Pathfinder - Lem and Lini

This week I was finalising an old sketch I had made a while back in 2012
I always liked the sketch, but never really got to realize it until now.

It is a test illustration I did, to see how my new style would work on Paizo's pathfinder characters.
In this case Lem and Lini, sitting together in the woods, while Lem plays his flute.

 The usual base work in watercolors

 

 The base colorwork, I made a colored sketch beforehand, so I had an idea of how the light situation was going to be, but it was a bit too rough and therefore resulted in some trouble during the later stages.

Better light situation, but the shadows turned out a bit too dark, which could cause trouble when printing.

 And done. 

Compared to the usual Covers from Paizo, its more saturated and colorfull.
The art of Steve Prescott is very nice. It has a stylized charm with strong lines and shapes.
This is probably my favorite piece, the edged shapes on the dragon, the highlight lines and the simplified shapes on the characters, to blend out unnecessary details - Really nice.

On to the next piece, for more practice.

Godzilla Watercolor

And hello again dear reader community, thank you for checking in once more.
(Sounds like a radio cast)

As a nerdy Godzilla fan, I always wanted to have a Godzilla poster, but I never really got one.
Its not that there arent any good ones, I really love the one from Godzilla '84, but some of them are hard to come by and why should you buy one if you could make one yourself ?

And so I finally took some time and started painting my own.
Since I started the watercolors again, I realized that I just need to be a bit more patient in the beginning of the process. REALLY make sure that you know how the piece will look like and dont start the next step befor you are happy with every part. For example: For the dwarfen merchant piece from last week I totally butchered the bear during the initial sketches and had to make a series of bear studies befor he turned out right. Same with this one.

1st step: Thumbnails, until you find a good idea to start from
I didnt document that step here.

On to the pictures: #1 and #2 are some studies on brown paper to test some ideas and proportions.

 

Next we go digital and make some color sketches.

 

Then we go back on the big baper and draw it in detail, then mounting it and using some yellow ochres to bring in the basic shadows.

 

Then adding colors. In this case red, orange and brown colors, as I already knew where this would go in the later phase.

 

And there we are, going digital and kicking in the values and saturation.

I hope you like it.I made 2 versions of this, the monochrome version and another one with some blues and greys in it.

Dwarfen merchant

Hello folks, recently I am trying more traditional stuff to see what works best for me.
Here an attempt to work in a stile close to Justin Gerard or Peter de Seve mixed with my personal touch.Works well, although I would love to improve on opaque colors as well.

As the size was bigger then my scanner, I had to photograph with the steps in between with my cellphone. Its ok to get an impression.
Hope you like it.

 

Schankmaid

Since the RPC I have the will to finally improve my traditional works more.
So what better way to do that, then to get back into practice and do some characters and creatures?

Starting with a bavaria-flair-maiden.

Done in watercolor and Gouache.

EDIT: And another one.
Starting to get a better idea of thick Gouache.
The good thing: As long as there is water you can reuse and rub off any color on your palette, the downside is that it does that on your picture as well. So if you have a nice layer of color, and want to add another tint over it, its risky because you might move the color below.

Testing out some fixactive sprays on that matter and higher quality colors.

RPC 2014 - Sketches and aftermath

And I am back from the RPC in cologne.
It was an awesome weekend, lots of new and old faces, a lot to see and draw...
Anne Pogoda, Poul Dohle, Dietmar Krüger, Nele Klumpe, Reinhard Horst, Mia and Barbara Steingräber, Sarah Robinson and many more.

It was really inspiring and so I went to the local art store today to test some new papers and methods - I cant wait to get started.

The artists corner was a little bit too much off the way though, behind other walls and tables, so we didnt have as much traffic there as most of the artists hoped. Maybe we can contact the manager so that we get a better place next year.

For now I can show you the sketches and drawings I made over the weekend.

By the way, I have still some of the Godzilla cards left and will continue to sell the originals on Deviant art : http://vaejoun.deviantart.com/art/Godzilla-Cards-447500139

 

RPC Cologne - Godzilla cards

And hello again everyone.Right now I am preparing for the RPC in cologne where I will sit for 2 days in the artists mile, together with a table, a chair and a lot of other great artists.
I am looking forward to see everybody again and wish everybody a great time.

In case you dont know: The RPC is the role play convention, it is held every year around the 10th and 11th of may.

Of course everybody is trying to sell some stuff, like postcards, prints and some special goods.
In this case I made a series of Chibi Godzilla (and some other movies) cards, available at my table if you can find me. Whats left after the con will be available online.
These are originals and no copies by the way.

Now I have to choose which pictures I will use as prints....

1- Mothra
2- Meltdown Godzilla
3- Destoroya
4- Mecha King Gidorah
5- Fun Godzilla
6- Anguirus
7- Evil Godzilla
8- King Kong
9- Meteor Man
10- Ebirah
11- Gidorah
12- Gorosaur
13- Gaborah
14- Baragon
15- Gigan
16- Gojira 52
17- Godzilla tower
18- Mecha Godzilla
19- Space Godzilla
20- Minya/ Godzilla Jr
21- Biolante
22- Megalon
23- Flying Godzilla
24- Tank Godzilla
25- Rodan
26- Gamera
27- Chtulhu
28- The Blob
29- Marshmallow man
30- ?? (Lets see who knows this one)

Storyboards

Hello folks,
it's been quite a while since my last post because I was busy working on a new branch of my portfolio. It took my some time to get used to it but now I can show you some of my new storyboards.