Just A Little Speed Paint

Just a little speed paint of a character from the book featured in the previous post.

Mattimeo Book Cover

Not a real book cover, a fan-made one...

It feels good to be plunging into some Redwall art, like visiting an old friend. Must be how John Howe feels when he gets a Lord of the Rings painting.

Slagar has that metal thing on his nose because I figured he’d need to, you know… BREATHE with relative ease. Having a blooming silk mask over your face is surely stuffy, not to mention suffocating, making it hard to breathe when kidnapping children. I’m also playing Final Fantasy VI so Kefka’s outfit had an impact with Slagar’s costume.
I think in the book, Ironbeak is never described as having a metal helmet, but thanks to the cartoon adaptation I shall always picture him with such. Obviously if this was a real cover commission I wouldn’t have a helmet, so fan-boys get off my case!



Mattimeo Book Cover (DRAFT)

Seeing as the Redwall series, written by Brian Jacques, was the childhood obsession that drove me to a passion for illustration, it seems outrageous that I haven't done any fan-art of it in soo long. Redwall is my Lord of the Rings, lets just leave it at that.
I used to dream of being hired to do an illustrated re-print of the series, or at least doing some book covers. And now that I am older its inevitable that the covers would mature with me...I now have a more adult picture of the Redwall world, as opposed to the bright colourful one of my childhood. It's like I've moved on from the Batman: The Animated Series and gone onto Nolan's grimmer versions.  This isn't so far'fetched as the books themselves could be surprisingly dark at times, though Jacques wisely didn't go into gruesome detail and allowed your mind to go into as much detail as you wanted in your imagination (while still keeping it friendly for a younger audience). Cannibalism, warfare, sibling murders are some themes that have popped up. This book, Mattimeo, deals with child kidnapping, slavery, vengeance and attempted genocide.

Jesus, I'm giving a big lecture for a damn draft. I've had to put this on hold for a commission.

I Got Vamp'ed

This is the result of reading Hellsing manga and gallons of PIMMS cocktails. Just a quick digital sketch to get this out of my system. Also a good warm up for what I'm going to do next, a manga tribuit/tryout.



The Doubting Deep

A creature inspired by an Ink Blot.

The Mother

This is 2nd of 3 examples I am doing for a tutorial sheet on my ‘Splice’ technique. It’s basically a random ‘name-out-of-the-hat’ method to create unexpected paintings. I got Silverwing Character (Ariel) - Fictional Dog Breed - Renaissance style for this one.
 I have absolutely no idea about this one. I started painting it while I had a cold so this dragged on a long time due to my lack of energy.
This was good practise for hair/manes/fur, whatever the outcome was.



Ultimunlamiasaur Sketch

Sketch of a fictional (obviously) Vampire Tyrannosaur called Ultimunlamiasaur (Which Google Translates as 'The Last Vampire Lizard')

Was going to paint this but having a cold really brings your energy levels low. So this is just a sketch, good pratice on trying (and failing) Tyrannosaur anatomy.