The Princess

 Sometimes I get an idea in my head... 

This was done as a companion piece for The Prince (which I did back in August)

The Princess

28cmx35cm (11x14) - Ink on Paper

I may have been a bit overzealous with the blood spatter on this one... 

Character Portraits - Wüd Kutr and B. P. Hovercraft

The final two characters for the Mutant Crawl Classics game Finnegan is running for me and a few friends on Monday. 

Wüd Kutr is a pure-strain human gatherer. 

Wüd Kutr feels like he was destined for greater things. He comes from a long like of gatherers that forced him to follow in the family tradition. but he always wished he could be a HUNTER! So, he chose to gather the hardest, heaviest, most difficult things he could; trees. 

Bartholemew Pantaloon Hovercraft  is also pure-strain human gatherer.  

B.P. is the "brains" of the operation. He's the one that's convinced his friends to join him and to strike out from the village and to try and prove themselves in a way that could elevate their position within the community and become something MORE than the simple Hunters and Gatherers that society had pushed them to accept as their lot in life. Maybe Wüd could become a Sentinel? Maybe B.P. could become a Shaman or Healer? 

Character Portrait - Sweet Pea

 

This is Sweet Pea. 

Sweet Pea is the first in a series of portraits I’m working on for characters in an assortment of role-playing games I’m playing in or running this fall, some in-person, one online. 

This one is a character in the Mutant Crawl Classics game my son Finnegan will be running this coming Monday. Sweet Pea might not survive the first adventure… With both Mutant Crawl Classics and Dungeon Crawl Classics, players generally roll up 3-5 completely random level zero characters and then they go through a “Funnel Adventure” wherein MOST of them die brutal and horrific deaths. Those that survive (ideally, one per players) are truly the stuff heroes are made of and instantly level up - to Level One! If I was smart, I might have waited to see who survived the “funnel adventure” and just made portraits of THEM… but this one seemed too fun to NOT make a portrait of. 

Sweet Pea is actually a mutant parasitic sweet pea vine that has entwined itself around and within and completely taken over the body and mind of a human host. It seems it can only say “Sweet Pea”. Somehow the others understand that to mean a great many things… The host is slowly rotting away, but the flowers make them smell pretty. Eventually, when the host expires, Sweet Pea will leave them, creeping and crawling across the ground until they find a new, unsuspecting victim host, usually one that is sleeping and won’t be able to put up much of a fight until it is much too late… 

Most of the portraits are going to be drawn in a small sketchbook I have, but I decided to do this one on a larger, separate sheet of watercolour paper. The picture ended up a little flat, though - background too dark, not nearly enough contrast… Ehhh… whatever. Done and moving on… 

Next will be Hunter S. Hashpipe - another in my group of adventurers for Mutant Crawl Classics. 

The Prince

 

The Prince

28cmx35cm (11x14) - Ink on Paper

Lately I’ve been kind of obsessed with the art of Eric Orchard (@Inkybat on Instagram and Twitter) I LOVE the miles and miles of hatching that creates both dynamic texture and value in his drawings. It kind of reminds me of what I was trying to do in some of the early minicomics I did in the mid 90s (except, y’know far more practiced and way better executed and… with COLOUR!) Got me thinking I should have a go at doing that again… 

The picture kind of just popped into my head last night and I thought about staying up stupid late and just doing it then and there… but it was already FAR TOO LATE and despite worrying I’d COMPLETELY FORGET the idea, I woke with it still in mind, and so that’s what I’ve been doing all day… The image in my head shifted to something very plain to something inspired by Vladimir Giurescu (from Hellboy) to something more like the denizens of Ulfenkarn from Warhammer Quest: Cursed City when if finally ended up on paper. 

(which reminds me… I should FINISH PAINTING THOSE miniatures and actually get around to PLAYING THE GAME!?!?) 

I had fun with this. I don’t HATE it, I may play around with this some more… 

I'd like to do character and NPC portraits like this... If I ever got around to playing Role-Playing Games again...

December - Part Two

 Things slowed up here over the last week or so... I've done a bunch of rough sketches of ideas... but they were kind of all over the place and I couldn't stay focused enough to manage to turn many of those ideas into finished drawings or paintings.

Here are a few things I did get to... 

Process picture of work on Daemon Prince Garzongdong - another portrait of a character in a game I play. 

GARZONGDONG - Daemon Prince of Slaanesh.

(30cmx30cm, Ink and Watercolour on Paper, December 2020)

Garzongdong was once a captain in the Emperor's Children Space Marine Legion (32nd company). After the fall of Horus, he led what remained of his company around the galaxy in the relentless pursuit of all manner of excesses. They cared not where the currents of the immaterium took them, on that there were worlds for them to burn and plunder and bathe themselves in all manner of indulgence. After a thousand years of such debaucherous pursuits, the Dark Prince rewarded Garzongdong with Daemonhood.

Daemon Prince Garzongdong leads my Warhammer 40K Daemon and Emperor's Children Chaos Space Marine forces. If it looks a little like the old Keeper of Secrets model.. well.. it's because I'm USING an old Keeper of Secrets model as my Daemon Prince of Slaanesh (as the old Keepers of Secrets model is about the same size as the current Daemon Prince model, and the newer Keeper of Secrets utterly dwarfs the previous model - over twice as big!)

(he might just show up in the Wrath & Glory game I have been running.... y'know... when we get back to playing that...)

I did a little thing... there was so much enthusiasm amongst my friends on Facebook for the Dinovember 2020 drawings and paintings, that I thought I'd make a few calendars for those that wanted them. Amanda makes photo calendars for our folks and my sister every year, I though possibly I could do the same, but with the pics I took of all the Dinosaurs. So I put a post on Facebook, collected pre-orders until the first and then ordered the 30 I needed (I sold 26, then there was one for me, folks, sister - who are all getting TWO calendars this year - one with dinosaurs, one with pictures of the kids. 

I also sold off most of the originals - at least the ones that were on separate sheets of paper - not the ones I did in my sketchbook. 

It was a fun little project - but ended up taking up a lot of time - messaging back and forth and keeping track of who ordered how many and laying out the calendar and placing the order - and then a LOT Of anxiety over how it was going to look (it ended up looking pretty good - much, MUCH better than the worst possible fears - which is where my brain always goes!). 

Back to prairie landscapes for a day (or maybe two)....

Cows and Clouds

(25cmx20cm, Watercolour on Paper, December 2020)

Wasn't happy with this one. 

Added a dinosaur. 

It didn't help.

The next one - process. This one I actually used a photo reference (a picture I took myself while out on a bike ride in the country side a few years ago). 

Cows in a Field

(25cmx20cm, Watercolour on Paper, December 2020)

I actually painted this for Amanda's mom. I posted it on Facebook and tried changing the permissions so that her mom and sister wouldn't see it.... then I moved it into an album with all my other art. Apparently, when you move pictures to a new album, Facebook changes the permissions for the picture to that of the album... so she saw it - and commented on it. I didn't mention in the post that it was for her, but it's not going to be as big of a surprise. At least she said it was "[her] kind of painting".  

Zilla and Ringo Meet a New Friend at the Park.

(20cmx20cm, Ink and Watercolour on Paper, December 2020)

Another surprise for some friends. Not going to make the mistake of posting this anywhere - well, anywhere people actually LOOK at things. I ALMOST posted it to Instagram - then realized one of the couple I painted this for is a follower (though I don't think she's ever liked or commented on anything I've posted on Instagram... still... not going to take the chance). I feel pretty safe posting things here as I'm pretty sure NO ONE is even following this blog anymore - the few views this one gets are redirects from my OTHER blog. 

Going from the early dino illustrations my sketchbook (ink drawings, coloured with watercolours), to the dinosaur paintings on paper (just watercolour), to character portraits (ink drawings, coloured with watercolours again), to the cow paintings above (back to just watercolour), to this painting/drawing above... I've come to realize I think I prefer using watercolour to add colour to what are essentially ink drawings - rather than strict watercolour painting... 

More Cows

(29cmx29cm, Ink and Watercolour on Paper, December 2020)

I think I'm done with cows. Not sure what I'm going to do with this one. It was kind of the back-up plan painting if the other one didn't work out (started painting this before finishing the first). The first is okay and was smaller and easier to parcel up - and, in fact, WAS parcelled up before this was even finished - so there was no real options to send it off if it DID turn out "better"... 

What next? 

Back to character portraits?

I don't know. Guess we'll see what tomorrow brings. 

December - Part One - Character Portraits

 I wasn't really sure what I was going to do this month, but I thought I'd start off December doing some portraits of characters from role-playing games I've played. 

(for MORE Game Nerdery, see my GAME BLOG) 

Here's what I got up to the first week... 

This is VX-923 - an Adeptus Mechanicus Lexmechanic played by my friend Randy in our (currently on hiatus) Wrath & Glory game. This was a lot of fun to do and got me really pumped about playing again - maybe in the new year... or... maybe SOONER!?

I actually painted this at the end of November, but it kind of goes with the rest of these, so I've reposted here as well.. 

Indebted 79 - a Death Cult Assassin.

This is Jonathan's character for our Wrath & Glory game.

Tempestor Castus von Traggenstein

Another character portrait from our Wrath & Glory campaign. Sole surviving member of his unit of scions was offered the Emperor's Peace or a life of service to the Inquisition. He wanted answers about what happened to his unit and figured the Inquisition might provide them...

Basillius - Sanctioned Psyker - or so everyone tells him... apparently, at some point in his career, he saw something that he really shouldn't have, but the inquisition figured he was too valuable an asset to have him eliminated, so they ordered a memory wipe. But the memory wipe was a little TOO effective and he completely forgot that he is actually a sanctioned psyker... hijinks ensued.

This is Christian's character for the Wrath & Glory Game. Christian always comes up with just the craziest characters for every game he's played in.

one of the initial sketches for Christian's Character - this is Christian - I wanted to based the character portraits on the actual players, to some degree. I'm actually pretty happy with this... I hate it when I nail it on the first sketch, and then NONE OF THE OTHERS LOOK RIGHT!? 

Without glasses. 

Considering poses and other stuff - I had considered a tattoo or brand on the forehead... but then... didn't...

My current workspace. I've been doing these on Strathmore 400 Series Mixed Media Paper - which I cut to an 11x11 square and tape down to a board. I've just started working on this paper - I was a little anxious when I did my first wash on one and the paper buckled a LOT - which caused a little pooling. Much to my surprise, however, once it dried, it went right back to being flat!? 

This is the last of the group - Ivan the Inquisition Acolyte. I painted this one back in October, but thought I'd include it here again, so they're all in one place. It was done in my sketchbook. I may have to redo it now that I've done these others on good paper... 

I've had a lot of fun doing these, an will probably continue with more throughout the month. There will probably be a focus on Wrath & Glory and other Warhammer 40K Characters, but I might do a few from other games.... 

Like Gronq the Barbarian - MY character from the Four Against Darkness game my son Finnegan is running for me and a few friends. I thought I might do his portrait like a comic book cover and was messing around trying to make a logo inspired by the Conan the Barbarian comics that marvel produced when I was young... 

Dinovember - Week Four

 I was losing steam on this project and only managed to get two more painted this past week...

I didn't even get to titling either of these. Both were about 28cmx28cm (11"x11").

I decided to put together some calendars - just for a few friends - and spent the last few days collecting orders and laying out the calendar and selling off a few of these Dinosaur watercolours (again, to a few friends, who were interested). And now I'm DONE with Dinovember... for this year at least... 

Not sure what I'm going to do in December. I have a few ideas... 

I might do some character portraits (of characters from role-playing games). I started with one today... 

This is VX-923 - an Adeptus Mechanicus Lexmechanic played by my friend Randy in our (currently on hiatus) Wrath & Glory game. The painting is 28cmx28cm - watercolour and ink on Strathmore Multi-Media Paper. This was a lot of fun to do and got me really pumped about playing again - maybe in the new year... or... maybe SOONER!?

October Challenge - Part the Second

 Continuing on from Part the First...

Unfortunately, I've fractured my finger which makes typing tricky... so it's going to be mostly just the pictures with limited commentary... 

Amanda watching TV

Amanda Webex work meeting

smashed finger. Ow.

Icing Smashed finger

It's how it FELT!

For the rest of the week I mostly worked on maps and tokens I could upload and make use of on Roll20

Mining Facility on one of Saturn's moons

Down Below.

Character Portrait

Another Character Portrait

I tried to make some simple re-usable "blanks"

Flipped it for some variety. 

Filled in they looked like:

Infected residents of the installation. 

More infected 

Whoops! infected scientists

Finnegan helped me with this one. 

Character portrait from Wrath & Glory

Character portrait

fixed character portrait... 

I didn't get a drawing done everyday - but I got more than ten done over the last ten days because a few days I did MORE. 

Eleven more days. Going to try and get one done each day.