Opposable Thumbs

High Adventure Role Playing Fantasy Illustration Preview

2012-02-08T02:21:00.000-08:00

Well, I said I had some interesting news to share last month, and here it is. Guild Companion Publications(GCP) are replacing quite a number of the artworks in the original "High Adventure Role Playing"(HARP) core rules book. And within this new book there will be a total of nine new illos by yours truly. And just to give you a sneak preview of whats to come, Nicholas Caldwell(sole director of GCP) has graciously agreed to let me show some images in the upcoming book. I'm unaware of any release date for the book but I'll keep you posted when I know. Anyway, here they are for you viewing pleasure :D

Warrior Mage

Changing Ways

HARP sci-fi books in print and up for sale!

2012-02-03T21:29:00.000-08:00

I recently received my complimentry books of HARP sci-fi and HARP sci-fi Xtreme. In the first book I did 50 b&w illustrations, and for the second book I did 11. It has been a long wait to see this finally come to light, but it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside to actually see my illos in print! After working on those two projects, I can see that I've past a couple of milestones in my drawing skills. I look back at some of those illos and wish I could improve/redo them...but I guess everyone goes through that.

Last of 2011 Thumbs

2012-01-29T02:57:00.000-08:00

Well it's been awhile since I've posted here but it's not to say I've been slacking around. I've been rather busy doing a batch of illos that I will announce the details of next month. Anyway, here is a bunch of thumb concepts from last years sketchbook. I hope to start another painting soon, I've been itching to smear paint everywhere:D

Exhibition

2011-11-30T03:53:00.001-08:00

From the 30th of November 2011 to the 15th of January 2012 my painting "Dragon Emperess" will be displayed in gallery 2 of the Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery. The theme for the exhibition is called "Cracked".

Colourful Thumbs

2011-11-18T03:57:00.001-08:00

Its been awhile since I've posted but I haven't been lax in drawing everyday. I've been preparing a painting for an upcoming exhibition which I'll let you know about very soon.

Easy like a Gnomday morning

2011-09-08T00:58:00.000-07:00

ArtOrder Story Extraction Challenge: Fireaxe.

2011-08-26T22:22:00.001-07:00

Well, it's finally finished, and I have to say I really enjoyed doing this one. I've learnt heaps again...more so what not to do, alway trying to fail better next time. ;D
Anyway, I hope my works in progress has enlightened you in some way and that you've enjoyed the journey as much as I have. Cheers!

ArtOrder Story Extraction Challenge WIP 6-7

2011-08-26T22:06:00.000-07:00

I have finished off the womans details and I have let it dry for day or so. Now comes the interesting part of adding the stars. Knowing that the white paint that I have is slow drying and the deadline was very close, I decided in the end to use goauche. I had a brush that had some thick bristles, I think it's used for craft glue. Anyway, I masked up my painting with some ordinary baking paper with cut away areas....see below. I then watered down my gouache a little dipped in the brush and used the handle of another brush to fling the paint around. Have to say it was over in no time and the effect looked really good. I then used a soft make-up brush dipped in water to clean away any unwanted stars. I used a really small watercolour brush to add in the blank spaces to eleiminate any black holes.

ArtOrder Story Extraction Challenge WIP 5

2011-08-22T00:59:00.000-07:00

I put in quite a few hours on the weekend and got alot done on the womans face. There's still much more to go on her and the mans face before they're done. I know it's not a very good shot of it but hey, I'm not a good photographer ;) The deadline is approaching fast and I think I'm going to invest in some cobolt drier to speed things up next time round.

ArtOrder Story Extraction Challenge Flesh Pallet

2011-08-19T01:30:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd show you what I meant in my last post about the paint strings. Here is the photo of the pallet I'm currently useing for the male head. On the right is my value stick, something I made for myself some time ago. On the left is the globs of Grey, Yellow Ochre, Terra Rosa. In the middle is my paint patches to try and get the values right. The left paint patch is of Indian Red which I'll most likely use for lips nose and ears later on in the process. Trying to find the value of a colour is something that I've yet to achieve with remote success. With my reds above I have found I'm a little off the mark after looking at them through photoshop, my Yellow Ochre appears to be right....at least that's something I guess ;)

ArtOrder Story Extraction Challenge WIP 4

2011-08-18T03:05:00.000-07:00

So here's the latest update. As you can see I've done quite a bit on the insect-like ship. I decided to go with a green metalic colour scheme. I'll wait 'till the ship is totally dry before I attempt any further painting. While waiting for the lower part to dry I started painting in the males head. I laid out globs of paint in value strings of 1,3,5,7, and9. In those strings I have Yellow Ochre, Terra Rosa and Grey.

ArtOrder Story Extraction Challenge WIP 2 - 3

2011-08-06T20:32:00.000-07:00

At this stage I bended the background more trying to ease the space into the sky, I'm still not satisfied how it's going and will work on it more once it's dry.

I've decided to add the the snow in and play around with the elements that make up the lower scene. I added Magenta, Cyan mixed with 50/50 Titainium White and Lead White for the shadow of the snow.

ArtOrder Story Extraction Challenge WIP 1

2011-08-04T01:57:00.000-07:00

Here I've started laying in the first layers of colours. First off, I cover the board in Translucent Cyan and rubbed out the areas I wanted to show white. I'm useing Cresent illustration board whith a few coates of gesso. Next I started the really dark areas with Ivory Black and Prussian Blue. I still need to lay in more dark areas so that it merges with the sky better.

ArtOrder Story Extraction Challenge

2011-08-03T00:52:00.000-07:00

Over at ArtOrder there's a challenge which interests me to the piont of giving it a go. I've chosen to do the sci-fi Fireaxe challenge, which I might add will be reviewed by Irene Gallo the art director of Tor books. So I did quite a few thumbnails to flesh out an idea. Below are some of the ones I did for this challenge.

And finally I arrived at this sketch. I droped the idea of the helmets as I have no reliable prop or reference to make it believable.

Last Thoughts of You

2011-07-22T20:58:00.000-07:00

A long dead space marine holding a hologram projector of his wife and new born child.

Serra Angel

2011-07-22T20:39:00.000-07:00

My Precious!

2011-07-03T13:46:00.001-07:00

Long black hair

2011-07-03T13:42:00.000-07:00

Fighter pilot

2011-06-29T02:45:00.000-07:00

Kitty Mars

2011-06-23T01:45:00.000-07:00

Hansel and Gretel

2011-06-23T01:41:00.001-07:00

Fuelin' Up

2011-06-08T01:05:00.000-07:00

Annunciation

2011-06-06T03:36:00.001-07:00

Tiara of the Phoenix

2011-05-30T02:04:00.000-07:00

Here's another gouache I finished last night. It's 4x6" on 300gsm w/c paper.

Girl in Poncho Thumb

2011-05-30T01:56:00.000-07:00

One I did the other day, couldn't help myself with the coloured pencils :D

Paperface Thumb

2011-05-25T03:23:00.001-07:00

And here's another from today.

Paperface Thumb

2011-05-24T01:40:00.000-07:00

Vulture

2011-05-23T03:55:00.000-07:00

Here's another gouache study I did last night.

Paperface Thumb

2011-05-23T03:51:00.000-07:00

I was a little unproductive last week but here's another "paperface" from our local newspaper.

Still Life Thumbs

2011-05-14T23:46:00.000-07:00

This is some childs plaything that attaches to the end of a pencil...what the heck do they call those things anyway?

Just love these old wooden dices.

Monkey, monkey, monkey!

Ok, so this ain't a still life but his face made it on the front page of our local newspaper. I love the wrinkels and large nose and ears of the elderly...such character in thier faces!

Eowyn and the Nazgul: Finished

2011-05-14T23:24:00.000-07:00

So here is my effort for the Artorder challenge. Have to say I did learn a few things while doing this painting.
My outlook on how to increase my skills and knowledge about painting has change also. Trying to learn to paint on your own is a pretty hard slog, and knowing which direction to take can be a mystery, or illusive to say the least. But as they say 'painting is an old man's trade" so I'll keep gnawing away at it...no matter how long it takes. Anyway, I have a few experiments I have to try out soon with my paints, so keep watching and I'll post them in the near future.

Eowyn and the Nazgul: Almost done.

2011-05-14T23:21:00.000-07:00

Well, at this stage I'm really close to the deadline so I'm doing my best to get most of it done.

Eowyn and the Nazgul: The Background.

2011-05-09T01:34:00.000-07:00

Well, it's that moment where I throw on the colour. I have to admit I was starting to worry as I wasn't sure if I knew how it would look but throwing caution to the wind I kept at it. There was one stage I wasn't sure how to blend the dark clouds into the blue sky and decided to leave it for awhile. When I was outside feeding our animals, I looked up and studied the clouds for a bit and found my answer there, doh!

On my preliminary drawing I added in Minus Tirith to work out the perspective and placement. Once done, I used tracing paper to transfere it over onto my painting. I dry brushed some raw umber on the back of the tracing paper and then carefully placed it over my painting. I then ran a pencil over the lines which left small traces of raw umber lines of Minis Tirith...wahlah!

So here I've started on the Nazgul's wings...and still a long way to go.

Preliminry Sketch for Eowyn and the Nazgul

2011-05-07T05:36:00.001-07:00

Here is the preliminary sketch for the Eowyn vs. the Nazgal. As you can see it looks a little bare without the details but I'm not concerned at this point, as I can add that later in as I go. The main compositional elements are there for me to begin.

The next step is to take my drawing and transfer it to my oil sketch paper(Canson). I'm fortunate to have a huge light box which was an old cigarette advertising display. I've had this packed carefully away for several years untill I had room to put it somewhere, now it's in my "studio"...if you could call it that :D

The last step before the real fun starts is the underpainting. Here I use burnt sienna, I've always used this because I love it for it's warm undertones, especially under flesh colours.

Lion's Pride

2011-05-04T00:33:00.001-07:00

Maquette of the Nazgul.

2011-04-27T03:49:00.000-07:00

For the body of the beast I used a heavier guage wire and twisted it like I did the wings. I then just bent the wire to what I thought was close to the thumbnail sketch and started adding plasticine for the body shape. I then bent the wings to shape and stuck them to where they should go.

As you can see I made a mini horse maquette too.

I cut some black material and glued it to the wire...not an easy task! After that I brushed on some retouch varnish to the material to stiffen it up some so it could hold its shape.

And it's all done!

Maquette of the Nazgul.

2011-04-26T04:00:00.000-07:00

As my previous post describe about the art challenge regarding Eowyn and the Nazgul, I decide to make a maquette based on my thumbnail sketch. I did this so I can obtain an accurate understanding of the lighting effect and a basic foundation of the actual winged beast. The materials I used were copper wire, kneadit (a two part epoxy putty), and plasticine. Below are some progress shots I took along the way as I made the wings. Next post I'll show you the following stage.

Eowyn and the Nazgul

2011-04-20T00:16:00.000-07:00

Recently over at Art Order there's an art challenge themed on the confrontation between Eowyn and the witch king Agmar from the Lord of the Rings novel(the details of the challenge are found here).
There's some pretty big names judging this challenge in which they're are giving out "rewards"for those artists that impress them the most.
Originally I wasn't going to worry about this challenge as I haven't bothered about those challenges presented in the past from Art Order. But doing my usual daily doodles, I must have had it play at the back of my mind and this thumbnail sketch sort of came up out of nowhere. Considering the deadline is the 15th of May which will come round quick I'm sure, I'll have to get organized if I'm going to attempt my first challenge. Anyway, if real life treats me kindly in the next month I'll probably have some interesting things to show you all.

Nymph Reflections

2011-04-20T00:09:00.001-07:00

Here is another postcard art in gouache. I'm finding that this medium would be good for colour studies for larger projects. Still, there is a far road to travel before I could say that I'm at least proficient at gouache. I still prefere it to watercolours and a lot more than acrylic...blah! ;)

The Hive Cluster

2011-04-14T04:45:00.000-07:00

The Visitors

2011-04-14T04:43:00.000-07:00

Spitfire

2011-04-07T03:18:00.000-07:00

Red Riding Hood

2011-04-07T02:52:00.000-07:00

My family and I were at our local art store and my wife showed me a Daler Rowney's watercolour postcard pad. She suggested that I give them a try. I was a little apprehensive about it as I have not like watercoulrs...or is it the other way round;) Anyway, I used gouache instead as I've heard its easier to work with. I did a pencil sketch and then seal the graphite with some Crystal Kote spray. One thing that I didn't like is that the postcard warped quite a bit. The paper is A6 100% cotton at 300gsm.

A Sketchbooks End

2011-04-06T04:36:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally finshed one of my sketchbooks. I take this to work every day and doodle in it in my smoko break. I thought I'd show you what it actually looks like.

Trecherous Reef

2011-03-28T03:18:00.000-07:00

I bought some watercolour Postcards the other day and thought I'll do some thumbs in that dimension (100x148mm) for practice. Once I'm ready, I'll paint a few to be sent through the post, should be interesting how they'll survive the journey...shall have to see in due time. I guess you could call it Postart ;)

Delta's Duel

2011-03-28T02:21:00.000-07:00

Here's a mock sci-fi coverart which I'm just experimenting with composition.

Go-Girl

2011-03-24T01:59:00.000-07:00

Gunship

2011-03-24T01:58:00.001-07:00

Quiet Times

2011-03-23T14:02:00.001-07:00

Pegasus in Flight

2011-03-23T13:52:00.001-07:00

Terminal 8

2011-03-18T02:52:00.000-07:00

The Fairy

2011-03-18T02:51:00.001-07:00

The Navigator

2011-03-18T02:45:00.000-07:00

More Thumbs

2011-03-15T03:04:00.000-07:00

Smells Like Orc!

2011-03-06T02:32:00.000-08:00

Ooodles of Doodles

2011-02-25T01:11:00.000-08:00

Capt. Hook Portrait

2011-02-23T01:58:00.000-08:00

My wife had bought an old ornate oval picure frame which had been guilded in gold. She found it at the local op-shop for $4, What a bargin!!! Even though some of the gold has worn off, it is still a very nice frame. She reqested that I do a portrait painting with a victorian theme with curly hair. So in the end I decided to paint Jason Issacs in the character of Captain Hook from Peter Pan. I wanted to paint in a more painterly style this time round so it's a little different how I would normally paint. I enjoyed the challenge of this one and I hope you enjoy looking at the result.

Some Doodles

2011-02-19T18:55:00.000-08:00

The Crown is Dead, Long Live the Crown!

2011-02-01T00:21:00.000-08:00

"Aurigas Aldebaron LLC, owner of Iron Crown Enterprises and all its intellectual property, announces the appointment of Guild Companion Publications Limited, based in the United Kingdom, as the licensee for our High Action Role Playing (“HARP”), Rolemaster and Spacemaster game systems, which is in addition to the recently awarded license they hold for HARP Science Fiction system and the long-running Shadow World setting."

Although this was announced a little while ago I thought I'd post it, as I have been illustrating for GCP for quite some time now. I'm confident that GCP will advance more prosperously than its predecessor.

You can read more here.

HARP Sc-fi is in Store

2011-01-18T23:43:00.000-08:00

Well folks here it is. At the moment it is in PDF. format but is soon to be out in print. You can get your copy here.

The Messenger

2011-01-15T19:04:00.000-08:00

Red Riding Hood thumbs

2010-12-23T23:54:00.000-08:00

The Eye revisited.

2010-12-22T02:08:00.000-08:00

I've been thinkng of making this thumbnail into a large painting to see how far I can go with what I know in painting. A little more research and sketches... and hopefully I might pluck up the courage to get on with it!

Framed and Finished

2010-12-21T22:36:00.000-08:00

I've finally finished my study portrait of Olga and she now hangs on our wall. All in all I was pleased how it turned out, and from this exercise I'm confident to start my next one shortly. For those that have followed along, I hope you enjoyed the process of this W.I.P as much as I have.

Fridged Exodus

2010-12-16T03:48:00.000-08:00

The top right image was the first of this batch and I dec ided to keep with the theme.

Feast of the Unicorn!

2010-12-13T23:44:00.000-08:00

My wife happened to pass by while I was doodling and saw this one of the unicorn. I happened to explain that it was about to be goblin food..."Nooooooo, you can't do that!" she said,"They're beautiful and peacful creatures!"
I replied, "But goblins gotta eat too!" Wife walks off muttering something about it not being right :D

Olga study #8

2010-12-13T02:39:00.000-08:00

After finishing the ear and neck I let it dry for a couple of days before I started the hair...just in case I needed to make adjustments. For the hair I used a mix of English red, Burnt Sienna and Raw Umber(I made about four value strings from that mix).

The ear and neck is completed.

Five Thumbs

2010-12-09T03:20:00.000-08:00

Farewell Mr. Squiggle

2010-12-07T02:44:00.000-08:00

Norman Frederick Hetherington a.k.a Mr. Squiggle has passed on to his reward at the age of 89.
Mr. Squiggle was a major part of my childhood and I can remember the squiggles my mother did for me to draw from...and now I do it for my kids.

Farewell to the man from the moon!

Olga study #7

2010-12-03T20:31:00.000-08:00

I premixed my paint colours in seperate strings with a total of five values. It took me a couple of hours just to do from the jawline to the forehead but I'm happy with the results. I used several brushes of the same type, my main brush used here is a 1/8th Neef 988Taklon oval. For the lips and eyes and slight blending I used a 000 Neef 225 finest sable round. And for the major blending on her cheek and jaw I used a 4 Fracheville 200 Talkon. I'll add some pics of them at a later date.

Here's a closer look.

Olga study #6

2010-11-30T02:24:00.000-08:00

Here's the first lay-in of colour. I used a mix of yellow ocher, vermillion red and flake white for the base or local colour. I used translucent cyan for the cooler areas around the eyes, nose, neck and around the lips. The lips and ears I used some english red. It's still at a rather rough state but as I add layers of colours in over time, it should(hopefuly) start to look a lot better.

Here's a closer look.

Olga study #5

2010-11-27T00:30:00.000-08:00

The painting is dry enough for me to at it with a razor and give this girl a shave ;) This is the razor I use to scrape down my paintings. One thing that you have to do with a razor for this kind of job is to make sure that you round the corners of the blade.. or you'll risk giving your work more than just a shave.

You don't have to press hard to get the lumps and bumps off, just use some common sense(practical wisdom folks!) and keep the blade flat against the surface and you should have no problems.

Olga study #4

2010-11-27T00:13:00.001-08:00

At this piont I've added the background and started on the t-shirt. In hindsight I should have used 100% titainium white instead of flake white and a touch of titianium white for the brighter areas but I'll work the t-shirt more later. The background colour is a mix of old different coloured paints that I scraped from my pallet into one blob I call slops. While wet I used a touch yellow ochre deep to fleck through it to add a bit of pizazz!

Olga study #3

2010-11-24T01:01:00.001-08:00

Here is the final underpainting. I'll let this dry for a day or two and then I'll scrap it back with a razor to take off any small lumps of paint so that the surface is once again smooth..

Olga study #2

2010-11-23T01:50:00.000-08:00

Here I've started adding my values in flake white and burnt sienna. I'm just adding paint rather loosly and not overly concerned with it looking smooth...that's for later on. I'm just concentrating on the face at the moment and I'm not worried about the rest of the painting just yet.

Olga study #1 WIP

2010-11-22T02:05:00.000-08:00

Here is the begining of a head study of Olga Kurylenko that I'm about to attempt. I put up some grids in pencil and painted the head in Burnt Sienna with a small fillbert. I used turps to take away any unwanted paint. this is the first time I've use this method before...so I'll see how it all goes.

Four Thumbs

2010-11-19T00:21:00.000-08:00

"Siren"

2010-11-18T23:54:00.001-08:00

This is just a personal piece I did recently.

The Big Thumbs

2010-11-16T02:50:00.000-08:00

Ok, I thought I'd post a few of my older sketches that are a little bigger than my usual smaller thumbs I do. Some of these are my favourites to date.

"Unauthorized Personal"

This is by far my favourite of all. One day I'd like to turn this into a painting.

"Temple of the Dogs"

"Ring City"

Did this on a piece of foolscap paper while on my smoko break...of course!

"Resolving Hostilities"

"Leda and the Goose"

"Wurmblade"

Thunmbnails

2010-11-11T18:44:00.000-08:00

I get a lot of enjoyment out of doing thumbnail sketches. I start off with just a small size of about 2.5"x 3.5", I then just lightly make some abstract lines and curves here and there until I see an image develop, even turning the page around helps the process. I don't plan any of the images and they all basically form themselves over time. You could almost say that it's like laying on the ground looking at the clouds in the sky and picking out shapes to make an images of a cat, cow, or three headed dog etc.

Trials, Errors and Crossed Fingers!

2010-10-16T05:05:00.000-07:00

"Northern Breeze" 9"x 11" Oil on Canson paper.

It's been a long while since I've gotten out my oil paints, so I feel a little rusty. Anyway, I thought I might post a few photos(poorly taken) of the process for this one below.

Preliminary Sketch.

First Wash.

The Underlay.

The Background.

The Midground.

The Character.

And Finished!

Sci-fi Xtreme

2010-10-08T03:34:00.000-07:00

I've been given the go-ahead to show a few pieces from the upcoming HARP SF Xtreme suplementry RPG book. In this book I did a total of eleven illustrations, enjoy.

"Installing Cyberware"

"Uploading Personality"

"Kat's Eyes"

It's all Sci-fi.

2010-08-15T02:11:00.001-07:00

"Dillentante"

Here is one of the fifty interrior illustrations I've done for the upcoming HARP SF core rulebook that's to be published by Guild Companion Publications Limited(Yep, it's a mouthfull alright!). What is this book your asking me? Well, HARP SF is short for High Adventure Role Playing Sci-Fi. So if your into sci-fi roleplaying, then I suggest you look out for this book which hopefully be on the shelves later this year. I am currently working on the supplementry book named HARP SF Xtreme. I hope to share works from that book in the near future as well.

"Elementalist"

2010-07-06T02:44:00.000-07:00

Here is a recent commission I did of a player character, the client was very happy.
It's been a long while since I've updated this blog but I have been busy illustrating amongst other things. I hope I can update it more regulary. More images are soon to follow ;)

"Avian's Rest"

2009-07-25T00:50:00.001-07:00

"Oil on A3 MDF"

It has been long process with this painting but I'm rather happy with the results.

"Baroness"

2009-04-23T03:07:00.000-07:00

"Oil on A4 MDF"

Here's a little something I did the other week. Originally, I was just going to paint the face of this somewhat thirsty woman but during the preliminary stage I started doodling and the scene below became part of the whole image.

"Delta Online"

2009-04-17T04:32:00.000-07:00

"Oil on A3 Canson paper"

Here is the latest coverart I did for the Guild Companion Publications. The Guild Adventurer #3 was released this month and I'm very happy with the artwork I did on this one; six in all, the cover and five interior illustrations(one being a watercolour!) You can purchase the magazine and previous issues at the following links.

Ironcrown Enterprises

RPGNow.com

Your Games Now

If you do purchase any products from GCP please be sure to leave a review!

Enjoy!

A Taste of Happiness

2009-04-14T00:51:00.000-07:00

"Oil on A3 Canson paper"

Well, just about every one is searching for that little piece of happiness in thier life, some find it and some are still searching. Question is...Do you know what it is?

Welcome one and all to my blog! Here I'll keep you up-to-date with my latest arty projects, mussings and what have you.

Enjoy!