Swords and Orcs

It's been a while! Months even. I'm still working on Six Ages, so I don't have anything not under the death spell of an NDA I could show.
That said, two supplements for The One Ring RPG have been released fairly recently (Horse Lords of Rohan and Erebor) and I did a few pieces for them:

 

 

(goblin man and half-orc)

(Angrenithil - "Moon Iron", a sword made by both dwarven and elven smiths)

(a dwarven masked helmet)

(a war horn made of a drake's skull)

© 2016 Sophisticated Games and Cubicle 7 Entertainment Middle-earth, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and the characters, items, events and places therein are trademarks or registered trademarks of The Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises and are used under license by Sophisticated Games Ltd and their respective licensees.

How I do things

The wonderful people at Cubicle 7 have been nice to put up an interview Iain Lowson did with me. I talk about  making of the cover for the Dark Harvest anthology. (that Frankenstein monster with a train)

http://www.cubicle7.co.uk/2013/01/tales-of-promethea-author-spotlight2/

I know I described my process in the previous blog post in more detail, but this might be of interest to some as well. Maybe. Who knows? I don't. I hint at a secret exciting project too!

CAKE!

I'm drawing again!

Hey, long time no post!

I've been stretching my drawing muscles lately. I seem to have forgotten a lot, it's always a struggle at first. When I get into it though, it's a lot of fun.

Here are 4 illustration I've done for the "Picks and Hoes" book - it's quite rare to see interior illustrations in fantasy books these days:

(there will be two more in the book, still working on those. All "ink pen" over "pencil" in ArtRage)

And this is a drawing I did for a LARP group reenacting the men of Dale from J.R.R.Tolkien's Middle Earth, for a poster I think. It felt like I was drawing this for myself though - very relaxing, no stress over reference, I just drew what I knew well and enjoyed the process very much.

("pencil" in ArtRage)

  

I'm quite pleased with the result. It weren't necessarily the Osprey illustrations I was thinking about while drawing it, Victor Ambrus fans will no doubt see my attempts to be as loose and effortless as he was in all his wonderful elf drawings.

Focusing on the armies of the north of ME was also interesting. I've done many drawings and paintings of the Gondorians, the Haradrim also - all southern nations. But the elves of Mirkwood, men of Dale, Beornings, the Woodsmen, those were all neglected for some reason. They don't appear in LOTR that much and somehow don't seem to fit - the inspiration, their source and origin is more obscure, yet rooted in history and mythology even more than that of the southern people.

Quite possibly it was a combination of purchasing The One Ring role playing game by Cubicle 7 (illustrated by Jon Hodgson, Tomasz Jedruszek and John Howe), reading The Hobbit again in English and also reading "Road to Middle Earth" by Tom Shippey, that made me want to illustrate these less explored parts of Tolkien's world. Less eplored in the past that is, and in the better known media. I'm sure the MERP games have done all kinds of books on the North, but it seems to me that TOR is the one game that deals with it properly at last.

The North isn't quite as boring as I once thought it was. Hopefully I'll get to draw or paint some more of these mysterious lands.  

Victorian Fantasy

No wannabe-witty title today, just art.
Did some race portraits for the Victoriana RPG by Cubicle 7:


The Giant one was my favourite to paint. Much fun was had with this character.

The Karakon are some kind of Central Asian gnome people.

The Oni are a race of Japanese ogres.

An orc lady, what a great concept to paint!

The steppe goblins are some kind of russian magicians, machine craftsmen and overall weird types.

Jewels and berserkers

A quick one today :)

Jon H. posted yet another wonderful teaser for a C7 book - Jewel of the Empire for Victoriana, I posted the pieces I did for that some time ago.

C7-Jewel of the Empire Trailer

And since I've been playing a bit of Vikingr for MaB:Warband, I've grew fond of a certain player, a ginger lady berserker Cora. Here's a quick fanart pinup I did.

Octopus in a kilt! How funny!

Jon Hodgson just released an art preview for the newest Cthulhu supplement, which is set in Scotland.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0Of4cgLm1M

It's full of awesome art, some of which I did. (other names on the list you'll recognize, no doubt. They're actual illustrators and awesome at what they do.)

On the menu, we have some Picts attacking the Hadrian's wall, an ice age hunter exploring a melting cave and stone age cultists performing a ritual at the Ring of Brodgar.

Scrumptious curry, my good chap!

I'm posting these since the book is available in the C7 eshop.
(These illustrations are for the Victoriana RPG, specifically for their book on India. Go buy it. :) Also these were the very first illustrations I did for Jon, yay! In june 2010, so they're quite old.)

History of the Sleeping Gods

The Cthulhu Avalon book seems to be finally available so I can share some art I did for it! Yay! Some descriptions are on my DA if you're interested.
These pieces were a ton of fun to paint, Jon (the wonderful AD and overall a rad guy) sure knows just what I like.

http://www.cubicle-7.com/