Corvid Master

This will probably be my last sketchbook drawing for 2015. 

Onward (already?!) to 2016!

Mermaid Monday

It's your last chance to get my new sketchbook at 10% off! The sale ends this Wednesday night, September 30th. Don't worry –– even if you miss the sale, you always get an original sketch in your book!

When in Doubt, Draw an Elf

A recent sketch drawn in a copy of my new sketchbook, Fabled Earth.

Don't forget, the 10% off sale (and free shipping for Gen Con customers) ends in two weeks!

My New Sketchbook Is Here!

New painting!

I'm excited to announce I've finally made another sketchbook! My last sketchbook, Journey, was printed in 2009. It seemed like the right time to put together a new one.

The fourth in my series of sketchbooks, Fabled Earth has a color wrap-around cover featuring a new painting, and 68 pages packed with character and creature designs, rough sketches, finished drawings and even a couple illustrations in full color. The book's content spans the last several years' worth of my drawings for clients such as Cricket Magazine and Paizo, as well as personal work and development sketches for The Explorer's Guide to Drawing Fantasy Creatures. The matte finish on both the cover and interior pages does a nice job replicating the color of my paintings and the softness of my graphite drawings. And all the paper is recycled if you care about that sort of thing.

Each sketchbook measures 6 by 9 inches and comes signed by me.

New book!

The book has both rough development sketches and finished drawings.

An example of one of the full-color images in the book.

Pretty rocks in photo not included.

To buy a copy visit my Etsy shop, Fabled Earth Art. I will also be adding the sketchbook to my (new! improved!) website shop page soon. It will be 10% off until the end of September. Neat!

For those of you who picked up my promotional coupon at Gen Con, don't forget to enter the code when you check out on Etsy. Please note that the free shipping offer ends on September 30th, 2015. If you choose not to order on Etsy, once I put the book up for sale on e-figart.com just include a note to me with the coupon code and I will honor it.

Beginnings and Endings

Cricket Magazine's Crowd Sorcery project which evolved into the fantasy story "The Girl Who Writes the Future" began just over a year ago and has come full circle. The first group of my Crowd Sorcery character sketches was published in the July/August 2014 issue of Cricket and the final part of "The Girl Who Writes the Future" printed in this year's May/June issue. If you missed any issues the entire story is available to read online. Now that Fable's adventure is complete, I thought I'd look back on the illustrations that opened and closed her story.

When I say "look back on the illustrations," I don't mean that I've already forgotten how they look! But while working with deadlines on a long-running project such as this, it's sometimes difficult to take a step back and evaluate all the work I'm doing with a fresh eye. I thought it would be interesting to compare side-by-side the first and final images I painted for the story to see how they relate to each other visually and thematically.

Fable reads by the light of the setting sun before she is suddenly thrust into a harrowing journey.

The first thing I noticed about both illustrations is that they have similar palettes. Both have a triadic color palette of orange, green and violet. I didn't plan this in advance so it was a happy coincidence that helped bookend the story. Both illustrations also feature warm light: in the opening image it's the rosy hue of a setting sun and in the closing picture, a luminous light radiating from the face of a sculpted full moon.

In the middle of the story, Fable and Luminè descend into darkness and mystery. Many scenes take place at nighttime or in the corners of ancient buildings and forgotten passageways, so for those images I frequently made use of a cool palette and a lot of blue hues. When the girls are successful in their journey they come back into the light once again.

I took a risk with the closing illustration and tried what I felt was a bolder color palette than many of the other images I painted for the story. Even though the palette included the same triad of colors as the illustration that opened "The Girl Who Writes the Future," the way I used them was a little less conventional. The swath of bright orange-yellow against violet could have been a disaster, but luckily it gave me the magical look I wanted. My art director and I worked hard to find room for this illustration in the space allotted for the final chapter, and I'm glad we were able to squeeze it in. It turned out to be one of my favorites. I hope that when readers look at this picture they feel the same satisfaction, relief and triumph Fable and Luminè do at the end of their adventure.

Luminè and Fable, exhausted but triumphant after completing their quest.

I write frequently about my creative process and I thought anyone reading this might like to hear about the creative process from the perspective of a writer. Frederic S. Durbin, author of "The Girl Who Writes the Future," shared his insights about the development of the story on his blog. He also wrote about the interesting relationship between authors and their characters here. I really enjoyed his posts and I hope you will, too!

Undo/Redo

The original sketch

I just lost a lengthy blog post I was planning to publish today which I now have to rewrite entirely. So instead, here is an old drawing I recently came across while reviewing sketches I'm considering for inclusion in my new sketchbook. These mother and daughter gorgons are from the book A Practical Guide to Monsters. I've forgotten the reason why my art director felt the character should be younger, but I was asked to change the daughter from a teenager to a little girl.

The revised version

Crowd Sorcery Sketches: The Villain Khaos

It's time to reveal the last group of character development sketches I did for Crowd Sorcery: Khaos!  

 

The Villain: Khaos

Created by Brooke E., age 11

“The spirit of a wicked sorcerer who was killed in a huge battle that wiped out his monsters, he lives in a huge, ancient cave—a shrine for worshipping Mael-Koth, the pagan god of death.”

Khaos actually appeared in the very first part of "The Girl Who Writes the Future" but not in his "true" form. He was described by his creator as "disturbingly handsome" and Fred tells us that he has "dark hair...slicked back from a face so handsome it might have been that of an angel –– except for its cruelty." I had my work cut out for me! Help me, Ayami Kojima.* You're my only hope!

When I talk about designing characters I discuss how I work on the face first so that I can feel like I know the character better before I continue the design. I usually start sketching from my imagination, but if I get stumped, or even if a face is going in a direction I like but I want to make it more distinct, I will sometimes turn to reference for inspiration.

Round one of Khaos sketches.

I did this first round of sketches from imagination. I already had a general idea of how I wanted Khaos to look and I was exploring attitude and expression. But I wanted to draw more tangible facial features, so with some reference of faces in hand I refined the character design. I also fixed his bone crown so it'd look less like it was made of french fries!

Round two, taking features I liked best from round one and refining them.

Artists often have a sort of default face that they draw. Although our characters may be distinguishable from one another, there's a shorthand many of us tend to use when drawing facial features. To break away from the reliance on those stylistic tropes it's good to look carefully at real facial features from time to time and concentrate on the way faces are made up of an interesting variety of shapes.

The final drawing for the illustration of Khaos with his creepy crawlies.

"The Girl Who Writes the Future" by Frederic S. Durbin has just concluded its run with Part Six in Cricket Magazine's May 2015 issue. To follow the adventures of these characters pick up some issues at the bookstore. If you missed the earlier chapters of the story you can now read the whole thing online on Cricket's Chatterbox message board or follow the instructions for downloading the digital editions here.

*Ayami Kojima draws and paints what one might describe as disturbingly beautiful people. She is well known for her art for the Castlevania video game series.

Hey, It's a Goblin

Looks pretty shifty...

Thank You for a Great ECCC!

After a couple busy weeks it's finally time for my wrap-up post about Emerald City Comicon 2015.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by our table this year! You helped make ECCC 2015 one of our best yet! We're looking forward to hearing if our application for next year is approved. If so, we'll be back. And next year it's a four-day convention. (Just don't get too big and become another SDCC...)

We were steadily busy so we only took maybe two or three photos the entire con. Because I was preoccupied at my table and Vinod was someplace else, I couldn't get this guy's photo when I caught a glimpse of him walking by. (Hmmm...maybe I should've yelled "Kaneda" real loud?) His costume was my favorite of the show:

Kaneda cosplay photo "borrowed" from ECCC's Facebook page.

Here are a few sketches I did during the convention. I would have liked to do more, but I was trying to conserve energy for the project I needed to work on after the con every night.

Thanks again for coming to see us! Hope to see you next year!

FAERIE III

The opening reception for FAERIE III is tomorrow night!

This is my painting for the show:

"The Black Feather," gouache on watercolor paper.

A detail of the painting

The reception will be held Saturday, March 14th from 6-9 pm at Krab Jab Studio in Seattle and will feature a brief curator and artist talk at 7:30, music by Betsy Tinney, and various refreshments. If you live in the area but can't make it out for the reception, you can still see the show the rest of the month during Krab Jab's opening hours or call for an appointment. There will also be an online catalog of the featured works on Krab Jab's website starting on Sunday, March 15th that long-distance viewers may peruse.

FAERIE III Opening Reception
Saturday, March 14th, 6 - 9 pm
Show runs through April 4th

Location:
Krab Jab Studio 
5628 Airport Way S, Ste 150

Seattle, WA  98108

I hope to see you there!

Tuesday Troll

Just a classic troll –– not an internet one.

An original sketch drawn in the front cover of one of my sketchbooks.

Crowd Sorcery Sketches: Final Characters

Within each page of Cricket's Crowd Sorcery character spreads was the name of a character who would eventually appear in the story "The Girl Who Writes the Future." Coincidentally, I didn't happen to draw any of the winning characters until after they were chosen. Did you guess which characters made it into the story?

Even though the sketches of these characters would not be printed in Cricket, I wanted to carefully develop each one since I knew I would be painting them many times throughout the course of the story. As I mentioned in my first Crowd Sorcery characters post, taking the time to sketch each character also helps me understand who they are – what type of clothing they might wear, their mannerisms, how they might react to a challenge, etc. – all of which help create engaging illustrations by including subtle cues the viewer can pick up on and then, in turn, develop their own understanding of the characters. I've referred to my pages of drawings each time I've started working on a new chapter of "The Girl Who Writes the Future," so the preliminary development work definitely came in handy!

The Heroine: Fable Thatcher

Created by Madeline T., age 13

"Many people would call it a gift to write as well as Fable. To her, it is a curse. Whatever she writes becomes true."

Subtle variations in the search for Fable.

Fable has an amazing talent, but it's one she doesn't think she wants. Because she fears her mysterious ability I wanted to draw a girl that looks smart and empathetic but reserved and unsure of herself. It took a while for me to nail down exactly what felt right about Fable, including the combination of her facial features and expression. The little asterisks indicated to my art director the sketches I felt were going in the right direction.

The Sidekick: Araceli Luminè

Created by "Katniss Everdeen," age 14

"The only child of the mysterious Booksmith, she is raised by the Silent Sisters in the library and holds in her possession the Book of Shadows, which has the power to control all knowledge ever written."

She has a little bit of that "goth" vibe...

The image says it all: it did not take me long to develop Araceli Luminè.  Luminè's creator gave us a vivid, detailed description of the character and she quickly emerged from the shadows of my imagination.

My "model sheet," referred to many times while illustrating the story.

The Villain: Khaos

Created by Brooke E., age 11

“The spirit of a wicked sorcerer who was killed in a huge battle that wiped out his monsters, he lives in a huge, ancient cave—a shrine for worshipping Mael-Koth, the pagan god of death.”

Khaos can take on many forms. So far I've only depicted him as a shadowy figure. I don't want to spoil his appearance before his true form is revealed in the story. For now, he is hidden, even from me!

"The Girl Who Writes the Future" by Frederic S. Durbin is currently being published in Cricket Magazine. To follow the adventures of these characters, pick up some issues at the bookstore or see the instructions for downloading the digital editions here.

Crowd Sorcery Character Sketches: Sidekicks

The last few characters I sketched for Cricket Magazine's Crowd Sorcery project were sidekicks. Once again there were some wonderful submissions, but I was only able to illustrate two. Space was also needed in the double-page spread for drawings of Fantasy Dictionary words, which I'll share in my next post.

Kitara is described as a descendent of Medusa who has a deadly crimson eye that turns people to stone when she looks at them.

I did a a quick sketch of her face and was satisfied with the first one.

The creator of Rax wonderfully conveyed his dashing personality in a brief story paragraph written as part of Crowd Sorcery's character creation exercise. It was (almost) easy to transform him from that vivid first impression into a tangible drawing.

Rax is a confident young swordsman who can talk to dragons.

I wanted to vary the illustrations that would be published in this issue, so I decided to submit at least one complete sketch as opposed to a bunch of loose sketches of faces. Luckily, I only needed one or two quick development sketches of Rax's face before I was happy with it, but I did play with a couple different hairstyles on a piece of tracing paper. This drawing isn't as clean as the one I posted of Aciere Steele last week, but I like the gesture and the balance between rough and polished lines.

Check out next week's Fantasy Dictionary post to see the sketches as they appeared in Cricket.

Crowd Sorcery Character Sketches: Villains

The next group of characters I sketched for Cricket Magazine's Crowd Sorcery project was the villains. There were dozens of interesting submissions, but my schedule only allowed time to realize a few. Sketching Cricket readers' characters is a project I would have loved to spend months upon months doing, had I months upon months to do it!

I was so excited about many of these villain characters and was personally rooting for a couple of them to to be chosen when the time came to cast votes for the antagonist that would appear in the story. Alas, my favorites did not come out on top, but at least I got to draw them. (And regardless of whether they "won" or not, their creators should be proud to have brought them to life.)

Aciere Steele comes from a world with a magic vs. technology theme. I really wanted to draw Aciere Steele! I drew a bunch of heads, but I felt compelled to move onto a detailed drawing, because she's essentially a steampunk cyborg and how could I not draw a steampunk cyborg? I so badly wanted to make sure I finished the drawing that I took it with me on vacation and worked on it late at night in our hotel. A good friend we were visiting whom I hadn't seen in years even came with us while I took a terrible scan of the drawing at FedEx/Kinko's! Luckily, I was able to scan it again when I got home, and the high-res version made it into the magazine. Whew!

The aforementioned heads, including various hairstyle and lab coat ideas.

Even though I love sci-fi stuff, I don't draw it often, so I was a bit nervous about my ability to design some cool robotic parts that didn't look like "traditional" Victorian Era style steampunk. I was aiming for a more broadly defined fantasy version of steampunk that also wasn't too high-tech. I hope I succeeded.

The finished drawing of Aciere.

Margaret O'Shanahan, the defiant pirate with an enchanted ship that can soar through the sky, took second place in the villains poll.

Yet more portrait sketches, with what I considered to be the final designs at the bottom.

There were quite a few animal characters submitted in all categories. There were several I liked and I wanted to make sure I drew at least one of them.

The final villains page as it appeared in Cricket Magazine. Click to enlarge and read more about each character.

Stay tuned for the sidekicks!

Crowd Sorcery Character Sketches: Heroes and Heroines

Earlier this summer, while readers were still generating scores of amazing characters for Cricket Magazine's Crowd Sorcery project, I shared one set of sketches I had done of a submitted character: a young girl named Minna of Afting, who was raised by gigantic birds.

Now that Frederic S. Durbin's Crowd Sorcery story "The Girl Who Writes the Future" has begun and many of the character submissions have been published, I thought I'd share all of my sketches.

First up are the heroes and heroines. Brief summaries of their background or abilities can be found in the image of the Cricket spread at the bottom of this post. Many kids wrote fascinating paragraphs-long biographies describing their character's personality, background, talents, fears and hopes.

Any time I begin a character design I start with the face. If I don't get the face "right," meaning a look that matches the character's essence as I see it in my mind, I can't convince myself to move on with the design. Sometimes it took me a while to get a face or expression that felt correct to me, so given my time constraints some characters did not progress past portrait sketches.
Fionn Pierre Nelson was the last character I worked on in this set, so I only completed a few face sketches.

Listette takes on the familiar "raised by animals" theme. I wanted her to have somewhat sharp, angular features, and I carried that through to her hair. Her creator described her as wearing wolfskin, so I included a few very rough doodles of costume ideas. It was hard not to be influenced a little by San from Princess Mononoke, but I tried to avoid doing anything too similar.

When I read Listette's description, I was reminded of this illustration by Arthur Rackham.

Will Gust is a fun and lively character that I was sorry I didn't have time to develop further. I guess I actually felt that way about all of the characters. If I had my way, I would have liked to make something like a model sheet for all of them.

I'll tell you a secret...the drawing at the upper right corner is actually of Detective Tim Bayliss.

When I turned the drawings over to my art director, I indicated a couple of my favorites of each bunch and she picked from those for the print edition of the magazine.

The spread as it appeared in the July/August issue of Cricket.

Next up: Villains!

This post has been edited for clarity and to add a link.

Sketches from GeekGirlCon 2014

GeekGirlCon 2014 felt like it was over almost as fast as it arrived. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to chat, peruse my paintings and support my work! 

As usual, I did a few sketches for people who bought my sketchbook. I forgot my camera, so my booth neighbor and friend, Jen, of Dancing Heron Illustration was kind enough to take photos of a couple of the drawings for me. 

And here is a bonus fantasy critter doodle from earlier in the year:

In the "news" category, my Etsy shop is finally back open after being offline for a few months while I concentrated on other projects. I'm currently holding a 10% off sale until the end of the month. Enter coupon code FALLSALE2014 upon checkout to receive your discount. (If you're looking for the baby dragon note cards, fear not! I have more art card paper on order and will add the finished cards to the shop as soon as I'm able to print more sets.)

Last Chance to Vote on a "Crowd Sorcery" Sidekick!

It's the last day to cast votes for "Crowd Sorcery" characters–this time for heroine Fable Thatcher's sidekick. Will her partner be the swashbuckling boy who can talk to dragons? The mysterious girl who possesses the Book of Shadows? The Fledermouse in hiding? It's all up to you!

Development sketches for one of the potential "Crowd Sorcery" heroines.

There are twelve characters to pick from. Fred and I had a difficult time narrowing down the many submissions for each character, but it was especially tough this round. All of the "Crowd Sorcery" participants should be proud of their amazing efforts at coming up with so many unique characters for this project.

Some of my hero sketches were printed in the July/August issue of Cricket Magazine. Villain sketches will appear in September, and sidekicks in October. Finally, the November/December issue will feature Fred's finished story and my illustrations. I'm grateful to be a part of this fun project and excited to see how the story and characters develop from this point forward.

A preview of the "Crowd Sorcery" spread from the July/August issue of Cricket.

For more information about "Crowd Sorcery," including instructions for downloading the digital editions of Cricket click here.
To become a Crowd-Sorceror by sharing your ideas, visit the "Crowd Sorcery" section of The Chatterbox and get posting!
For my earlier post about "Crowd Sorcery," see my original blog post here.

Sketches from ECCC 2014

Another Emerald City Comicon has come and gone. I'd like to extend my thanks to everyone who came by our table during the convention.

Here are some of the sketches I did for people who purchased my sketchbook, Journey, this year:

I have two sketchbooks still available featuring the following original sketches. If you had been thinking of buying a copy online and either of these drawings have caught your eye, please contact me and let me know so I can put the book aside for you.

See you at ECCC 2015, March 27th-29th!