Volcanic Range Hellguard

I'm trying out making a magic the gathering-like illustration. I guess it went from a "Death" sort of creature to more of a "Fire" one... Scroll down for the earlier stages.
I was thinking this guy could be a sort of guardian in a volcanic mountain area. Maybe there are several of these dudes spread out over the land, standing watch for incoming enemies.
Not yet done with this one... I'll post the final image once it's finished.

w.i.p. 6 - I think I'm done. I added some flames to his weapon after someone pointed out it didn't look threatening enough. Hopefully it's not too distracting. I added some detail to the face and tweaked a couple of things here and there. I'll leave it be for now and maybe make adjustments down the road. Hope you like it!


w.i.p. 5 - Darkened the sky and worked on some of the guard's armor and body. I think I am almost there.


w.i.p. 4 - Enhanced the contrast in some areas, especially in the head, since it's a focal point. The brightness of the hand gripping his weapon was too distracting, so I covered it with armor. Kept polishing areas.


w.i.p. 3 - added a bit more color into the composition and vignetted it a bit so the eye would focus more on the figure and not wander off. He looked like he had no purpose, so I gave him some sort of weapon; that way he looks more like he's standing guard or something. I also built up the rocks.


w.i.p. 2 - The guy looked like he was tripping over, so I changed his pose. I also made him a "fire" guy instead of a "death" guy (or whatever). I flip the canvas periodically to see mistakes and have a fresh eye on the piece.


w.i.p. 1 - I started by quickly sketching a line composition and painting over it, keeping the basic colos in mind.

Dr. Sketchy's

These are some drawings from a "Dr. Sketchy's" session. They bring in cabaret models that use all sorts of interesting attire. These are some of the more intelligible sketches.

Copies

Some master copies from paintings and sculpture. The First one is Greuze. The others are from Italian and French sculpture.

Unruly Lines

Here are more sketches. I often like to let the lines flow freely; it is quite liberating.

some sketches

I was able to get hold of a scanner and so here are some sketches.

This one, well, don't ask.


This is a drawing from life of an alien bust a renowned Hollywood sculptor was making (can't remember his name!) at Illuxcon 2008


Again, don't ask.


Figure drawing from life. I find myself straying further away from the purely representational ways of drawing. It's just more interesting sometimes.



More will come soon.

Rain

It was raining like crazy one day outside my office, so it inspired me to do a little color piece.

Island in the Sun

A little speedpaint. I seem to be focusing on color a lot these days. I guess it's kind of mindless compared to other things... This one was inspired a bit by Ponyo, a great movie.

Soap box racing kid

This is a character I did for a workshop demo that my friends Aaron Yamada, Kenji Bliss and myself ran. The concept was soap box racing. I was to do the bad kid, Aaron the good kid, and Kenji the bad kid's grandpa. I made this guy look so pathetic that it ended up being the other way around; the good kid looks like a douchebag, and this poor child is the one that looks like he needs to win... You should check out their pieces: Here's Aaron's, and Here's Kenji's.

DS Colors! sketches

These were done in that Ninendo DS program Colors while in a van in the Arizona countryside. They're mostly for color study, since it's hard to focus on anything when traveling 80mph.

Random old stuff...

Some old, old stuff I found in my computer. Why not?
(why am I doing this?)

The beginnings of a fashion illustration that never was.


Done for a friends' music video.



Fresh fish from life.





Some master copies.

Turner


Velazquez


Rembrandt


Vermeer step by step

BHG era (ooold....)

I'm gonna jump the gun and post some of my Big Huge Games era stuff (mid-2007). It's not very good now that I look back at it, but heck, I'm trying to just finally post all this old stuff up here, for some odd reason.
Oh yeah, these images are all property of Big Huge Games, so mind the rights and all that.

These are for the project that used to be called Crucible (RIP)

Some really old stuff... I mean like 2 years old. The landscape color studies were done while on the train from Baltimore to Philly. Self-portrait self-explanatory.