Necromancer Teaser

Just a little teaser on the new painting I'm working on right now. I don't want to upload hi resolution WiP's on this one until it's finished. I don't want the WoW factor to dissipate. This small teaser should be enough to keep people excited.

Female time

And by that I mean time to draw some female characters. I'll start with a female Necromancer, then move on to a female Hunter/Archer type. Each of these will feature a pet. The Necromancer with a wicked looking Skeleton warrior and the Hunter with a massive cat. And here we go!

Champion of Boethiah

"Boethiah is the Daedric prince who rules over deceit, conspiracy, secret plots of murder, assassination, treason, and unlawful overthrow of authority. This is his champion. No living soul knows the truth behind this legendary figure. Some say his origins began within the Dark Brotherhood, but that his ambitions quickly dwarfed that of his organization. They say he became the ultimate assassin through the sacrifice and absolute betrayal of his brethren to his master Boethiah."

Created as an emotional response to the lack of any truly intimidating assassin styled armor in the game Skyrim. I have the itch to play as an evil vampire/assassin, but none of the light/leather armor in the game even comes close to the aggressive look that I think is needed for such a character. So I created this. My vision of a great player villain.

Centaur Death Dealer

"Among the deafening sounds of steel meeting steel upon the battlefield, wind becomes as a rhythm of hoofs and stone. Death comes swiftly and surely for all who would face the Centaur Death Dealer. He is the mightiest of all Centaur warlords. His victims are struck with awe. Awe turns to fear, but he is not without mercy. He shows it in the form of release from the mortal coil by his twin cursed blades."

Centaur Death Dealer was created due to the recent influence I received from the game Skyrim. It's not Fan Art because there are no Centaurs in the game, but the fantasy "kick" is all derived from the same source.

The True Dovahkiin

Created November 2011. Prior to this design I was in the "armor and magic" mood. A frame of mind brought upon by the game Skyrim. It's not that I was spending a lot of time playing the game... Ok, I really was. The shear scope of the game itself, the potential for true role playing unlocked an area in my brain that I didn't know existed. Suddenly ideas for my own interpretation of things that are within the game started to manifest through my artist's hand.

Here is one of those such pieces. It's called True Dovahkiin, mostly because I felt the Dragon Armor in the game left something to be desired and I thought of my own Dragon Armor. Maybe one day (if I learn sculpting and 3d modelling I can make this guy in full 3D)

Character sketching

Gonna do some character sketches today. Some fantasy themed warrior types, maybe some Sci-Fi ones too. Not sure what the focus is, but first I gotta do some research. Time to bust out my art books and look at artwork of such characters by other artists.

Mobile Mechanized Artillery Unit

Created on November 2011 for the Gnomon Workshop forum art challenge of that month. I used quite a lot of references for the machine and soldiers. This was a lot of fun.

National Geographic Animals

Thanks to my bud Naj Osmani for recommending the obvious. I can't believe I never thought about it!

National Geographic has a website of animal photographs. Looks like I just found a great source for reference. I'm going to have to download them, just in case something happens and the pictures get removed from the site for some reason.

Exo

A redesign of an older piece I created for the Exo project. Here I made a lot of changes to the armor and weapons. Kept some of the overall style intact. Added a background and color. This scene is meant to communicate a desert deployment.The background was a photo I got from google images then painted over. In the original photo the ground had snow and there were cars, so it's heavily modified at this point. Hope you guys enjoy!

Jes Armor Concepts

Created in July 2011. My first Sci Fi armour/mecha designs since I worked on the Exo game project at the Art Insitute of Las Vegas last year. The name Jes comes from the model on the Imagine FX DVD photo I used as a reference. These concepts could fit into the Exo universe, but as of now they're just random concepts inspired by recent artwork I've been drooling over. Thanks to all the Mecha artists out there.

The Art Order

Reading ImagineFX issue 076; the "Rising Stars" issue. There's a great article called Work your magic. It's about career tips for artists. This article has introduced me to John Shinderhette, senior art director for Wizards of the Coast; a company I wish to work for. I may not be ready for such an opportunity yet, but it gives me incentive to continue practicing. Jon says that he finds most of his artists through his website art challenges. That's a reassuring thought, considering I've been participating in ImagineFX, The Gnomon Workshop, and CGHub challenges. I'm adding The Art Order, Jon's site, to the list of challenges I will make sure to participate in. Until I land the "dream gig" I need to continue to participate and make sure my art is seen by as many eyes as possible.

Now, off to do some anatomy studies. I tasked myself with expanding the environmental art for the unannaounced project with Evil Tree Studios. Things are moving at a very slow pace with the company and I need to prioritize my time with a focus on strengthening my weak points; seeing as how I don't design much environmental art, I decided that's the area I will focus on this week.

Found a new fave.

I just discovered a new artist to add to the favourites. Mike Kim. He's done work for Wizards of the Coast and other companies I desire to work for as well. He's an amazing painter.

Waiting on you Wacom...

I just finished tweaking the last of my recently scanned sketches, preparing them for my Flick'r sketchbook album. The quantity is depressing. There are so few sketches it makes me feel like I'm totally dropping the ball in that area. I really need to step it up. I just wish I had a portable digital sketching solution. I own a Wacom Cintiq interactive display and always fantasize about that platform incorporated into a nice tablet style PC. I would absolutely love that! I'd take it with me everywhere and sketch using Painter X.

So I'm going to make an effor to sketch at least 2-5 sketches every day. I'm going to start that today. For now I will be sketching images from movies I'm watching, or books I'm reading. Their not going to be exercises in ideation so much as an effort to keep my hand moving in an artistic manner.

Death's Carriage

I created this on October 2011. It was for the ImagineFX forum art challenge of the same month. The theme that month was "Death." The winner of the challenge gets his/her image in the magazine. With this design I wanted to create something I had an idea for a long time ago, but also stick along the lines of "character" concept painting. Something that could be used in a video game development pipeline. I'm relatively happy with the end result here.

Spider Man 2012

Created in June 2011 for the ImagineFX forum art challenge of that month. The theme that month was "insanity." I was disqualified from the challenge that month for not providing the links to the WiP's properly, but I did win image of the day with this design and was invited to be featured on the ImagineFX DVD that is bundled with the magazine. I'm still not sure when the DVD will be released or if I even met the deadline with providing the designs, but I subscribe to the magazine and check the DVD's every month.

Lipstick Face

This is a 45 minute speed painting I created in April of 2011, after watching the horror movie Insidious. I was absolutely creeped out by that film. It actually reminded me what it was like to be 6 years old, afraid of the dark. A feeling I cherish, at my 29 years of age. When I came home from the film I was compelled to create my own rendition of one of the characters from the film. I won't spoil anything, but if you haven't seen the film the you absolutely must.

Monkey Business

Created in August 2010, as a gift for a colleague I used to work with at the Art Institute of Las Vegas. I was a student worker in the career services department while I attended school there. My friend told me how she had always requested various students to create this concept she had. I was able to pitch this design as a project for one of my classes and killed two birds with one stone.

ProtoType

This was created some time near the end 2009. It's a poster designed to promote the album ProtoType, by ProperDose (my old band). This designed served two purposes; A poster that doubled as album art. I created it so it could fold up neatley and allow graphics for type to be inserted allong the certain sections of the left wing.

I also created the artwork on the disc itself.

Magtheridus

I created these in June of 2011. They were my entry for the DeviantArt Rift: Create a Colossus contest. I had only just finished Battle at Iron Fortress when this conest was announced. It was pretty funny that I do a Rift fan piece only to be drawn into a Rift art contest less than a week later. The design above is a cinematic painting. The creature, the colossus Magtheridus, is not meant to be clearly visible here; he is meant to be an imposing force that the two figures in the foreground are doomed to face.

This is a modeling sheet I created after the color concept, below. It was my first modeling sheet. I didn't have instruction as to the process, cut I think it turned out well. What I know about modeling sheets is they are part of a pipeline in game development. They are meant to show clear sides of a subject for 3D modelers to create a mesh to be used in games or cinematics. I hope one day someone with modeling skills will realize this character; or perhaps I will learn some modeling software and do it myself. That's definitely something I want to do eventually.

The original concept for the creature. I usually create my creature designs this way before investing too much time into dynamic paintings. This allows my art director time to fine tune the design as well.

World on Fire

I'm not sure when I created this, but it was either right before or after the album Prototype, by my old band ProperDose, was released in 2008. This piece was created after the song World on Fire. I think it speaks for itself regarding subject matter. This is more fine art than production art, but it's still one of my favorite and earns a spot on my blog.

Influx of recent design posts

Hey everyone! Just so everyone understands. The images I'm uploading (will show up mostly in the month of October of 2011) are not mostly new. Some are; 2 of them, in fact, were created for art challenges in October. All the rest are a few months if not a year or two older. I'm only uploading artwork that I consider portfolio worthy. They will remain for the sake of understanding my progression as a concept artist. I still have a lot to learn.

Also; the images aren't being uploaded in any particular order. I'm just going down the list as they appear in my folder; alphabetically. I will do my best to include dates when the designs were created.

Thanks for being patient. I'm kind of new to this whole blogging thing. I'll get better at it.

Cyber Chimera

This piece was originally created as a sketch marker sketch in April of 2011, original sketch in 2010 sometime. I was flipping through my sketchbook one day and had a sudden urge to take one of the scribbles to another level. It's actually something I should do with my entire sketchbook. I have quite a few sketches that could potentially become great pieces.

I didn't find the sketch on my computer so I'll have to re-scan it, then I'll update this post with that image. I'm also going to create a Flick'r account and upload all my sketches there. I'll add the link to "MY PAGES."

Celestial Bodies

These images were first published in September of 2009. I don't remember when I created them. The image above was designed when I was first introduced to the art of Greg Martin. He is still one of my favorite artists. This piece was done step by step with one of his photoshop tutorials. I should see if I can find that tutorial and make a new Celestial Piece. It's been a while.

This piece was created some time after the one above, but still within the same window of a few weeks. I was experimenting with lighting and positioning of the spheres relative to the major light source.

Battle at Iron Fortress

I created this piece in May of 2011 as my first official video game fan art. It's based on the game Rift. I was really loving that game for a couple months. I'm relatively happy with the way this turned out.

Here's a detail shot of the primary focal point. I used some motion blur on the skeleton to infuse some extra energy into the piece.

This detail is showing the secondary focal point. Another "high energy" area of the piece. This is probably my favorite part. I love using lightning effects in photoshop.

Sci Fi Race Track

I created this piece in October of 2011. It was my entry for The Gnomon Workshop October 2011 forum art challenge. The theme this month was "racetrack"

My goal was to create a futuristic Sci Fi race track. Too often I see Sci Fi illustrations as dystopian and quite frankly depressing. I wanted show a type of beautiful Sci Fi getaway; Can I get a little Fhloston Paradise up in here?

I used various photographs of Thailand for reference and texture.The track itself was inspired by Hot Wheels toy tracks I used to play with as a childe (Who am I kidding... I still play with them).

The vehicle was inspired by one of my favorite video games; Wipeout. I do, however, have to give credit to one of my favorite Sci Fi artist's; Alexander Iglecias, aka flyingdebris, as I used his design, Hover Racer Thingy, for reference. It's not a 100% replication of his design, but without it I think I would have had trouble finishing my piece.That's it. I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I enjoyed working on it!

First Post

Hello everyone. I'm at my day job right now so I can't really post anything worth reading.

This blog will be where I will upload my artwork and chronicle my journey through the world of illustration. I am not a professional illustrator, not yet. I have a job that pays bills, but my dream job is to become a successful illustrator.