Sleepy Hollow 1.3: 'For the Triumph of Evil'

And here is the poster for Episode 3.

Really cool creature design in this one so I just let it speak for itself and split it all down to base tones with a complimentary colour palette (the background colour is 'sand').

Hope you enjoy.

Sleepy Hollow 1.2: 'Blood Moon'

Here is my second in a series of tribute posters to the episodes of Fox's Sleepy Hollow series.

Relatively spoiler-free where I can.

I was going to draw an amulet seen at the start of the epiaode as I thought I could work some cool graphic deaign with that but then there was a bit later on with a hot naked woman writhing in skulls and smoke. Obviously that won, even though it meant four times as much work.

Still, turned out pretty cool.

All done on my phone, with my finger, in Sketchbook Mobile.

Sleepy Hollow 1.1: 'Pilot'

Sleepy Hollow

Season 1

Episode 1

'Pilot'

This is my design for a teaser poster for Episode One of Sleepy Hollow.

I will try to keep these relatively spoiler-free.

This one depicts the Maguffin of the episode: The Headless Horseman's head in a jar.

This design is all done on my phone, with my finger in Sketchbook Mobile.

Hope y'all like as there's more to come.

FATE System Toolkit

Well, the cat is out the bag and the dust has settled.

Here is the cover for the absolutely amazing Fate System Toolkit which I drew (the ever-awesome Fred Hicks did final layout).

I also did a lot of interiors for the book, which I'll post up here some time soon. I'll also do some process blogs to share with you what I've learned along the way.

Here is the link to where you can buy the book:

rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/119385/Fate-System-Toolkit

And you can pay what you like for it!

Evil Hat Productions were an absolute joy to work for from start to finish and I cannot recommend them highly enough if you're lucky enough to have a chance of doing any business with them.

PDF Creation

I am currently trying to squeeze in an NVQ in Graphic Design and Web Management and, as a part of this I have created an example PDF in InDesign. We got to pick our own artist, so i selected Mike Mignola as he is a massive influence on me.

I got to play around with a drew nice design elements, vector illustrations (the signature, the skull, barcode and cover elements are all vectors) and layout ideas and it turned out quite nicely, I think.

All artwork is Copyright of Mike Mignola.

 

I still function...

Been working hard on FATE and about to roll into  few new, exciting projects but I have a few days inbetween so here is a little headshot for the Carpathia RPG I'm working on.
More to come soon!

Heroes of Hellas AVAILABLE NOW!

The amazing new RPG for which yours truly did all of the art, is now available on RPGNow!

www.rpgnow.com/product/117629/Heroes-Of-Hellas

Go grab yourself a copy now. It's got everything you ever wanted in a game: action, excitement, adventure and glory!

Not slacking off...

I'm working on the cover for the new FATE System Toolkit from Evil Hat at the minute (SO excited!)
I'll post some more stuff once I get some time.

Stay frosty, people.

Technical stuff

So, today I have been deep in the matrix and fiddling around with file sizes and types.

I've worked out a few things, which are pretty cool.

First up: I can create Vectors from my linework now,meaning they can be resized and manipulated until the cows come home without suffering any degradation or pixelation. Which is pretty awesome.

I use Inkscape for this- it's a free program and I can't recommend it highly enough. Download it now! As well as drawing in vectors and making very tidy layouts, it also has an option to convert to vectors. Import your linework, go to Object and then Trace Bitmap. Have a play with the options to find your own personal sweet spot.

Don't forget to save as a PNG to preserve the transparency.

Here's a preview of the tidyness:

I've also worked out how to remove the white background from a flat jpeg pretty easily.
This one uses Photoshop.

Open your image, then duplicate layer. Delete the original layer as you can't make changes to the background layer as it is permanently locked.
Now either  click on the fx button at the bottom of the layers palette or double click on the preview of the layer in the palette.
On the box which pops up you have a couple of sliders- pull the white tab from the right of the top slider down to the left a bit until all of your white background disappears. be careful as if you take it too far, bits of your image may start disappearing.

The save as a PNG to preserve the transparency.

Hope this helps somebody somewhere!

Hydra Attack!

I coloured-up the hydra scene for the Heroes of Hellas RPG. 

Just used the original pencils without any modifications (despite the temptation to fix MANY things...).

Once again I have fully painted the sky in my ongoing efforts to master painting. No imported textures here.

I added atmospheric effects, blur, etc. All by hand. There is a stone texture used on the rocks, though, which is my one cheat.

Everything done in Sketchbook Mobile, on my phone, with my finger.

Here is a higher-res version of the image. I hope you like...

Singularity 7

Here are a few little pieces I did for End Transmission Games' Singularity Seven RPG.

Quick turnaround on this gig. Fun company to work with.

The game is out now so go check it out!

Heroes of Hellas

I was sat on a bus in 'The Yorkshire' and I thought I'd do something productive so I found one of my old Hellas linework illustrations and thought I'd colour it.

I had to tidy up the linework a bit first though. An HOUR AND A HALF LATER I was finished tidying. Man, my linework has really tightened up since I went all digital. I also saw at least a dozen errors which I wouldn't have let slide now but I left them all in otherwise I might as well have redrawn the whole thing which would have defeated the purpose of the exercise.

Anyway, it was nice to revist an older piece just to see how much I have moved on. Sometimes it feels as if you haven't gotten anywhere until you really go back and pull apart your old stuff to see for yourself.

It was also nice to revisit this piece. A lot of these Hellas pics are very close to my heart: I redrew and redrew them trying to get the poses just right. This amazon girl was always a favourite- I really like how her face and pose turned out. The costume, armour and weapons are all exhaustingly researched for precision as was my practice on all of the Hellas stuff. Being an anthropologist myself and having an archaeologist brother (we all know archaeology is just a branch of anthropology ;) ) I find it invaluable to dig into and pull apart the cultural reference so I can base my work on it. Even the grandiose full-on fantasy pieces have a foundation of acurate historical artifacts. I find adding this sort of thing adds believability to the unbelievable.

Triumphant!

Here is another character which I designed for the print edition of the fantastic Triumphant! RPG frpm Beyond Belief Games which is now available on lulu.
Very pleased with the colours on this one.
She's called Star and I envisaged her as a companion for the Captain Superior of the 80s who has gone on to become a hero in her own right.
She has golden cestus which are my take on Wonder Woman's bracelets and lasso.
Also, she's blonde. I don't draw blondes very often, but I felt it suited the character and design in this case. And it helped to differentiate her from Diana/Donna Troy a bit.

Carpathia RPG

Here is the vampire hunter character from Carpathia.
He is actually the first one I designed and helped to cement a lot of style choices which will remain consistent in the art throughout the project.
He was going to be someone completely different but for some reason this guy insisted on being drawn instead. I know not why, but I couldn't say no to him.

Carpathia RPG

Slowly trying to chip away at doing the artwork for the Hammer Horror Rpg which I'm helping to make in asociation with Evil DM Productions.
We're using the Barbarians of Lemuria system, with all of the fantastic pulp upgrades as found in Dicey Tales.
Lot of work, but it's going to be awesome.
Here is one of the example characters from it.
Lots of layers involved so she took a while.
She showcases a lot of the Carpathia colour palette in her blacks, reds, browns and creams.
All done on my phone as always.
(I had a Megan Fox obsession to work off so I was drawing her from a still from Jonah Hex, which eventually morphed into this. The pose is the same but all of the costume is new, barring the shoes.)

new website

                       click here:    77studios

Triumphant! RPG

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/114734/Triumphant!-Super-Heroic-Role-Playing-Game?affiliate_id=2517

Triumphant!

Here are the rest of my pieces from the forthcoming Triumphant! RPG from Beyond Belief Games. It's one of the best Superhero systems I've seen and a damn fine game.
Hell, if you're reading this in that there future, it may already be out! By it now!
Or maybe you are so far in the future it's already out of it's sixth printing! If so, hunt for it on ebay.
If that still exists.
It probably will.

PS Secret Art Stuff: the panel of Captain Superior punching was originally going to be the cover, but I did the teaser poster first ("Just let me draw that one up for you, too, I think you'll like it..") and they fell in love with it. So I worked up the rough a bit just to see it. It would have been all 'breaking the fourth wall' with him punching out of a comic cover. But my poster was too awesome to be denied.

Triumphant! RPG Developments

Hi all,
Thought I would post a few stages of art for this one, as some of you have expressed an interest.
All of this is drawn by finger on my Samsung Galaxy Note in Sketchbook mobile, from initial sketches to final design.
After receiving the initial brief from the client I hashed out a few ideas and colour schemes.
-the character is a superhero called Hemlock, a descendant of Merlin. He is a college student and uses a staff. I wanted to steer clear of him looking too much like 'Mage' or any other Merlin -related characters so modernised him a bit with a hoodie and laptop bag.
-Green was the chosen direction, dark green at that to suggest the druidic aspect of the character. I also had to add in the raven, which is part of his character which I had forgotten.
-Then it was just a process of working up a little thumbnail pose, enlarging it and drawing over it.
-The colours are put on in flat layers which are duplicated and then painted over in black at 50 percent opacity for shadows.
-To finalise I put in some effects for magic and dropped a 10 percent opacity cloud layer over the top in add mode to make it a bit more cel-shaded.
Hope y'alls like.
Triumphant! is coming this summer from Beyond Belief Games.

T-Shirt!

My turtles t-shirt is up on Threadless now!
Please go and vote for me!
We only have one week to save the world!

http://beta.threadless.com/TMNT/tmnt-four-brothers-by-devilmonkey/ http://beta.threadless.com/TMNT/tmnt-four-brothers-by-devilmonkey/

You know you want this...

Ninja Turtles poster

So here is the poster for Ninja Turtles. In it's four colour glory. All done on my phone as usual.
I was aiming for a bit of Shaw Brothers mixed with cool 60's poster design.
I like how it turned out. Now I just need to get Michael Bay to hire me...

Four Brothers.
One War.

Fistful of Credits online

The stunningly awesome Live For Films website has posted my Boba Fett poster...

http://www.liveforfilms.com/2013/03/31/cool-art-star-wars-boba-fett-a-fistful-of-credits/

I love this site. Go check ot out and tell them 'Hi'.

A Fistful of Credits

I couldn't do a Star Wars piece without paying tribute to The Man.

Oya!

Solo's 11 on Liveforfilms

The amazing Live For Films blog has put up my Solo's 11 poster!

Check out the link here:

http://www.liveforfilms.com/2013/03/22/cool-art-star-wars-solos-11/

Solo's Eleven

One of those rare and blessed instances where what you see in your head ends up coming out exactly the same in the finished piece.
Very, very happy.
I drew this whole thing today, mostly on my lunch.
And yes, I do have a plot for it. "The night the lights went out on Corruscant." Han plans the ultimate heist. Chewies is in. Lando is in. Some old friends are in. And some enemies.
They hire their own Mando to counteract Boba Fett who is after them. They have an astromech with an attitude. A fighter pilot. A twi'lek seductress. A protocol droid with a secret and an old war veteran on the run.
And they plan to hit Palpatine's private safe for a haul worth a whole galaxy...

Miniatures!

My first batch of miniatures designs for fouraminiatures are at the sculptors! I'll be able to post the designs and the finished products soon!
Watch this space.

Heroes of Hellas: set sail for adventure!

Well this one is the final piece for the Hellas RPG so it was a bit of a sad time.
I set myself the task of painting everything on this one: all the layers and lensflares etc. No shortcuts allowed. I'm quite pleased with the results: I like the clouds and the sea came out the way I wanted: it's kept the loose style which I like. The lensflare and glare also came out pretty well. All just painted on a seperate layer and fidled with.

I designed a heroic captain with a heavy heart to lean over the prow: is he on his way somewhere or his way back? And why so pensive? At his side is his faithful friend; a savage beast of a warrior who leads his troops. You can't really see them so well on the finished piece as I shrank them down, bit they helped to invest a sense of story and feeling into the piece for me as I worked. I alway like to get some sort of emotional anchor in everything I do, even if in the end I'm the only one who knows it's there. It helps me to connect with it as I work.

The ship itself was a bit of a chore. I don't really enjoy vehicle design as much. I drew one, painted it. And then Sketchbook crashed on me and lost it all.
I came back to it the next day and thought: I didn't like that ship. It wasn't cool and was a bit generic. So I tried to kick it up a notch.
I added the spikes, the skull, the shields, the snarling duckbill ram, the bolted on plates on the prow. I got rid of the square sail and put on a more dynamic shape.

And lo and behold, there was a ship I could imagine adventuring on. One I'd be proud to sail to war in.

Good things come out of accidents sometimes.

Last Stand of The Spartan

Well this was a bit of a beast.
I set out to try and create an 'iconic', frazetta-style hero image. I tried to include as many techniques for visual composition as I could, from the arrow shape of the lead figure, the rule of thirds, the golden ratio, having the background arch spiral round to draw you in, having the skeletons weapons and bodies angled to focus you on the character, using areas of contrast and detail to attract your eye to the hero.
I also wanted to get away from using found textures so much for my skies so I set myself the task of fully painting it for this one. I managed to find a technique which I'm quite pleased with and hopefully it's something you'll be seeing more of soon.
The Spartan himself has a lot of engravings on his armour, most of which you can't see anymore. They were to represent his path from Sparta as he hunted various monsters through the night. Acting as a sort of champion of good against nocturnal forces and picking up various protective wards on the way. Now his journey is at an end in a ruined temple in the far north of Dacia.
His story may continue in the forthcoming 'Carpathia' game as we return to this region in the 1800s.

Heroes of Hellas

I am currently edging towards wrapping up my work on the forthcoming Heroes of Hellas RPG and am hoping to go out with a bang.
The current piece I am working on is a Frazetta-type piece of a warrior fighting off a horde of undead.
I have redrawn and redesigned the main character several times but I ended up going for a Spartan to make it look 'greek' on the first visual read. His posture was changed many times to convey dynamism and tension in the final piece.
Anyways, I drew the character a little larger so I could get some more detail into him and thought I'd save the linework in case it was any good for editorial purposes. I then banged on a couple of textures and some text to make a quick poster on the train on the way to work, which is what this is.
I am also delving into a massive, forthcoming project which is a Hammer Horror style game called 'Carpathia'. This has a small influence on this piece: kind of a secret prequel if you will. In the final image our Spartan will be far from home in the cold night of northern Dacia (yep, that's Carpathia fact-fans. We see this lone monster hunter, his armour inscribed with signs and seals from his long adventures battling the forces of the night at their nexus. Maybe he fails in his final quest. Maybe he succedes and beats them back for a thousand years. Only you can decide...