Between projects

Well, this marks the last of the illustrations for Sons of Liberty, which means I'm officially between projects once Joshua rubber stamps this one. I've got a few in the lurch, but in the mean time I'm kind of at a loss for what to apply my artistic energies to next.

At any rate, the last illustration is of Francis Marion, aka "Swamp Fox". Apparently there was a Disney show about him that I completely missed either because I was oblivious or because I'm too young. Whichever.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, even if I loathe doing one point perspective.

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I figured since I have time to work on my own projects, I might as well finish that illustration for Thou Art But A Warrior that I've had kicking around for a Dog's Age. All that was really left was to finish putting in yummy patterns.

I didn't go as hog-wild as I would have liked to, but only because I plan on putting in a background that will probably have tile work. I'm beginning to think illustrating my own book isn't so much about achieving high production values cheaply as it is about getting a chance to draw pretty Islamic patterns.

But hey, it's all good.

I'm happy with how it's turning out, even if I'm kind of angsting that she might be too white. Hmm.

Wrapping up some projects

So things have been busy the past few weeks. Things have been wrapping up with the script-writing committee that I'm on for the play come February - we have to be done by Christmas. But I've still been getting some work done here and there.

There was a bit of a lapse, but I did get the second to last Sons of Liberty piece done. I wound up being happy with the result, despite the crazy challenge of perspective that Joshua's description entailed.

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The following two images were the last two revised images done for Ben Lehman's upcoming game Drifter's Escape - which, incidentally looks like it will be a super-interesting game.

I've got a few more potential projects in the wings, but after I get Sons of Liberty and Drifter's Escape lined up, look to see more art from that webcomic I might do someday and from Thou Art But A Warrior. Now that I've gotten people to play some playtests, I have fodder for illustrations.

Grey Ranks, horrible shit part 3

I might write more about our last session later. Right now, the last session is just too raw.

Enjoy some drawings from the last session.

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The comic I'll some day draw

Whenever I find myself between projects for other people, I drag out one of my own projects. (I think my priorities might be a bit backwards, but oh well.)

One of the ones I've had kicking around the longest is for a webcomic that I will some day actually start producing. I've been planning it for two years, mostly because I know that any artist + writer combination is doomed, since the writer inevitably quits halfway through, the artist has to keep writing, and the comic jumps the shark since they don't know where to go from there.

No thanks. I'd rather do all the prep work up front.

Anyway. Here's something experimental for the comic that I may some day finish. It of course will contain elves, because if I'm going to draw millions of drawings, I want them to be of elves dammit. (I know fantasy comics are a dime a dozen. I don't care. Mine won't suck.)

More finished artwork

It's been a few weeks since I'd done any serious art-production, and there was sufficient impetus to want to distract myself from other matters. So I've been working on finishing some unfinished projects that have been kicking around a bit too long.

I dusted off the illustration that I've been working on for Thou Art But A Warrior. I changed it around, since my initial drawing was completely incorrect, historically speaking. It still needs work - the sword needs finishing, there are spots where the colors overlap, the color of his hands doesn't quite match his face. But overall, I'm really happy with how it's going so far.

I'm still thinking about whether or not to do a background. My gut feeling is that it will need at least something simple.

Something else for Ben. I had fun with the wacky perspective.

Life interferes with art

Things haven't been terribly conducive to art lately, what with a few personal crises conspiring to destroy my productivity. In particular, one of our rats - Hippo - was very sick and needed a lot of attention as we tried to nurse her back to health.

Sadly. We weren't able to nurse her back to health.

I did the following letter for Ben's upcoming game, Drifter's Escape, as an attempt to distract myself. It turned out well, considering I've never owned a dog.


And because I can, here's a picture of our rat Hippo - the world's tiniest and fuzziest hippopotamus, and the only rat I've ever known to jump three feet straight up. She was the smartest, and the weirdest, of our rats. And I miss her.

Here's to you, hippo. I hope wherever you are they're giving you lots of yogurt drops and peanut butter.

Thou Art But A Warrior illustration, continued

I've been continuing to work on the illustration that I started for Thou Art But A Warrior. Since I did the drawing, I discovered that the boring armor I had drawn was about 150 years out of date. Hooray! Which means I get to do something much more awesome. It doesn't look awesome now, but it will.

Getting the skin tones right is something I have been really self conscious about. I played around lightening and darkening out of paranoia about not having euro-centric illustrations. The last thing I want to do is white-ify people.

Eventually I came to the conclusion that there's no way to know what skin tone the native Spanish people had before interbreeding for several centuries with Moors and Arabs and just sampled photographs of modern Spaniards. It's a compromise, sure, but it's the best I can do.

I'm loving coloring this, because I get to go crazy with rich colors. And I'm going to add awesome patterns. Woot.

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I'll continue to update as I make progress. I've got a lot of other stuff on the go, so work on this is going to be pretty sporadic. And I'm holding off on other illustrations so that I can pirate material from what my playtesters come up with.