Storn

My entry in the latest Ten Ton Studios weekly challenge;  The Riddler.

Remember, you can swing by Ten Ton Studios and see all the art and even vote on your favorite (hint: vote on mine, that would be nice), later this week (after 9 am Thursday till 9 am Friday).

So, my mother in law died last week, early Monday morning, to be specific.  Sad, but expected.  She was 80.  Much beloved.   I was in Puerto Rico for the funeral and just got back in last night, late.  But right before she died, I had done some artwork for commissions, the two superhero pieces.  
 
Happy accident time!  I totally had a dyslexic moment and the Honey Badger commission called for a male.  But in my brain, I thought I had read female and I drew Honey Badger as a woman villain. (It was the term "Honey" that threw me, so sexist of me).  The patron really liked it and didn't take me up on my offer to redraw her as a man after I found out my mistake.
 
I also really like the Cloud concept.  He is a shapechanging, digital entity who resides in the Cloud.  That is a scary concept, guess you have to lure him out to like rural-off-the-grid New Mexico or Canada in order to truly defeat him.  Good luck with that y'all.   
 
And I fooled around on a painted piece after watching Steve Prescott's painting video with heavy body acrylics.  After pestering Steve and asking a few questions about heavy body acrylics, which I had never used, I went and got a couple of tubes (burnt sienna, white, black).  I had doodled that drawing in my toned color sketch book and despite it being fairly thin paper, I went to town with the acrylics.  
 
The underpainting is the heavy body acrylic, but the color work was done with some guoache I had lying around.  Bottom line;  I really like the Liquitex heavy body acrylics, they stay wet a nice long time.  Easier to blend and mix.  So thanks Steve!
 

 

 

Here is the full team of the Victors.  

Holy Thread resurrection!

Yah... I'm back.  

Last night, RDU Neil and other sundry gamers such as I, started our Session Zero for Champions Now playtest.  Despite being hundreds of miles from Neil, the miracle of the intrawebs, discord, web camera and a head phone with a mike, allowed me to join my former gaming group.  Of course, I was doodling as we hashed out stuff, as is my wont.  Really, it is a compulsion.  I can't help myself.  Luckily I am pretty good at paying attention while doodling so Neil doesn't want to drown me in a tub of jello while holding 2 Hero 6 system books.  

Today, I colorized "Flanker", my new PC in the Champs Zero game.  We had a really great session and I'm looking forward to the game.  Flanker is a *slow* speedster (his top is around 175 mph, which is pretty slow for comics speedsters... but still ungodly fast) and a mini brick.  We are the U of M's very first super team, sponsored by the University to keep us from being kidnapped in the middle of the night by Federal shadow agencies that want supers.  My character was on the MIchigan football team as a wide receiver, (set up in the flank hint, hint), but can't play football anymore.  His running sometimes goes out of control and he would be in Ohio by accident.  I hint at maize and blue in the uniform, without aping the look completely.  

Maybe RDU Neil will post the 6 sentences that was contributed by all of us that is the foundation of the campaign.  So looking forward to this.  
 
Have I mentioned that I'm looking forward to this game?
 

Across 110th Street
 
Ten Ton Studios has their new weekly challenge up.  http://www.tentonstudios.com/forum/index.php?topic=10784.0
 
This week it is Misty Knight.  Now, I'm not a huge Iron Fist/Power Man comic book aficionado, but the very first thing I thought of when I read the challenge was Bobby Womack's amazing soul tune, "Across 110th street" (I've yet to see the movie, although I payed homage to the movie poster too.  Tunage here:  https://youtu.be/UOg_8hCC4u4).  I met my wife and lived in Spanish Harlem at the ages of 19-21.  I lived on E119th street, Harlem was close by.    
 
Watching Luke Cage on Netflix was like going home for me.  Luke Cage is my favorite Netflix Marvel show so far and I LOVED Jessica Jones and Daredevil.  I was a bike messenger and would often cut through Harlem from Spanish Harlem to pick up packages at Columbia University (and then bike downtown).  One time, I even delivered to the Apollo Theater!  That was a thrill.  
 
So I am paying homage to stomping grounds of my youth.   Now, I wish I could get some of those empanadas from 116th street.
 
pencil and inked on marker paper, scanned, digital colors 

Thursday night is my game night.  One of the other players is the amazing artist, Steve Ellis, http://steveellisart.com/.  We often talk art, share tips, what we are working on and the like.  This last Thursday, I came with a 1/2 sheaf of this thin yellow toned paper I had found at Hobby Lobby, because we both like working on toned paper.  To give to Steve so he could play with it too.  He, totally coincidentally, brought me a 1/2 sheaf of gray toned paper which had some tooth to it and some real thickness, like 80 lb or something.  
 
The yellow that i gave him  is really thin, only good for sketching, although the piece below that I doodled, was not inked, it did seem to hold up to some inking I did in the corner. I really like that yellow paper is not so dark that my prelim pencil lines are tough to see, which happens in anything nearing midtone paper.  But it is still dark enough that white pencil or white ink still is a viable way to work in the lights.   

 
I did two sketches (see below) Thursday night, one was of our actual player character, Xian Xiang, our diplomat turned spy turned ship captain in our Uncharted Worlds game.  And the hatchet guy.  I gave Xian to our player Mike and so the snap is with my iphone, the color of the background with this paper is much more french gray than the tan that the iphone picked up.  The hatchet guy was scanned this weekend and so it shows a bit closer what Steve's gray paper is like... but still came out a bit lighter and warmer than in real life, but it is off by only 5%.  
 
But Steve's paper has quite a bit of texture.  Which I don't love when I go with toned sketches to some kind of digital finish, because I tend to work with multiply and that texture can sometimes look crappy.  But because the paper was fairly thick, how would it stand up to acrylic paint?  Quite well, I think.  The paper did buckle just a small amount due to me using thin washes at time.  Steve Prescott (another fabulous artist: http://prescottartblog.blogspot.com/ who I happened to go to school with) turned me onto some heavy body acrylics of late and I'm enjoying them.  Can't wait to use them as an underpainting for an actual oil painting sometime soon.  


 
I love when art is play, because that is when some cool learning happens.  

Here is a doodle, I was experimenting with a very loosed pencil sketch.  I wanted to see if I could work with that when I went to the paint.   I tend, especially with fantasy, to be a "bit" tighter with the pencil work.  
 
But I was quite happy that it came out the way that it did.  The face changed a bit, now looking at it, I like the angle of the pencil a little better than the finished.  Although I like the paint application in the face.  Ah, I'm picky.  
 
This piece, plus 4 others, are my latest Fantasy Clip Art portfolio from LPJ Design, available here: http://lpjdesign.rpgnow.com/product/207458/Image-Portfolio-Platinum-Edition-39-Storn-Cook
 
The preview of the Portfolio wasn't working for a bit, but it is working now. 
 

 

Scimitar and Buckler, variant on Sword -n- Board.  Here is another lunch time doodle.  Going for some rich colors while trying to make it readable.  Hope I succeeded.  I like working in vignettes like this, with the negative space allowed to exist almost abstractly.  
 

I saw that!  
 
Hey guys, I've let this thread really stagnate over the last few years.  But I am back to full time art after 8 years of being at a 9-5 energy company doing marketing and forklift duties (wore a lot of hats).  I have been playing supers.  It has been our own system...but I've done a lot of art for our playtest and I thought I would drop some on y'all.  And that is just scratching the surface... I've got a lot more..  But let's see if folks enjoy this before completely saturating the thread.  

I saw that!  
 
Hey guys, I've let this thread really stagnate over the last few years.  But I am back to full time art after 8 years of being at a 9-5 energy company doing marketing and forklift duties (wore a lot of hats).  I have been playing supers.  It has been our own system...but I've done a lot of art for our playtest and I thought I would drop some on y'all.  And that is just scratching the surface... I've got a lot more..  But let's see if folks enjoy this before completely saturating the thread.  

I saw that!  
 
Hey guys, I've let this thread really stagnate over the last few years.  But I am back to full time art after 8 years of being at a 9-5 energy company doing marketing and forklift duties (wore a lot of hats).  I have been playing supers.  It has been our own system...but I've done a lot of art for our playtest and I thought I would drop some on y'all.  And that is just scratching the surface... I've got a lot more..  But let's see if folks enjoy this before completely saturating the thread.  

Your art is always welcomed Storm.

I saw that!  
 
Hey guys, I've let this thread really stagnate over the last few years.  But I am back to full time art after 8 years of being at a 9-5 energy company doing marketing and forklift duties (wore a lot of hats).  I have been playing supers.  It has been our own system...but I've done a lot of art for our playtest and I thought I would drop some on y'all.  And that is just scratching the surface... I've got a lot more..  But let's see if folks enjoy this before completely saturating the thread.  

Across 110th Street
 
Ten Ton Studios has their new weekly challenge up.  http://www.tentonstudios.com/forum/index.php?topic=10784.0
 
This week it is Misty Knight.  Now, I'm not a huge Iron Fist/Power Man comic book aficionado, but the very first thing I thought of when I read the challenge was Bobby Womack's amazing soul tune, "Across 110th street" (I've yet to see the movie, although I payed homage to the movie poster too.  Tunage here:  https://youtu.be/UOg_8hCC4u4).  I met my wife and lived in Spanish Harlem at the ages of 19-21.  I lived on E119th street, Harlem was close by.    
 
Watching Luke Cage on Netflix was like going home for me.  Luke Cage is my favorite Netflix Marvel show so far and I LOVED Jessica Jones and Daredevil.  I was a bike messenger and would often cut through Harlem from Spanish Harlem to pick up packages at Columbia University (and then bike downtown).  One time, I even delivered to the Apollo Theater!  That was a thrill.  
 
So I am paying homage to stomping grounds of my youth.   Now, I wish I could get some of those empanadas from 116th street.
 
pencil and inked on marker paper, scanned, digital colors 

Yup.
 

Here is Hope.  She is the daughter of my longest running hero, Vector and her mom is Oracle, from Champions of the North.  Her grandfather, Ultraman is a superman clone and her grandmother, Lady White, is a light based character.  Her dad disappeared after a massive alien invasion and Hope grew up on Mars which was being terraformed by Vector leading up to the invasion.  

It was really, really cool to play this optimistic, legacy kid... very different than her intense, weight of worlds on his shoulders, father.  Her powers grab a bit from all of her relatives, except for her father's telekinesis ability... just because I played Vector for 25 years and I didn't want to play a teke again.  

Hope is part of the New Pioneers, a group that has come together in the efforts to rebuild the home planet.  The blue sleeve represents her birth planet, her red, Mars and the white is an ode to her grandmother, Lady White.  


Hope.pdf

I think her personality & appearance is well depicted in her pic.  And as for power/tactics, I let anyone who wants to play her to come up with their own.  She is a light, flying brick.  But she is spread out, jack of all trades, master of none.  

Here is Hope.  She is the daughter of my longest running hero, Vector and her mom is Oracle, from Champions of the North.  Her grandfather, Ultraman is a superman clone and her grandmother, Lady White, is a light based character.  Her dad disappeared after a massive alien invasion and Hope grew up on Mars which was being terraformed by Vector leading up to the invasion.  

It was really, really cool to play this optimistic, legacy kid... very different than her intense, weight of worlds on his shoulders, father.  Her powers grab a bit from all of her relatives, except for her father's telekinesis ability... just because I played Vector for 25 years and I didn't want to play a teke again.  

Hope is part of the New Pioneers, a group that has come together in the efforts to rebuild the home planet.  The blue sleeve represents her birth planet, her red, Mars and the white is an ode to her grandmother, Lady White.  


Hope.pdf

Here are a few of mine, the first one is my actual Player Character.  

Thanks Trencher!  We are on holiday hiatus, but hopefully, I will get to draw a couple more when we start up in January.  

Here are a few of mine, the first one is my actual Player Character.  

Thursday night is my game night.  One of the other players is the amazing artist, Steve Ellis, http://steveellisart.com/.  We often talk art, share tips, what we are working on and the like.  This last Thursday, I came with a 1/2 sheaf of this thin yellow toned paper I had found at Hobby Lobby, because we both like working on toned paper.  To give to Steve so he could play with it too.  He, totally coincidentally, brought me a 1/2 sheaf of gray toned paper which had some tooth to it and some real thickness, like 80 lb or something.  
 
The yellow that i gave him  is really thin, only good for sketching, although the piece below that I doodled, was not inked, it did seem to hold up to some inking I did in the corner. I really like that yellow paper is not so dark that my prelim pencil lines are tough to see, which happens in anything nearing midtone paper.  But it is still dark enough that white pencil or white ink still is a viable way to work in the lights.   

 
I did two sketches (see below) Thursday night, one was of our actual player character, Xian Xiang, our diplomat turned spy turned ship captain in our Uncharted Worlds game.  And the hatchet guy.  I gave Xian to our player Mike and so the snap is with my iphone, the color of the background with this paper is much more french gray than the tan that the iphone picked up.  The hatchet guy was scanned this weekend and so it shows a bit closer what Steve's gray paper is like... but still came out a bit lighter and warmer than in real life, but it is off by only 5%.  
 
But Steve's paper has quite a bit of texture.  Which I don't love when I go with toned sketches to some kind of digital finish, because I tend to work with multiply and that texture can sometimes look crappy.  But because the paper was fairly thick, how would it stand up to acrylic paint?  Quite well, I think.  The paper did buckle just a small amount due to me using thin washes at time.  Steve Prescott (another fabulous artist: http://prescottartblog.blogspot.com/ who I happened to go to school with) turned me onto some heavy body acrylics of late and I'm enjoying them.  Can't wait to use them as an underpainting for an actual oil painting sometime soon.  


 
I love when art is play, because that is when some cool learning happens.  

Here is the full team of the Victors.  

Here is the full team of the Victors.  

Here is the full team of the Victors.