The Exorcist

I am a huge fan of the original Exorcist film. It's one of my all-time top movies.
I love the script, the acting. The fx work was revolutionary. The cinematography is breathtaking.
The sheer effort put into its' production shines through every time.
Plus, I first watched it when I was quite young so it scared the shit out of me.
The cultural and anthropological study of possession in its many forms is one of my specialist chosen subjects, too.
So I was intrigued to see the new TV series of The Exorcist.
And then I was totally blown away by it.
If you haven't seen it: you need to.
And I had to pay my respects in some way, particularly to the two stand-out stars (not to detract from any of the other cast in any way- they are all absolutely amazing!); Hannah Kasulka as Casey Rance and Ben Daniels as Father Marcus. They both have amazing faces for drawing: both of them possess singular qualities which make them quite beautiful.
So here are my two quick tributes. Both done in black and white.
With Casey's I tried to capture the luminous quality, to show her innocence and to show a kind of divine light shining down on her. Her eyes are amazing so I tried to convey the "backlit by stars" quality they have.
Marcus' picture was an attempt to capture the sadness in him. He is a very powerful character but has a fragile core. I love how Ben Daniels is playing him; the depth and nuance he is bringing to the performance is amazing.
The pictures are both done with .5 linework and then a shading layer with airbrush.
Hope you like them.

Into Fear

New book with a cover by me has just been announced!

I did the whole thing in this- illustration, logo, design and pdf.

Awesome fun.

And I'm super pleased with how it turned out.

Here is some blurb...

Daniel Marc Chant releases INTO FEAR on 1st October. 22 tales of despair and dread. Zombies, Godless beasts, Eldritch horrors, serial killers and more lurk between its pages in wait to lure you into dreams, into nightmares, Into Fear!

Duncan Ralston, author of WOOM, said it was, "one of the best collections I've read in a while."

PRE-ORDER TODAY!

UK LINK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01IIJ2YSK
USA LINK: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IIJ2YSK

Character Illustrations

Recent pieces done for various games.

Dark Frontiers

Little logo/branding work for a short story anthology.

Done on a quick turnaround.

Kids -cover

My next cover for Dark Minds has been released. This time around it graces the cover of 'Kids' by that top-notch fellow, Paul M Feeney.

This cover is the third in a series, using the black and red on white style established with the first one.

The cover images were all done in Sketchbook on a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (the images were then increased in resolution in Photoshop). Pdf design and production was done in Inkscape.

The cover image is based off a picture of my own little psycho-killer, Kitty Jean, who is currently 6.

If you wish to purchase one for yourself, here are the links:

Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kids-Dark-Minds-Novella-3-ebook/dp/B01HOI6YRS/ref=sr_1_1_twi_kin_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1467822678&sr=8-1&keywords=paul+m+feeney

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/Kids-Dark-Minds-Novella-3-ebook/dp/B01HOI6YRS/ref=sr_1_2_twi_kin_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467822745&sr=8-2&keywords=Paul+M.+Feeney#nav-subnav

Planeswalker 5E

Due to the release of the very cool Planeshift guide to Zendikar by Wizards (available here) I was inspired to try my hand at a character class for use as a Planeswalker for an epic Magic campaign.

My initial thought was to have it as a Prestige Class to multiclass into to allow for diversity, but I decided to do it as a full class should anyone choose to follow it all the way through.

It makes great use of both mana types and summoning as its main focus. There are a lot of mana powers to choose from to allow for diversity- to be honest I could have gone on here, but I wanted to keep the amount of powers available to each colour the same. People can easily make up their own powers using this framework- it would be cool to see a Devotion ability, Dmir powers or other particular planeswalker tap abilities.

This is all just for fun. Hopefully someone will find some use in it.

Appologies for the hasty formatting- I made it without access to my editing suite.

Obviously, everything in here is copyright of WOTC. Everything. The art is randomly grabbed to fit and is all copyright of the artists.

New Version: 29/07/16

 

The Riddle of Steel

"What is best in life?"

I was kindly approached to do the cover for the Collector's Edition of Barbarians of Lemuria. This one was for the hardcore fans who had backed the kickstarter at high levels.

Out of many concepts, the simple sword on black was chosen. No text. The people who have this would know what it was.

This is the sword of thr main hero, Krongar (essentially Conan). It is engraved with runes down its blade. I draped some teal beads around the hilt for some colour and interest (they're from a princess which he saved from a sea beast).

I rendered it quite highly, with loads of layers of textures painted on. I also added a little dynamism with some flames sparking out. I used a two-tone light effect to increase the depth. There is a blue light on one side and a red light on the other.

I'm pleased with how this came out.

Crimson Blades illustrations

Director's cut! Or Deleted Scenes!

Here are the internal inages which I did for the fantastic Crimson Blades 2nd Edition.

These are the unedited versions. The final pieces were all framed to fit into the same sized landscape and panoramic panels so they could slot straight into the final layout.

(I tweaked the final castle pic on the go, so it's sized into its border, hence no alternate version).

The game is a very 60/70's dark fantasy one and we focused on trying to maintain an aspect of that in the art.

It's fun getting to play with heavy blacks again.

Crimson Blades

Crimson Blades

Here is a blow-by-blow of process shots for the Crimson Blades cover which I did for Beyond Belief Games.

We wanted to invoke a classic pulp feel. Strong blacks, red and white were on the mood board.

I chose to overlay a painted texture on the blacks to give it more of a 60s/70s feel. To suggest the magic and mystery in the game. It also served to unify the design by bringing it together more. The original blacks popped a little too much.

All work done in Sketchbook on Galaxy Note.

The process is hopefully fairly clear from the shots, but if anyone has any questions, let me know.