Fantasy Art Thread

[GoldenAge]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

And as an aside, though I like Jon Hodgson's work, it always cracked me up that the Paladin was building .... in her armour. It's like it's her skin: it never comes off. Kind of awkward in the shower, I'd think.

 

cheers, Mark

Cuts down on splinters.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

I should have read the initial post more clearly. Sorry about the mixup.

 

Not at all man. Thanks.

[Storn]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

First up, I wanted to talk about something I've been meaning to do for YEARS!!! And that is to offer originals and prints for sale. The website Fine Art America has made this very easy for me to do. So, if you ever wanted an Storn original, on the paper, canvas, board, with real paint, pencil or whatever I used that day... come check the below link out...

 

Maybe you would rather have a print of something, well, this link has that covered too. Let me know if there is a piece of mine that is not up on Fine Art and you would like a print of. I will continue to build up the Fine Art gallery, but it will take some time to get a lot of what I do up.

 

I'm going to experiment with a combo of more expensive oils, acrylics and the like, along with the preliminary pencils of what often becomes digital colored. Pencil originals will be quite reasonable.

 

http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/storn-cook.html

 

Now, onto some recent private commissions.

 

A golden elf

 

An interesting steampunk explorer with "sponge" cooling armor from Lethe

 

 

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[Fitz]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

And as an aside, though I like Jon Hodgson's work, it always cracked me up that the Paladin was building .... in her armour. It's like it's her skin: it never comes off. Kind of awkward in the shower, I'd think.

 

Seriously, have you tried to get a player to divest his precious character of their armour? It's next to impossible, and if you hint that maybe they shouldn't be wearing armour for any reason their paranoia shoots through the roof. Just sayin, is all

[Markdoc]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

Seriously' date=' have you tried to get a player to divest his precious character of their armour? It's next to impossible, and if you hint that maybe they shouldn't be wearing armour for any reason their paranoia shoots through the roof. Just sayin, is all [/quote']

 

That's OK: I find dropping them into deep water immediately afterwards often has the desired effect. Even better, they have to cut it off themselves!

Seriously, though, PCs spend plenty of time crawling through small holes, swimming across water or climbing up and down sheer cliffs, etc. Enough failures due to being entirely encased in metal, and they tend to choose lighter, more practical attire for adventuring.

 

Amusingly, last weekend, we got an illustration of this. Our party is down dat ol' debbil dungeon and a giant animate stone statue is rampaging down a hall towards us, trying to crush us. Once it's obvious we can't actually stop it, I shout "Everyone run! Jump over the pit trap - it can't cross that!" Sigh. I'd forgotten that elves can't jump - especially in armour. The first two PCs go stompy-stompy-stompy up to the pit - clumsily try to jump across ... and fall in, plummeting 30 metres to the bottom.

 

cheers, Mark

[Gary Miles]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

Seriously' date=' have you tried to get a player to divest his precious character of their armour? It's next to impossible, and if you hint that maybe they shouldn't be wearing armour for any reason their paranoia shoots through the roof. Just sayin, is all [/quote']

I had a guy who would wear his plate-and-chain on a ship at sea! (Of course, I did have a kraken attack the ship. But still...)

[Narf the Mouse]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

...So it's the GM's fault!

[Storn]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

I've been doing a sword and sorcery campaign online of late. Called the Swords of a Dying Empire. The Actual Play report is here: (LoA) Swords of a Dying Empire... and we are about 10 episodes in. Using Legend of Anglerre as the ruleset.

 

Mostly, I'm doing the occasional map sketch that is barely serviceable to get the gist of the idea of where/what the party is encountering. And I just did a really quick sketch of two new, but important NPC allies.

 

thought I would share.

 

The Temple of Delleb, recent site of our anti-heroes attacking the Temple as retribution. Sorta Pyrrhic victory. Moving mazes of carnivorous plants, cultists performing sacrificial rites, y'know, typical S&S life in the day...

 

 

The City of Ahaan is the former Empire's capitol. The PCs just recently got there, trying to ascertain what the political mood was. But even more recently, run out of town for making things too hot.

 

The NPCs i mentioned...

 

And a sketch of the pavilion back of my house done for a party invitation. I just did it today and felt like sharing. Maybe it would be useful for a fantasy game as a merchant's pavilion or something...

 

 

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[KawangaKid]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

Here's an image (photoshop + sketches) from an artist named Andrew Drilon who is in my current group. It's my character back when was the favored mount of the shard Valder who was -- at the time -- leveled up to the Essential Savant of Bone.

 

[L. Marcus]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

And a sketch of the pavilion back of my house done for a party invitation. I just did it today and felt like sharing. Maybe it would be useful for a fantasy game as a merchant's pavilion or something...

 

 

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... Would that be classified as a Dire Gazebo?

[Storn]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

This was a bit of an experiment. I have a style/technique I use for interiors off and on, for grayscale printing. It is a combo of watercolor and liquid acrylic. I thought I should try and use it as an underpainting for a digital colored piece. I had this multi-figured private commission to undertake and thought this would be a good place to try that.

 

I've done underpaintings before, but using oil. Oddly, doing an underpainting in oil, I am much more shape oriented... maybe cause I can push the paint around after applying it down.

 

The "mistake" I made is that I used quite a bit of line in my underpainting, because it looks good for interiors... falling back into how I work for that context. But then I had to kinda fight those lines in the digital coloring steps. Some I left in. Still, I like the solidity of the figures against the more nebulous digital effects in the background. I like the texture of the watercolor here and there bleeding through. Gives some life to my digital stuff, IMO.

 

Next time, I will just try and keep to more shape oriented painting and really pick those lines carefully, so when I go to the digital steps, I am not having to "redraw" those lines or wipe them out completely.

 

 

[Storn]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

I went on a mini-honeymoon in the middle of the week. My wife, Millie, managed to trade some hours with other faculty (she is a professor of nursing) and all of a sudden, we had a few days to string together. We had gone to Puerto Rico, but it was mostly to visit family, Millie and I didn't have much time to ourselves.

 

Anyway, on the last day, under the grayest of skies, perched on a bridge that shook every time a truck went by, which seemed never-ending, I painted this quickie watercolor of the very full Hudson river. We stayed at the Lamplighter B&B in Lake Luzerne, a very nice B&B and this bridge was walking distance from the B&B.

 

This watercolor wasn't really planned, sorta a last minute thing, although I always bring watercolors with me on trips. I even used water from a mud puddle, so a bit of the Lake Luzerne earth is in this sketch.

 

On the way home, the flooding was pretty bad, forced off of Route 88 near Oneonta and had to go around 1 washed out bridge in the small town of Morris. Adventures on our honeymoon.

 

Well, enough of that, onto the art. Thought it would be fun to show y'all EXACTLY where I was via google maps. The "river" coming in from the side is actually from the man-made lake Sacandaga lake, ironically, created to help regulate the Hudson river flood control.

 

 

And here is what I actually doodled on that bridge...

 

 

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[DusterBoy]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

You were in a town called Morris, Storn? Awesome!

[Storn]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

Thought I would show a bit of behind-the-scenes on this entry. This is done for the Anonymous challenge over at ArtOrder. You can see other folks entries, as well as a link to the challenge itself here: http://theartorder.com/2011/09/19/anonymous-artorder-challenge/

 

Basically, we had to ape a cross between an anime and painted style that was used a lot in the Duelmasters CCG. NOT my comfort zone at all. But I did see that there is a lot of line in the original Duelmaster's art, combined with the digital painting stylings we see so much of in video game concept art. Again, NOT my comfort zone at all.

 

I do not do line on digital well at all... so I fell back on what I think gives a more live line, inking by hand. But since I knew that there was to be somewhat of a painting style, after inking and some erasing, I went back in with pencil to do just the hint of value shading... more like visual footnotes to myself while I went in and digitally painted. So... here is the ink/pencil scan... just so you can see where I was before the color hit the piece. I drew them separately, knowing I was going to move them around and get some overlap in PS. I also knew that I was going to have to finish the foot placement of the troll/ogre digitally, because I wasn't quite sure how he was going to get grounded... the "kitty" was easy, because he is leaping away and is airbourne. Reminds me a bit of Quinton Hoover's work, not as lyrical as his stuff, as I make marks the way I make marks (and he is so totally awesome!), but the strong ink line, backed with some lighter interior lines... similar vibe.

 

 

Then comes the color work, the background was entirely done digitally. It is an interesting "style", but I feel that it falls short of the Challenge, that to ape a particular style. I just don't have enough experience in doing something like that, but it was sure FUN to try!!!

 

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[Storn]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

A trio of private commissions. The Smilodon and the Type 5 demon futurized are both carrying over the technique that I did for the "kitty vs. ogre" just above. That of using pencil to shade on top of a minimal ink line. Then scan, color using mostly Painter, but some Photoshop. It takes a bit of time, especially the Type 5 Demon, which has a lot of fiddly detail. But I kinda like the solidity of it.

 

"Riley" was just my usual technique of digital color over pencil. Its not fantasy, but I'm lazy and leaving it in.

 

The Demon was also an experiment in warping textures for the snake skin. Btw, the Demon and Smilodon are both Death Tribble commissions. I like to give the guy credit for giving me so much work... and such fun concepts. I really liked doing the Type 5 Demon with a m60 machine gun (although, it is a tough gun to draw)... the m60 was specifically DT's request.

 

 

 

 

 

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[teh bunneh]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

Looks like the Type V demon isn't allowed to be shown on Photobucket..

[Enforcer84]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

Censorship!

[Storn]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

Well, photobucket blocked that illo. I thought the little magic, brass thingees on the nipples would suffice. Guess I was wrong.

 

Let's try this instead:

 

[DusterBoy]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

And she's firing that Pig one handed too! Crazy awesome!

[Storn]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

Next up calls for a bit of explanation. I did "Swords Defiant" several years ago in Genesis oils. It is one of the few illustrations I have done simply for myself. I had the pose idea in my head and I wanted to do it, so I did. It wasn't for a publisher or commission. However, Tim Gray of Silver Branch Games did eventually want it for his Jaws of the 6 Serpents RPG and so it became the cover... and I ended up running Jaws for a mini campaign of about 9 episodes and a very fun game it was too!

 

I don't think I've posted Swords before, or recently, Tim did point that I did not have it on my Photobucket. Turns out I did, on the very first page of 17, on my Photobucket, understandable how it could be missed.

 

Tim recently asked me to do a cover for the upcoming Serpents' Teeth, a Jaws expansion. We talked about a few different predone things I had kicking around...and one was a sketch i had done for the sequel to that Jaws game. A ninja-ish fantasy woman I had drawn for an NPC (who only appeared for in one episode). Tim and I also talked about it being a nocturne, to contrast nicely with the first cover. Yin-yang, day-night, desert-urban, male-female. So taking that base sketch, re-working the face (we didn't want a mask on her) and working in some urban elements, here is what you end up with.

 

Link to Jaws of the Six Serpents: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=60595&it=1

 

The initial character concept sketch:

 

The original Jaws of the Six Serpents cover

 

And the follow up expansion cover for Serpents' Teeth:

[Storn]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

I'm hoping to restart my skype rpg campaign soon. Link to actual play here:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?560517-(LoA)-Swords-of-a-Dying-Empire

 

So as a late xmas present to my players and a way to jump-start my own creative juices, I did pics of each of the player characters.

 

So, we've got the insane blood priest Boka, the demon possessed Damisk and the destroyer of a city, Galvanic.

 

With Galvanic, the character is based loosely on greek hoplites by the player... but I wanted to visually pay homage, but change it up enough to distant the visuals from a wholly greek look. I don't feel like in a fantasy world made up of lots of different influences and imagination, that a character should be EXACTLY based off of an earth culture.

 

 

 

 

 

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[Storn]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

Its pluggin' time. I've got a few projects that I want to talk about.

 

First up, my own LPJ Design Portfolio stock art keeps marching along. If you want good print quality and have need of art such as this one below (and the 3 fantasy pics I did for Swords of a Dying Empire earlier in this thread). So. Check it out and the other 11 Portfolios! And growing!!! I suspect the next portfolio will be superheroes. Not sure, but that is the way things are leaning.

 

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=98436

 

 

Next, a kickstarter program for Inkwell ideas, below is their marketing blurb:

 

Monster Stand-Ins are a set of 200 plastic card (same thickness as

most credit cards) miniatures of creatures for role-playing games or

war games or board games. Use them when you don't have enough

miniatures or don't have the right miniature. The plastic makes them

more durable than home-printed minis or even cardboard minis and you

can freely write on them with a dry erase maker. (Mark conditions,

hits taken, "Kobold #9" etc.) They are also more portable and an

organizer box is available as an option. If you pledge for a set, you

can order extras of any card in the set.

 

The project page is:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inkwellideas/monster-stand-ins-plastic-card-miniatures

 

Here is a sample of the art that I produced:

 

And in concordance with Stand-ins is a MASSIVE clip art treasure trove of monsters... with a dozen+ really awesome artists. I know that I'm getting a crack at doing Hobgoblins!!! Always fun stuff!!

 

Here is the Inkwell link to what they are doing and why and how it synergizes with the monster stand ins.

 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inkwellideas/1502958632?token=d654542c

 

Thanks for putting up with such blatant advertising. Hopefully, whetting appetites with a smattering of my art will make it okay.

[Storn]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

First up, another Death Tribble commission. This one is Skin Devil. Bodybrowser from Googlelabs was a huge help on this one. I think this one is really kinda creepy.

 

 

 

And here is the first of five for a fantasy adventure group... Always fun to try and make a big bruiser of a woman and still look like a female. Especially wearing chainmail. Not sure I succeeded... I *think* I have... but y'all have to be the judge.

 

[Storn]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

The Showgirl is another supervillain concept from Death Tribble. He wanted a demure costume if possible, but all the reference I could find had a lot of skin. She certainly is super doing a jump in heels... but hey, supers are fantasy. Do not try at home.

 

 

And here is another fantasy commission for the "party of 5". Fantasy takes a bit more time than the superhero stuff.... I used to think it was just because of the level of detail, folds in clothes, lots of accoutrements like bags, weapons, belts, buckles. But while doing this one, I came to think that it is also the different textures things are... so it is not just the bags, belts, weapons and buckles, its those things have different "feels" to them visually... or should. This one took a bit longer than I would have liked and I'm still feeling like it's missing something.

 

[Narf the Mouse]

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

 

Give him a boot-dagger.