Muddy Colors

I was recently invited by Dan Dos Santos to be a contributer to Muddy Colors, an illustration blog featuring articles by many of today's most influential illustrators. Many of these illustrators have impacted my own work a great deal, (Manchess, Donato and Jon Foster among them) and I look forward to their posts tremendously.

My own posts will focus on some of the topics and discussions that have gone on previously at Quickhidehere, such as the digital vs. traditional articles, as well as some new topics, which I lay out in the first post. If you have any special requests for articles or demos that you think might be interesting, let me know in the comments. I'm still coming up with my list of posts for the next few months, and I'd love to hear what you think.

Today marks my first contribution to the blog.

Check it out at MuddyColors.blogspot.com

Lovecraft Show: Oil

Lovecraft in Innsmouth

9 x 12

Oil on Panel

Lovecraft Show: Oil Underpainting

This is still wet (hence the pencils protecting the scanner glass). The underpainting was done in Holbien Duo water miscible oils with Raw Umber and Ceramic White on panel.

Lovecraft Show

I was recently asked by Gallery Nucleus to contribute to a show based on the writings of H.P. Lovecraft called At the Mountains of Madness.

Lovecraft's writing is generally themed around a character's mind slowly descending into madness as they learns too much about the truth of existence. This usually involves sleeping, malevolent, primordeal terrors who dwell forgotten in the depths of the sea, but who will one day rise again to destroy their planet. Lovecraft is wonderful for his use of this imagery in these stories. He has a nack for catching the horror of the deeps and the darkness and the unknown.

There was a wealth of really great, dark and horrific visuals to pull from for this project, so it is perhaps odd that I chose to go with the image that I did for this, which isn't really all that dark or horrific on the surface.

As always, I began with a dozen or so thumbnails of various ideas. Primordeal terrors, leviathans, dead fish walking the streets, giant-tentacled-schoolbusses-of-doom, that sort of thing.

But in the end, I found the thumbnail above to have the most personality.

From this crude thumbnail I went straight on to the digital comp below.

I work on comps like this one as fast as possible in Photoshop. The above image took about an hour or so and I worked from the tiny obscure thumbnail at the top. The point is to get down the basic composition and mood that is in my head as fast as possible. I want to catch the image in my head before its gone, or before some new disaster strikes and I am pulled from the studio by air raid sirens. I also don't want to get caught up in the details here. I hate to retread the same ground twice and would rather save those details for the final execution of the image.

Sketchbook 2010: On Sale Now

I am very pleased to announce that my Sketchbook 2010 is finally on sale.

The art inside the sketchbook, some of which has been appearing recently here on the blog, is all developmental drawings related to a larger story that I wrote a while back but have never been able to fully finish as a full narrative.

The Sketchbook is being sold by Gallery Nucleus. I love these guys. Along with selling great sketchbooks, they put together what are for me some of the most interesting shows and panels going on right now. They make me wish I lived closer to the California. The Sketchbook is 32 pages, each is signed and is priced at $14.95. Check them out here.

I recently contributed to their Terrible Yellow Eyes show at their gallery, which was curated from Cory Godbey's project of the same name. I will be contributing to a few other shows in the future, the first based on Lovecraft and his writing, and the second based on the Harry Potter novels. I am really excited to have a chance to contribute to these as both of these writer's highly imaginative works have been very inspiring for me. So unless I am eaten by a giant sea monster or undead frog-men I plan to start posting some work-in-progress shots of the Lovecraft inspired images in September.

Check out the Gallery's full list of upcoming shows here.

Sketchbook 2010

Sketchbook 2010: The Strength to Break the World

Sketchbook 2010: Skies of Albion Sketch

Sketchbook 2010

Sketchbook 2010 and the San Diego Comic-con

The San Diego Comic-con is slowly creeping up again this year, and in observance of long-standing tradition, I am completely unprepared for it.
So for the next month, while I am busy panicking about getting myself together over here, I will be posting up some of the developmental images from some of the stuff I'll be bringing.

The first few posts will be from Sketchbook 2010 with the later posts focusing on developmental work for the prints I will be bringing.
As with last year I will be sharing a booth with Cory Godbey, who is bringing an entire monster truck full of new work. Along with all new stuff to show, we are excited to be up in the Fantasy Illustrators section this year, and not off in the demilitarized no-man's land from the previous 2 years. I love this new section, both because now it won't require a gps, a troop of monkeys and a local interpreter for you to find us, but also because it is in the very heart of the action. Around Donato's and the Spectrum booths you can see amazing demos and check out what the best artists in the world have been up to during the year.

Orcs, elves, Boba Fett and armies of the undead, I am really excited to be in the thick of it this time around. Come visit us at booth #4616!

Tor.com LoTR vs The Hobbit Post

Gorbag of Mordor

I recently contributed to an article on Tor.com written by Irene Gallo on which of Tolkien's stories illustrators found most interesting for subjects to illustrate.

This is of course, a little like asking if one prefers chocolate chip cookie dough, or baked chocolate chip cookies. But there is an interesting difference in the two that begins to rise to the surface when you begin to discuss it.

The Hobbit is told from the viewpoint of a charming and not altogether reliable narrator in Bilbo, and the Lord of the Rings feels like it is told from the viewpoint of several different poet-historians who are not as given to the same vagaries of imagination as Bilbo. Because of this I find that the Hobbit allows a little more creative expression, especially in regards to the monsters. (And I love monsters who are just a little human.)

But The Lord of the Rings changes that, and the monsters there, are indeed monsters with only rare instances of humanity. But the humans there are deeper, and there we find the issue flipped, where now we find humans, who are just a little bit monster. Especially as they deal with matters of sons dying, or addiction. This too makes for an interesting vantage point to work from. Donato in particular writes that he finds that there are more opportunities that reveal the compassion and humanity of the characters in the Lord of the Rings, and so it presents a greater source of inspiration for his work.

Its an interesting article with contributions from Howe, Nasmith, Donato, Bosma, Adolfsson, Hickman, Kaluta and Miller.

The Minotaur

"Know thee well, that thou shalt never leave this place alive."

Study no. 2 from Theseus and the Minotaur

8 x 10

Oil on Panel