Another Crop of Creations

The Unshearables - Fun Traditional
Textures demo I did over two semesters.
Watercolour and Sand Inclusions

I'll always love the way that a certain similar combinations of words will trigger wildly different interactions and responses depending on the individual artist or creative.

Couple title page sketches for students, May it serve you well!

It happens all the time in my Character Design class, and shows that our "style" doesn't fully derive from our technique, but that it also comes from our tastes and the way we think.

Bombus Bee by Hylian Rinku DeviantArt

 In this net full of Creations from the last couple months, I can see this notion in full force.  Enjoy all the wildly different diversions from the DeviantArt Fantasy Genesis page, and some sent from the myriad social nets that keep me away from the easle.

      Christopher West's Cthumeleon & Cthumonkey DeviantArt

Turtle Humanoid by Megan Seltzer

Douglas Egolf's  MantiCrane

Hope you dig them as much as I dig receiving all the Creations made with Fantasy Genesis.  Keep em coming, and Stay Tuned !

Zom-B-Q in Hades

Some have an insatiable need for cheese.
Lich?

I hesitate to even begin where my illustrative career has taken me over this last year?  There's been about as many wig bubbles cold flippin' outah me lid, that I need a lid tapper to come and tap up some of those holes to keep em all up in there!!  I've been teaching Character Design with some fabulously creative Portlandians at the PNCA again this year, and the brilliantly dedicated team of creative directors at Wizards of the Coast.  Both Magic and D&D have given me some absolutely wonderful opportunities, including this painting for the 5E Dungeon Master's Guide.  I brought the painting to class to show students professional practice, and the importance of AD/Illustrator relationships, but after going through the history

©2013 Wizards of the Coast

of the painting, there was still a tiny regret which can visit all professional artists in one way or another.  The fact that; the image and content that you have set in your mind to paint, won't necessarily be the image and content you end up painting.  Simple, selfish, stupid, but rather hard to shake.  I think from being a student myself, throughout my 30's it became less a hinderance, but it's always been a bitter pill?  Emotionally, it's expectation that does it.  The Buddhists & Taoists tell us we should quell expectation of both past and future, by emptying our minds, remaining in the present, concerning ourselves with what Master Yoda explains, "where you are, what you are doing!"

Now this would be easy, were it not for my delinquent 20-something buddy Expectation.  He comes into town from Burning Man unannounced, drinks all my good Scotch Ale, looks at my sketchbook and says to me, "DUDE! This one, is the ONE, this [idea/sketch/composition/specific or complex aesthetic] is AWESOME!  You should do that!!  You gotta %@king do that!!  You should be so proud of that, and get attached to it like it was your child, man.. or your favorite shirt you refuse to throw away.. or an adorable little kitten, or something..!!"  My normal reply being, "You're a completely reckless @!ck-weed, you owe me money and years of my life, but YOU ARE SO RIGHT!" ..and so the stubborn anchor of disappointment takes foot.. =)

©2013 Wizards of the Coast

I love the fact that most of the ADs I've worked with at Wizards have given me a fairly long leash when it comes to ideation and briefs, as was the case with this piece as well.  It's really a luxury I've not seen in other markets, who really don't have half as many specifics to contend with, so I'm wildly grateful.  At the beginning of this project, the brief was just that open, a Lich using a crystal ball, and since I worked on concepting a couple Lich characters, I pitched two thumbnails with those characters, and the 2nd Edition illos of Michael Kaluta and Wayne Reynolds in mind; One human male Lich in a lab with gilded Frankensteinish, bubbling tubed canisters surrounding his crystal ballishness, and one being a Tiefling female in Hades using the crystal ball, (as you do) surrounded by a horde of black robed Witchy Hags who were holding squirming worm larvae.  Oh yes, the sweet smell of baking larvae in Hades!

Now it's at this point, while I was waiting for approval, that my buddy Expectation lost his blinkered mind about the sheer and utter grossness of the gooey cool hued larvae, contrasted by both the dark robes, and all those reds and oranges from the pits of Hades!?! "DUDE, they gotta dig it !!!.. It's the most evil and disgusting image that's ever crawled up the sides of your skull!!"  I fully agreed, and even worked up a couple color schemes so the hot gamut of all those reds would print correctly.  Well, they did end up picking the Tiefling female in Hades, but as is sometimes the case, a revision was called at the 11th hour.   I was bitten by my old buddy again, wanting that horde of witches so badly, any revision seemed silly, but there was something that sated my buddy Expectation's rattling, as what was going to replace the witches were bloody Zombies !!  So, my inner 15 year old, who is over joyed to still be working on this kind of imagery no matter the revisions, gave Expectation a couple concessionary pats on the back, booted his deadbeat arse out the door, and I stepped to painting zombies.. =)

After living through this process with me (and liking the zombies a bit better I think) my brilliant Partner deemed this one, Zom-B-Q in Hades.  I'll toast a couple buns for ayebody, grab a copy of the brand new 5E Dungeon Master's Guide, and enjoy!

©2013 Wizards of the Coast

Fantasy Geneticists popping up everywhere!

Wow, did I have a wonderful 2013!!  Fantasy Genesis has been seen in Michael's stores all over the Sphere,  but I've been so busy with a special series of Magic the Gathering paintings, 21 oil paintings for Heroes Cards made for their new THEROS world, that I've been rather negligent with my list of blogs.  However, I've drawn in the nets from the Fantasy Genesis FB page, have turned out a loovly little clutch of Creations flopping about for me to Like and Share, AND would also like to give big propers to my only mentorship of last semester, PNCA Illustration graduate, and amazingly skilled artist, Tori Meader!

Let me say from the start, that although these wonderful illustrations could be seen as creations from my book, Fantasy Genesis had little to do with Tori's thesis process, as the line of illustrations she developed for her thesis were focused on very specific aspects of the Zodiac.  It's called ZODION.  Tori inventivley assembled a cast of 12 bio-mechanical animal totems re-imagined from the signs of the Western Zodiac.  In addition, Zodion is a brilliant collection of SF&F animal creature concepts, and the sketches on her site underline her passion for conceptual work.  Check out the whole series at the Zodion website, look up your sign, and check out Tori's fun Commission deals, and extras coming out of her FB blog, Etsy, and StoreEnvy shops!

Well, it's always a brilliant surprise when I find all the different paths we Creatives will take with a couple simple word association exercises, and make it their own, and this group of examples were no exception.  They all really gave me a double take on how my game is influencing artists and creatives, and in a real way.  Thank you all so much for taking the game, and just swimming with it!

First there's Emily Wendland Krueger.  It turns out Emily and her husband Steven play Fantasy Genesis on a regular basis, and they were kind enough to post these great creations up on Facebook.  She's just a wickedly talented young illustrator, with a bend towards animals and typography it seems, and anyone looking for new editorial work with those qualities, would do well to give her a holler.

Next up is Ethan Myerson, who I met through the Fantasy Genesis FB page.  Ethan is a great photographer out of Tucson, that's used Fantasy Genesis to play with some SF&F concepting as well. Great plant life, and Turtle/Newt warrior seen here, but check out Ethan's site for more.

Last but not least, is Ian Strandberg.  I met Ian way back in I want to say, 2004 or earlier when I would do GenCon Indy every year.  I was working on concepting the Band of Orcs characterizations and mask designs at the time, Ian came by the booth, and I remember him having a lot to say about the benefits of puppeteering with anything theatrical.. He's definitely one of the hardest working men in show business types, and I could tell he was very driven when we first met.. =)  Ian not only does visual effects work, 3D and 2D, but does Creature and makeup sculpts, and gives live Zbrush tutorials on Twitch tv in his spare time!?!

Wherein one of these tutorials, he did this Frog+Bull sketch up on Zbrush.. Love those bifurcated toes!  Check him out at his Website, but also check out Ian (VerbalProcessing) for his tutorials and otherwise Mad Genius on his YouTube Channel!

Bowing to your collective inner LightPushers!!  Be good to each other, and stay tuned!!

Wicked Fantasy Genesis Creations

Haven't had a lot of time for showcasing the awesome creations that have been rolling in from across this brilliant Sphere of ours, but lemme tell yah Lords and Ladies, they have been rollin' in at a steady clip!

Tea Time at the end of the World
by rsek off of DA

Cactus Cow-Ram
by Myth-Dragon off of DA

So, here's another great showing from the Fantasy Genesis gallery on Deviant Art, including work from Steve Huczek, Heather Kreiter, and also a couple of brilliant pieces I received with a nice email from Karen G!  Thanks Karen, and be sure to send me more  in the future!!  You're really running with the original spirit of the game, and not just replacing parts.. =)

Bee Pirate Newt by Racingspoons
(Steve Huczek) off of DA

Steve has also started the first couple pages of his comic called Cornman!!  Check Steve out on the FB page and keep a look out for the Kickstarter to begin fairly soon for Cornman.. Can't get enough of this Cat's wildly inventive and brilliantly cynical writing style, and I'm sure Cornman will be every bit as funny and satirical as what I've come to expect from Mr. Huczek over the years..

Kitsune by Heather V. Kreiter 

Recently found this piece by Heather Kreiter, fellow freelance Lightpusher, and among the folks I'd see when I did GenCon.  Heather runs Shaman Soul Studios, and on top of illustrating for L5R and other RPGs, also makes loveably evil, My Little Demon toys, plushes, temp tattoos, and a host of more product with your favorite Pony-like bringer of mayhem.. =) Thank you so much for including the FG born Flora in your L5R painting, so many cool textures and that Kitsune (hope I'm getting the right Japanese Mythos) is so lush.. Glowing fur!!

3 Awesome Creatures by Karen Gosselin
(I especially love the Pine-Stag here)

Turtlekeet Mech by Karen Gosselin

I'll have more in the months to come, but in the mean time if you'd like to see some of my charity portraits, and an upcoming story with Cmdr. Sisko actor Avery Brooks involved, visit Portland Stink-Eye and as always, Stay Tuned !!

Workshop in Estacada

Lecture on brow structure
from Fantasy Genesis

I miss teaching..  There, I said it..  Straight away, no qualms, no regard hitherto stated evidence against, case closed without recourse from judge or jury!  Granted, not every day teaching is a successful, or even mildly pleasant day (especially mornings on deadline) and I doubt any particular mode or method one chooses will bring results to everyone, even if you're the most brilliant educator the Sphere's ever seen, but you can, and Do have an effect on some folks in a quite rare and magical time in their lives, and that's something few of us can predict or quantify.  It's simply the best! (bettah than awl the rest!)  Even though my freelance work has never given me time to completely focus on teaching, my inner LightPusher would love to start up again in the future, and the opportunities to teach seem to appear from time to time. =)

Couple of in class sketches showing Staggered & Aggressive brows

Although between recently being invited back to Focus Week by a couple of my students to finish out the school year at the PNCA, and giving a workshop/demo to three great groups of high school students at the Tri-Valley Art Conference, one thing has been revealed to me.  The fact that there are times we all can be teaching without a gig, without even being aware of it?  Like a chaotic ink wash, perhaps it's those serendipitous moments that are the most informative or inspirational, when we are at our most genuine state?

After all, a Compassionate action is never a one way road, both folks or groups need to bring something to the table to empathize or to understand.  This was the case in every class I taught at the PNCA, and it was the case at the Tri-Valley Art Conference in Estacada put on by Janice Packard a couple weeks ago.  I gave some sketched demos, had some great one-on-one time with art students from three different high schools, and generally had a blast!  What an awesome bunch of kids, and I hope to do more one-day events like this, but I got a sense of what kind of skill sets students are capable of nowadays, at such an early age?  A real baptism of fire, that!  I've always thought that if students were young enough to have been raised with the internet and it's exponentially growing supply of photographic reference, then you definitely had an advantage over my generation of beta-max video recording and library reference, and moreover this was the main reason for the quickening in skill sets; The more access to cleaner and more infinitely diverse photographic reference picturing this Sphere we're livin' on, and all it's wildly diverse Cultures and History, the more accurately one is able to document it all?  Of course it's more than any one reason, but you can tell the skill sets are just getting better and better from when I was in high school, and I can't wait to see what those students have to offer when they graduate?  Goot Lawrd!?!  =)

It was also fun to observe what modern tech doesn't necessarily teach at all, and the kind of things that will spring from an individual's personality traits or archetype, regardless of the tech around at the time of development?

I think there's a theatrical bug in most illustrators (especially the one's who might also want to be musicians, or spend a portion of their youth in front of a mirror) and I've noticed this leads to them/us mimicking and documenting emotions through facial expressions earlier than most.  Since Facial Expression & Anthropomorphism was the subject of my workshop, it was interesting to see who gravitated to the emotional aspects of the face, or who might have a better grasp on documenting realism, or who might veer towards expression in gesture and pose, or for those most skilled, who had a really good start on all of the above.. =)

More to come on Focus Week at the PNCA next post around,
and gracious thanks to all the talented young folks that attended
my short workshops at the Tri-Valley Art Conference!

Keep in Touch & Stay Tuned !!

Grimm Pilot - take two

Life goes by so quickly sometimes, I shiver with the thought of it.?  This small bit of work I did for the pilot of Grimm unfortunately didn't see too much screen time, but here's the rest of the story..  The show's been through a whole season, and picked up for another, but I've been so busy with teaching and freelance, moving my studio again, and acclimating to a new work flow, I've been completely delinquent in watching it..  Perhaps I can have a marathon when the new season starts and catch up on all the episodes missed?

©NBC/Universal

In any case, my students love the show, and every episode I've seen has been proper acting, and fast but extraordinarily creative effects and props.  Before I went into the Grimm lot studio to work, Elisabeth had me do a couple treatments of the directors chair logo (shown previously), and a couple sketches for pages what would appear in the book.  I was super geeked about this potential, as being the "guy who sketched the Grimm book" would've been the newest height of this thing I call a career?  Not having seen the graphics for any monsters, and going off the ideas of the show that were given to me,  I sketched these two characterizations; one of Rumpelstiltskin, and one of the Old Crone of Hansel & Gretel fame.  

©NBC/Universal

 The Crone character was actually in the pilot script and described to me a bit, but the Rumpelstiltskin was basically me spit-balling some ideas of how the mythos could be delivered in a new horrible way.  Then after my first day, I got a look at the script, a better idea of what they wanted, and they had me sketch up a couple mock ups of what the pages of the book might look like.. The script at the time said the book should be a sketched archive of the 2-3 monsters that would appear in the pilot; Wolf, Snake Guy, and Crone, wherein one page would be a likeness of the person in human form with something like a police form attached; stats, criminal encounters, notes, etc., and the other would be a likeness of the beast within, and what they look like to the Grimm. At first I thought this was something that, over the ages the Grimm Family would've developed, or perhaps a universal system of documenting in some way, where pages from 100 years ago, might look something like they did for the grandmother Grimm, but this changed, and a couple times. The nature of television perhaps.. =)

©NBC/Universal

©NBC/Universal

The book was a massive tome, so I did my samples actual size but in graphite at first. These two samples, with all the different "hands" of nonsense filler script I could think of, were shown to the director, and although the smoking guy was closer to what they wanted, the direction quickly started to change into a scrawled "untrained" hand and more primitive skills, rather than my "too illustrated" "too good" work.. So that day I tried my best to dumb down my skills, and perform on command, with the already "aged" paper they'd ordered for the book.  Bringing in thicker tools; pens, brush markers, graphite sticks, charcoal, conte' and fixative, I sketched about 6-10 sheets of characters, scrawled script and in every different way possible.

©NBC/Universal

I remember a beaked character with hooks, that turned out looking quite 40's nazi-ish, an orge, also this Blutbad in conte' that looked older, matching the paper quite nicely, but also the two portraits of a Blutbad, and Crone straight from the 3D models the design team had done at that point.  Neither made their way on to the screen, even after limiting myself to 10min. sketches, and really working at aping a less skilled approach.  Alas, I've not seen any of them appear in the pilot or show so far, and didn't get phone pics of them either.

Funny thing, being inadequate for anything you're truly geeked about, jobs, relationships, or otherwise.. but when what's needed is, loosing your skills and not developing new ones, it's especially odd?  I was basically trying to reverse my skill set, desperately scrawling to give them what I was used to doing when I was 12?  Hell, I probably didn't do an "untrained" look when I was 12?  I even tried sketching with my opposite hand, in a balled fist, and I couldn't imagine having my name attached to it, even if it was what they wanted? So, could be a blessing, could be a curse.?  I've a pretty impressive new client on my client list, and with some luck this won't be the last television has seen on this Lightpusher.. =)  Stay tuned !!