Game illustrations:
For a recent freelance job I was asked to do artwork for Mayfair Games on an upcoming game of theirs. I don't know if I'm allowed to say the title of the game (based on internet searches, it has yet to be announced) so I'll hold off on that. *UPDATE: The game is called Asgard's Chosen* I did check with my editor and he said I could share the process images of the artwork.

Roughs: The assignment was to illustrate (and perhaps visually design in some of the cases) three woodland mythological fantasy creatures/races: Elf, Fairy, & Huldra. The Elf I was told to come up with something between Tolkien elves and Rackham elves. The Fairy I was given free reign on except to not make them too 'princessey'. And for the Huldra, a naked female with a tree-hollow of a pack and an ox tail, I was given the leway to make her more of a creature than a woman with some odd features. Below are the roughs I sent off to the Editor. They are pencil sketches with quick digital colors. Each creature was also to get two designs, one of them normal, and one of them 'powerd up'...though I thought of them more as the 'royal' versions.

Inks: After the editor made some notes on the roughs, I printed them out and taped them to the back of some Strathmore 300 series bristol board to ink them on the lightbox. The art of these measure about 6" x 6", so I switched from my normal pen size of 0.7 down to a 0.25. I worked to add detail and texture, especially on the Elf and Huldra. For the 'royal' additions, I inked those on separate bristol sheets that I laid on top of my finished inks (for registration purposes). That way I could isolate those elements when coloring the final images. For the Huldra's background, I drew a scene in pencil to help me with digitally painting the more detailed foliage.

Colors: Unline my work on Mouse Guard, I used a Wacom tablet to digitally paint these illustrations. I used paintbrushes in photoshop more than falling back on my standard dodge and burn tools for the renderings. All of the linework received a color hold, so none of it will print 100% black....but more of a dark sepia. Below are the final Elf, Fairy, & Huldra.

Watercolor Wednesday: 
Last week's watercolor piece was highly influenced by the delightful, charming, and beautifully rendered work of Jean Baptise Monge.

Tomorrow I'll post more paintings in my online store.





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