Lem the Bard

Here is my latest painting in ink wash - Lem the Bard, an iconic character from Paizo's Pathfinder series. Below the final you can see the process. By the way, Lem is a halfling (like the hobbits from Lord of the Rings).

Lem the Bard

 

Marvel's the Dazzler

Here's my latest Marvel hero... the Dazzler! I couldn't decide which to post so I've posted both versions I did of her, one using a brush and the other a quill. Let me know if you prefer one over the other.

The Dazzler painted with a brush

The Dazzler drawn with a quill

Pathfinder Iconics - Lini

After getting a positive review from a Paizo Art Director at GenCon last year, I have finally got around to starting the Iconics she suggested, starting with Lini. The final is in pencil and ink on watercolour paper (which has a slight texture to it). I will do the next Iconic on a smoother paper to see the difference it might make. The Iconics will be in grey-scale first, then be coloured in Photoshop. 

I am also working on a Marvel character sheet having already done Luke Cage (70's version) and The Wasp (60's version). The character sheet theme will be a progressive chronology of their first appearance in Marvel comics. Look out for The Dazzler, she'll be posted next.

Lini and Droogami

thumbnail

 

basic sketch

tight sketch

final sketch with some inks

Wonder Woman in Ink Wash

Pencil Sketch on Watercolour Paper

Indian Ink Wash

This is where the sketch is as of today, I may go in at a later date and colour it digitally. I used watercolour brushes for most of the painting and used a Chinese calligraphy brush for the hair. I also used Winsor & Newton non-waterproof liquid indian ink on Bockingford 300gsm Medium Surface.

Revising some old art

Last year I had a go at paying tribute to Frank Frazetta with my own version of a warrior princess painted in watercolour and gouache. Recently I have been going through my art in order to put together different portfolios suiting the various requirements of the companies I am approaching for work. One of these companies requested black and white and grey-scale images. When I came across my old warrior princess painting I discovered the tonal range was terrible and a lot of contrast was lost once changed to grey-scale, so I decided to go about adjusting the contrast using dodge and burn tools, a level adjustment layer and a gaussian blur layer. I also fixed the horn on the right side which had been bothering me since I painted it (I have no idea how I managed to get that so off balance in the first place). The resulting process can be seen below. I find myself slightly happier with the grey-scale image then the colour one.... however there is something not quite right that I just can't put my finger on....

Original with automatic grey-scale

Grey-scale adjusted manually with levels and de-saturation layer

The final image with some added dodge and burn