Adventure!

 My sister, Casey and I. She was kind enough to travel along with me to Indianapolis, Indiana to visit GenCon. As my artist star rises, so must my physical presence in the art and fantasy gaming world.

The convention was almost overwhelming. Thousands of people, booths, games, costumes and more filled the convention center, itself a hulking conglomeration of football field sized rooms. It was pretty awesome, regardless.

 The main reason for my trip was to meet Brent Evans in the flesh. He's my art director at Catalyst for Shadowrun, and someone who's wisdom has already helped me grow levels beyond where I was. Up until now, I've only ever shared email exchanges with the man, our most emotive moments being colons and parentheses. It was a happy surprise to find Brent was just as gracious and well spoken in person.

 Here is one of the most recent projects I got to work on. This is the demo box for Shadowrun: Crossfire, a card game. And is that... could it be?

 My artwork on the back cover? Boom. Well, since this cat got let out of the bag, let's see him in full resolution, yes?

Since this painting was meant to be on a small card (see the size of my fingers in comparison?), my main challenge was stripping away needless detail and building an immediately discernible image.

The Recycle Project

I'll be visiting GenCon in Indianapolis tomorrow. So, that should be fun. In preparation for the event, I ran out and picked up a little portfolio book and printed my current portfolio. I still had my old portfolio prints, so it was great fun being able to physically compare the two. I realized there are themes I like to revisit.

Sometimes I revisit a subject because I don't feel like the first time through did it justice. Way back when, Jon Schindehette had an Art Order contest called D&D Pin-up. He wanted to see D&D characters (preferably tieflings) in a sort of classic pin-up pose. So I gave him this half-assed Gil Elvgren style piece.

At the time I didn't think it was half-assed, but I knew that if I could revisit the subject, I'd give it my whole ass. So I did:

Sometimes I revisit a subject from a different angle. In Fahrenheit 451, there's a moment in the books when a woman sets herself on fire in front of Montag. I thought that'd make a cool cover, so:

A few years later, I wanted to be more conceptual with the cover. The real catalyst for Montag was the girl Clarisse, so I tried playing around with the idea a bit. This piece is already on its way out of my portfolio, so maybe I'll give it another go soon...

Sometimes I like many aspects of a project even though I change everything else about it. Here, I've kept only the perspective.

Originally, I was going to just replace the guy with Link, and say hey, Water Temple. But I hate the Water Temple. Also, so much of my art fades to black that it gives a very claustrophobic feeling to my work, so I wanted to open it up and give the piece room to breath. This was one of my first digital projects, and I'm still happy with it.

Last but not least, sometimes I revisit a project because it's just fun to paint. One of the great joys of being an artist is producing work year after year and seeing how much you've grown and changed. This project is one of my most stark comparisons.

When I finish a painting I'm particularly proud of, it is inconceivable to me that I could do any better.

But what do I know?

War Paint

Color version what! T'sall I got right now.

Published in color!

I don't have much to say except I'm published in color now, so... booyah. I just recently finished some stuff I can't show, and I'm really close to finishing some stuff I can, so you'll get to see that all in due time. Until then, feel free to entertain yourself with these pretty pictures from Shadowrun: 5th edition.

Shadowrun 5th addition: Flaws

Let's set the stage: I've been working for three weeks on this commission. I have already finished two other paintings. My assignment was to paint a girl who had recently been turned into a ghoul and was currently hiding out on the outskirts of the city. I sent him this thumbnail.

At his point, my AD Brent Evans (who is a spectacular guy and I have to thank him on every project for his clarity of direction and patience) gave me the most important advice for Shadowrun artwork I've yet to receive: The first rule of Shadowrun is: everyone's a badass.

Everyone. Did you just have a baby? It's a badass newborn baby. Your grandma lives in the Shadowrun universe? She's a badass granny. Even the rats are badasses (this should come as no surprise to anyone who's played an RPG).

Quiz time: You've been bitten by a ghoul and you're slowly turning into a rancid human-zombie hybrid. What are you?

That's right, you're a badass. So I redesigned and sent Brent this:

Now I'm running behind, really behind. Two days from now is the extended deadline, behind.

I don't have my reference yet.

I don't have the model I was going to use anymore.

My sister Ruby, who at the last second heroically volunteered to model for the face, can't model for the body.

I'm out of options. But I am an artist, and no artist is ever out of ingenuity.

So this happened:

This is the physical manifestation of last minute artistic ingenuity. Who's that bearded hooker I found to shoot reference? I don't know. She sure was friendly, though.

She might have been me.

Alright, it was me. I'm that bearded hooker.

I took these pictures at ten at night, and painted until dawn. Then I took a three hour nap, and painted until four the next morning, at which point I finished this:

She just finished eating a guy.

Also, she just finished shaving her beard.

Origins

So, here's what happened:

I was sitting at home, playing video games with my bro, Josh Cosmos. I got a call from some friends who I was going to spend time with in Columbus, but it didn't work out. They informed me that I was being kidnapped.

So Columbus happened.

While in Columbus, my friends and I were sitting around wondering what to do with our lives as kidnapper and kidnappee when we called up Chavilah Bennett. Spoiler alert: one day she will rule the world. Anyhow, she suggested that we walk around downtown, because we heard whispers of a "My Little Pony" conference going on.

So the convention center happened.

Once inside, instead of seeing tons of pony enthusiasts, we were treated to various ork, elf, and mage variants. There were giant posters of magical beasts and mean something-or-others surrounding tables of very serious looking people rolling dice and dealing cards.

So Origins happened.

And, upon searching the various booths and rooms, I found Catalyst, makers of Shadowrun, the RPG I make artwork for. There in the picture, I'm holding the actual books that I'm actually published in. Chavilah was super awesome and forced me to mug for this picture, and I even got to meet some of the developers of the game, who were super friendly and awesome.

We eventually got to Trot con, and there were ponies everywhere. My kidnappers were pleased. Anyhow, when I get more pictures, I'll be sure to show them with the requisite explanations, but until then, I actually have new artwork to show you, so onward and upward!

Conquest

So I did most of the work I was supposed to do, and decided to work on that tielfling sketch and mess around with photoshop brushes. Let's just say it got out of hand. Anyhow, I'll leave it for now, and maybe I'll come back to do color or corrections if she goes anywhere further than this sketch here. Anyhow, hope you like it! :)