The Jabberwocky: Phase 5-details and global lighting

Here's just the long rendering process of finishing all the shapes i started. I start by using a large airbrush and filling in areas of light and dark, then, after the light sources are fixed I just go from form to form and add the appropriate lighting. I also add a frimulous bandersnach with a spiral snout under the hero just as little something to add some life the forest. This part is by far the longest and I tend to put on a podcast, and just fall into a groove. Call it 'combing the flea' or 'mowing the lawn' or whatever, either way it's detail-oriented, systematic and can be a little boring if you don't have enough decisions to make, but can also be very therapeutic.
(12 hours total)

The Jabberwocky: Finished!

Here's the final image. I place the text back in, tweek the colors and rework the values a bit then i go galumphing home!

Ironhills Scout

I think I'm WAY to excited about the upcoming Hobbit movie. I've recently reread the book, I listen to the audiobook at work, I'm dreaming about Mirkwood....and so the sketch today: One of Dain's soldiers during the battle of five armies. This is a light troop, armed with a simple scale-mail hauberk and cloth. He wields a battle-mattock and a small dagger.

Rajah, Effrit of the Wastes

Finaly got my scanner on line! original is 14X17 and was a snap to import.

This is just a little character that poped into my head while on the train. She's a poor caravan girl who made a dieing pact with an Effrit which inhabits her body. She lives in a cave made from desert glass that she created with her flames. She wields weapons scavenged from the corpses of those unlucky enough to encounter her in the remote dunes of the wastes. Her blades are charred black from soot and her clothes are little more than singed rags. Her body is covered in fine scales.

(Pencil, Hi-Lighter, colored pencil, Prisma-color markers, 1.5 hrs)

The Tomb of Martin

It's been a while, but rest assured that I have a backlog of sketches that I will post when my new scanner comes online, till then here's a digital sketch to tide you over.

This is an image dedicated to the recently departed and much loved Brian Jaques, who's tales of Martin the Warrior shaped much of my childhood ideals of honor and bravery. Though never written in one of his stories (Martin is said to have died of old age) I decided to show the old champion of Red Wall laying in state, above him a relief of his victory over the wildcat Tzarmina. Where Martin and his greatsword, cast adrift on a tabletop amid the flooded plain of Mossflower, drove the evil tyrant into the cold arms of that which she feared the most: a watery grave. With her death a realm was finally established for all good creatures of the forest. And even though Martin would die, as all living things must, his spirit remains as a guiding light for future generations that live, strive and build upon the dreams he first laid down.

Saporling!

 

A quick speed painting of an old subject: the little plant creatures know as Saporlings! So cute with it's little bark covered talons and eyeless sockets :D

(Photoshop, 1 hr) 

Dragon Rider

Another b/w RPG character portrait today.
(Photoshop, 2.5 hrs)