guess this is the closest i've gotten so far--

well...they started out as half-assed thumbnails, and mutated into a quick sketch of some giant sea-worm....or something....

dominance war III finaly done--

i finally finished my DW III piece (mr. poopypants was my handle)...although, i hope i was able to submit it on time...the whole eastern/pacific time zone requisite stuff sucks when you don't read the fine print...anyway...it's good to be done with this--i had fun working on it, but i think i kinda dragged it out at the end...by the way, if you head over to the dominance war website after the 15th this month, they might have all of the final entries on display--and man, there's a LOT of good artwork--i saw a ton of work in progress that blew me outta the water--

hooray for pro-creation--!

well--seamas 2.0 just hit the shelves...my wife and i just had our baby boy--whew--what an intense and mind blowing experience--he was born on the 18th of march--i was kind of hoping he'd make it out on the 17th, however, looking back on it, it's probably good he missed being born on st. patrick's day itself--i mean, how much more of a walking cliche could you be what with being irish AND being born on st. patrick's day? that could either be a real curse, or a divine prophecy of some sort--or both.....so, apparently sending out baby announcements is the thing to do on such an occasion, so my wife asked me to do a sketch of some sort for them--so i thought i'd post it just because i haven't been able to do any art for the past week and a half...i hope he doesn't get beat up later in life for this....

...by the POWER OF GREYSKULL.....

i finally did a piece for the potluck this week--well, i kind of had to, because it was my topic (re-design any character from a cartoon series of the 80's)--well, when i was a kid, i LOVED he man--say what you will about a half nekkid guy who runs around in a fur man-kini, but i watched it every day after i came home from school--so, i figured i owed it to my 'inner child' to represent--i was trying to go for a style you might find on cartoon network--something akin to the clone wars animated style....

dominance war-update 3/9

updated the priestess summoner concept with a quick value study--i think i'll be moving ahead with this design--partly because i think it's working ok, but mostly because i don't want to dilly-dally any longer with it--i need to get started on modelsheets, etc....

just another quick color study--? ....uh.....i'm really grasping for something witty to add, but i can't--today's been a weird day...

kind of an older design i did a while back...the direction i was headed in before i decided to take a more primitive design route...the one in black was a revised version--one of many--that i still haven't quite nailed down yet...i think partly because i couldn't get what i wanted, and the more i forced it, well...you get the idea...that, and i think i got lazy and didn't want to draw him anymore...

more earlier stuff i did for that damn yeti--this was sort of an in-between stage for what's at the bottom of the page and what i posted more recently...

some stuff i did a while back, but never got around to posting....just some more heads--and some random characters...don't know if i'll get around to fleshing them out further...

works in progress...?

just some ideas...i'd like to nail down some armor/etc, but i'm still foolin' about with trying to get something that works...and yeah, i know....more dragons...i'm a nerd, ok? i can't help it--!

zeus almighty--

another "potluck" topic--greek gods was the topic of choice this week, and i decided to do the king himself...

well, with the holidays and all, i haven't been very productive in terms of artwork...so i did a quick sketch of this whaling dude to try and ease my way back into pushing the pencil around...um...that's not a euphemism--oh, and the furry testicle looking things he's holding? those are sealskin floats that attach to the harpoon...no seriously, they are--

war golem of oz--

so, some buddies of mine and i started a blog where we choose a random topic, and weekly post them--this week's topic was the wizard of oz--a buddy of mine suggested doing the ozman himself, in a giant war golem...so here he is--if you want to check out the weekly art blog we're posting on, it's here--there's some pretty cool work being churned out--check it out if you've got some time to waste--

well, it's about time something happened with some of these characters...just an idea for an event--a small fishing village destroyed by a fire-breather--i think there's more to it, but it's hiding in my head for the time being...

well, i thought i'd actually try and finish a layout--i always seem to start these, but never finish them because they don't seem to turn out how i wantthem to...still not totally pleased with this one, but maybeit'll make me finish all the other half-assed attempts i've got lying around...anyhow, the idea here is some sort of religious ritual--the remains of this extinct breed would be regarded as highly sacred, with a crude altar constructed around it for religious ceremonies...

ok--so, i've been working on my other project
recently--just some sketches, but i was feeling guilty
about not posting anything...

update 11/16

so...here's a couple of things i've been putting
off posting...i've got more in the works, and i was hoping
to accomplish more to sort of "kick off" this series...but i was
getting anxious...just more on trying to break the traditional dragon
design, and visually separate different breeds, etc...the plan is
to add to this section as i finish more designs....

another quick go at a yeti design....i finally got
around to trying another one--

so--i decided to take a break from the WoT stuff, and
get back to my other project that i have yet to make
real headway with--i also wanted to use
some old fashioned pencil and paper...that being said--i'm trying
to move away from the 'traditional' dragon design, and try something a
bit different--not quite sure how i feel about this design yet, but i'm hoping
it's a step in the right direction...

wheel of time prints available

more wheel of time characters...just my own personal take on some of the great characters from robert jordan's awesome series---

prints are now available for some of my wheel of time artwork from imagekind, which you can find here, in the wheel of time gallery--currently, i have a small handful of WoT characters and graphic novel covers available, but i will be adding to the selection regularly...all of the images that are available for prints must be approved by harriet mcdougal (robert jordan's wife), so in most cases i have gone back into the original piece and cleaned it up, and in some cases i've redone characters altogether--i also have a personal work gallery, which i hope to add more pieces to, as well--