Bad Odds

UPDATE: Here's an almost-finished version. Larger size here.

Two sister soldiers pick a fight with Verrazano. Probably not the wisest of ideas.

This is still enormously rough, obviously, and I'm still not sold on the knight's pose. However, keeping it in monochrome will hopefully allow me to make faster progress on it. And as an aside, yup, the girl in the front is a Frazetta reference.

Details from older versions:

Older versions.

Homunculus

From 3CH: "A stinking golem dissects a beautiful red-haired woman in a crystal forest." Probably one of the most macabre prompts I've seen from the generator.

Special thanks go to Resurgere for the texture, Trame of the Platformers for resurrecting 3CH, and the Silent Hill series for leaving its indelible mark on my mind.

Shadow Hunter

Work in progress. Still very rough.

Show Your Bones

I don't have much in the way of new things to show, but Schols has been anxious for an update. So, in lieu of presentable things, here are a few random doodles from the failure drawer.

The Redcap. This is a WIP that got pretty far along, and I actually wouldn't mind finishing it sometime. Finding the time for it is the tricky part.

This is a pretty old sketch of a Brass Man, one of a race of mercantile automata who inhabit a grand bazaar at the edge of the world. Originally, this was concept work for a short 3CH story I was considering, a little like what I had planned for the zombie monks.

Speaking of robots, I'm always trying to come up with new playmates for Hephaestus. This is a sketch of Verrazano, a steam knight based off of old Spanish armor. I actually really like this design and would love to do a full illustration of this guy someday.

I think Charele is too cute to lose, but this sketch of her with a crossbow wasn't turning out right.

The Demiurge

Long before Hephaestus became my pencil's constant companion, there was another iconic giant who had a way of cropping up in the margins of my homework: a brooding, stoic-faced golem with wings of shimmering steel. It was too long before I graduated him to the pages of a proper sketchbook.

Here he is amidst a menagerie of Lacrimaean characters and creatures. As you can see here, at this point he was simply named "Nod," but the reference was a little too baldfaced.

I spent a lot of time trying to decide what this his role might be in the setting. In the size-comparison sketch above, he is described as a member of a race called the Nephilim - once mighty creator-gods, but long since reduced to servility. But I ended up scrapping that idea and assigning the name "Nephilim" to a different race, one with a more obviously angelic bent. In the meantime, the Demiurge-to-be was reduced back to a single being.

Here's the first time I actually referred to him as the Demiurge, as well as the first time I began to show him in his more creative aspect. There's no size-comparison here, but one assumes he's now significantly larger than the incarnation in the last sketch.

And he became bigger yet.

This is the last project I drew for school. The photo doesn't really convey the size very well - the drawing measures almost four by two-and-a-half feet and is easily the biggest thing I've ever attempted. You can actually see the seam where I glued the sheets of charcoal paper together. Here's a somewhat enlarged view.

The drawing depicts the Demiurge in his full glory, shaping a primordial landmass into a living universe. The tiny female figure perched on the rightmost ridge is a Pashkarai, one of the elemental spirits of chaos soon to depart the world. And for those of you still wondering - yes, Shadow of the Colossus was definitely an influence on this drawing. And the flock of birds swirling around the large tree in the bottom left corner is a direct reference to Secret of Mana.

That's enough of the archives for now. Hopefully, the next update will cover something new.

Dark Deeds

The Crossing, rendered in charcoal and graphite. I can only vaguely remember the influences that led up to the drawing - a Gene Wolfe story, certainly, and perhaps one too many Japanese screen paintings. I also forced myself to use a more unusual perspective mostly as a personal challenge, but I think it strengthened the piece in the end.

I think the bleeding fellow on the ground is a self-portrait, if I remember correctly.

Chapel Inverse started with a pretty memorable dream I had back when I started school, then somehow got tangled with Okami in the intervening years. I don't think the reference really registered with the class, though.

Equivalent Exchange

In lieu of new stuff, here are a few more works from my school years.

A depiction of the Amphisbaena, one of the creation myths of this setting. I attempted to give it a proper coloring, but it wasn't going very well and I soon gave up. (This, of course, was long before I ubercharged my speedpainting skills with the Grudemath.)

The Benediction, in which a vindictive Lacrimaean highcaste commissions a plainclothes assassin to settle an old score. Ironically, the classmates who posed for these sinister characters were incredibly nice people.

In the Archives

Apologies for the lack of updates, but my new job has kept me pretty busy over the past month. Though I'm adjusting well to the work, it's taken a bit of a toll on the time and energy I usually reserve for art. So... progress on new things has been a bit slow lately. As in, you'll probably see Valve release Episode Three before I get around to doing more with that zombie monk.

That said, I'd still like to throw something up in the interminable span between New Stuff, so I'm forced to delve into the musty vault and post things from my school years. Be warned: stuff was a bit boring back then.

The fabled city of brass, Sansaret, which burns like a jewel in the setting sun. Or would, if I did any color back then.

A cloister from the city Lacrimae, rotting heir to a shattered empire. I was sort of going through a heavy Piranesi phase back then, but even so, architecture still daunts me.

A portrait of the Exarch, reigning despot of Lacrimae. Any similarities to Wolfe's Autarch or Gehn from Riven are, um, purely coincendental. Yes, that's it.

Also, I really sucked at paintovers back then.

Zombie Monks, part 2

More quick zombie monk concepts. Since the project is going to be sequential (and also since I've been watching Meet the Spy about half a dozen times a day), I'm thinking about moving the character towards a more stylized design.

Zombie Monks

Quick, exploratory concepts for the main character of the next project I have in mind.

Cloud Age Symphony

From [3CH]: "A menacing commader dances with an assassin in a steampunk universe." Click here for the full-size image.

Details

Process

Your Armada, My Delight

Just a small, in-progress preview of something I've been working on over the past week or so.

Amelia

Old, but I wanted to post something.

Claudia

Wild Girl

The Opened Way

A quick [3CH] before bed. Topic: "A wounded torturer eradicates a golem on a galleon."

Grunge texture once again courtesy of Princess of Shadows.

Magnus

This is a quick sketch of Magnus from Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. I think I'm liking this game even more than Fallout, and I loved Fallout.

I promise I'll draw something other than a dwarf for the next update.

Bardryn

A Photoshop sketch of Bardryn Garleth, the dwarf fighter I first drew back in October.

The New Model

Just like old times.

Sigil Mundus

I finished drawing this while waiting for an interview over in Princeton. I seem to be making a habit of starting off new sketchbooks with unusual symbols -- this is the third book I've started that way.

Elements

I just wrapped up a new project for my client down in Maryland, who previously commissioned the Avatar map and the White Lotus. This time, we decided on charcoal drawings based on the elemental symbols drawn by Iroh, the Dragon of the West. They're small and quick, but as always, they were tremendously fun to make.

On another note, apologies for the huge delay between updates. We just got a pair of dogs, and suffice to say they're a lot of work. Especially the puppy.