Spheria, Vaydria, and Vashat

I'm doing some character illustrations for a group of friends I made at the Tucson Comicon. I met Todd VanHooser there and he has created his own RPG called Adventures Under the Laughing Moon which you can find here: http://www.toddvanhooser.com/todd1_052.htm.  He also is writing books based on the lore of his game! I find that really cool that the game came first and then the books.

Anyway, this is Spheria, Vaydria and Vashat

Two oil paintings: 'Field of Flowers', and 'Columbus and Broadway'

So I've stuck with the palette knife and these are my two latest incarnations. I took the photo for the first one just before leaving San Francisco. The second one was taken during a backpacking trip in Colorado near Pagosa Springs. 

My newest oil painting of dusk in San Francisco! I'm including some close-ups so my knife strokes can be seen. I'm experimenting with making my strokes expressive and creative. I'm excited to be doing this and getting away from strict realism which I find laborious and lifeless. It turns out that means leaving brushes behind entirely!

Three new oil paintings! I'm very happy to show these because I had to stop oil painting for some time while I moved back to Tucson. I was also quite busy with digital painting commissions for awhile there!

The street painting is a view down Union Street toward Van Ness in San Francisco--you can see I'm still experiementing with my style--trying to use some lines in this one. If you don't know what I mean by lines, look closely and compare the paintings, or just ask me lol.

The cactus I believe was taken by my Aunt here in Az, and of course we know where the red street car was--the Embarcadero.

As I said, I'm still trying to find my painting style despite having been at this for years. I'm excited to try something new right now and I will post asap!

Another book cover which I am proud of. I love the colors of this one. This mermaid is half sea-lion--making her all mammal and probably more realistic! Thank you to Todd Shryock who was a pleasure to work with. 

I'm very proud of this next painting! It's for an RPG called Heroes against Darkness. I'm also posting a couple sizes of wallpapers that were requested. Put one on your desktop if it strikes you!

Wallpaper 1200x1950

Wallpaper 800x1300.

These next two posts are for the ArtOrder challenge known as the 'Art Test'. Check out the ArtOrder here http://theartorder.com/. I highly recommend checking it out because it's written by a leading art director of Wizards of the Coast, Jon Schindehette. Furthermore, he frequently posts challenges such as the art test and it's an invaluable source of getting your work seen by some important people in the industry(if it's really good lol). 

And here is the link to info on the art test--http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Feature.aspx?x=dnd/feature/dndarttest

This is my City Guard. 

And here are my wips and final for the Soldier for the same art test challenge. This one took a LOT of wips and it did not come easily. I had to try many different ideas.

Tonsil Yeti CD

This is the cover(front and back) for TONSIL YETI'S first CD! They are from Flagstaff and a pleasure to work with! We did many roughs back and forth, and I guess they had an epiphany. The airship took shape. An airship being driven by a drunken(still drinking) yeti, and a crew tormenting a businessman that is hanging on for dear life with a bomb tied to his ankle. The album is titled A Bomb and a Bull.

Whill of Agora

This is a book project I was proud to work on recently. It was for a book published through CreateSpace which is called Whill of Agora. Look for it! I read some excerpts and its very well written. I hope to work with the author more in the future.

Imagine FX page!

Yes, I got some validation for my hard work! I submitted some artwork to Imagine FX magazine a couple months ago. Someone emailed me and told me he liked the blurb with my artwork. I didn't even know I was in the magazine! I would have never known if he didn't email me. Shout out to Wayne from Yorkshire :D

My blurb was about how I believe its never too late to become the artist you want to be, and I encourage everyone to do what they need to do to make it happen. Get your dreams! I recommend starting at conceptart.org. Its a terrific website with all of the tutorials, forums, and helpful members that you would ever need. I am Artfix on conceptart.org. Send me a friend message and I'll tell you where to go on the site :D

Here is the mag page. Its issue #78--page 13--the art nouveau issue.

Time Assassin CHOW

Finally an update! I have been BUSY which is a good thing. I had some good commissions this last month. I also squeezed in a CHOW from conceptart.org. This is the Time Assassin. He's from the future, and he's come to the wild west to assassinate someone and hopefully make the world a better place in his time by doing so.

Here are the wips(works in progress)

This first wip is what I came up with out of my head. I realized the pose was weak/stiff/unconvincing and I needed reference to improve it.

So I shot some pics of myself in my room doing this pose and it added a lot to the gesture of the pose. You can tell he is reacting to something behind him, and he's got his hand near his gun holster.

I overlayed some stuff from a google search I did for "steampunk machines".
This is the final image. I made the light behind him pretty orange, and the blue from the monitor is the complimentary color to orange. I rarely use complimentary colors because they are very abrasive opposites. They should be renamed to uncomplimentary colors IMO.