Things came together faster than I had expected, and what was to be a Gen Con surprise is now also an Infinity Con surprise. I am
That is all for an unexpected Thursday on the blog. See you back here tomorrow! Until then...
I am pleased to share one of the surprises I have in store for
Each pack has a potential value of up to $200, and you can obtain one at the convention for only $50! I have a great selection of prints available, and they run the gamut of my work over the years. Included are many fan favorites, high-profile projects, and hidden gems. There will be some of the same prints
• STAR WARS (LOTS!!!)
• DUNGEONS & DRAGONS (LOTS!!!)
• A GAME OF THRONES
• PATHFINDER
• LEGEND OF THE FIVE RINGS
• CALL OF CTHULHU
• KAIJUDO
• Various MONSTERS
• The GRAND BAZAAR of ETHRA VANDALIA
Each bundle comes sealed, so there is no peeking. As before, I have drawn on the lower corners of many of the prints. To be honest, I did my math wrong and ended up drawing on WAY more prints than I should have, meaning that your chances of getting an
In addition to the drawings on the prints,
Here is a look at just a few of the many drawings on prints that you might find in the bundles!
While it is possible, I am confident that I will not sell out at Infinity Con. If we did, that would be amazing, but we planned to have plenty left for Gen Con. It is at Gen Con that I expect to sell out, so if you want to get your hands on these, I will see you at Infinity Con or Gen Con this summer.
That's all
Infinity Con this coming weekend, July 12th and 13th, in Tallahassee, FL. I will be there with all my monsters as a guest creator. Infinity Con is a fantastic event, and it is always a joy to share my work with those in Tallahassee. I will bring the Grand Bazaar with me again, so you can expect books, art, enamel pins, and a lot of new art! I will have some surprises for the show as well, which will be made clear this coming Wednesday! Mark your calendars, and I will see you at the Donald Tucker Civic Center
Only a few more days before I share with you one of the main surprises that I have in store for the summer convention schedule. I would very much like to get something else completed, but time is running out,
That is all for another exciting Monday on the blog. See you back here on Wednesday! Until then...
My artist proofs created for the Magic: The Gathering in Miniature II Show have returned to me, and they are now available on my store and will be touring with me at my summer conventions. It has been an honor to be part of both shows. For the second show, I created a series of pieces focused on the more monstrous Plainswalkers. They were super fun. You can find these and all my other artist proofs on my store.
That's all for another exciting Wednesday on the blog. See you back here on Friday! Until then...
I am pleased to make available some of the NUMBER ONE from my edition of signed and numbered Magic the Gathering prints. The editions of 50 have sold out except for these remaining number one prints in the edition. These prints also feature an original drawing along the right border. Marker, ink, and acrylic paint were used to create the drawings. Each print is 12" x 18" and will ship rolled in a tube. In addition to the number ones, for the Portent, numbers two, three, and four are also available. If these are well received, I will make the rest of the number one prints available soon.
These are the LAST of my original print edition for these cards. And this will be the final opportunity to likely ever get these images in print form from me. Open editions of unsigned prints can still be available from OMA.
That's all for another exciting Monday on the blog. See you back here on Wednesday! Until then...
With my convention season jumping into high gear in July, I thought I would put a little sneak peek of things to come here on the blog today. That's it. No other details or info - for now. Stay tuned,
That's all for another exciting week on the blog. See you back here on Monday! Until then...
On Monday, I shared with you that I have been working with Wizards of the Coast for twenty years as of this past Sunday. Today, I wanted to look back at the very first work that I did for them. As mentioned, I was first hired to design miniatures for WotC's new game, Dreamblade. It was the perfect job for me and one I still greatly miss. While I was initially hired to design three pieces for the game, by the time the game was cancelled, I had designed over seventy-five miniatures, with the majority seeing production.
Of the three original pieces, one
But I want to be clear, I was in WAY over my head and doing my best to fake it until I made it. I can draw monsters all day long. But drawing them all day long for a client, giving me a lot of freedom while putting a lot of guardrails up, was an interesting situation to find myself in. I learned so much in an extremely short period when I started working on Dreamblade, and my artistic skill set, especially drawing, made vast leaps. I could talk at great length about the mistakes I made at this time, the things I learned, and the nature of the business, communication, etc., but I think I will now show off some art. It all began with the Blight Rat.
You might look at this and think, yes, that is totally one of your monsters. It has many of my go-to elements: asymmetrical, deformed or mutated, spikes and points, and a natural sense of "RAWR". But I had to get here kicking and screaming and freaking out. What is so obvious now had to come from a massive amount of work and rejection. I was under the false assumption that I could be fired at any moment if I submitted a 'bad' drawing. So it wasn't until that first approval that I was actually able to breathe and start making monsters and having fun.
There were multiple phases of approval on these. You were given the art order and had to design a front or 3/4 front view. Once that was approved, you then made the side and back view, or more if the design required it. So when I said this one was the first approved, it was the first front view approved, and then I had to get the front views for the other two I was working on approved before moving onto the rest of the views. Speaking of the other two, I shared the Pick-Pick and the Genteel Husk nine years ago. The Pick-Pick was a fun challenge, and I think the end result is very cool and unexpected, while the Genteel Husk was a pain from start to finish.
Looking at these early concepts for the Blight Rat (or Pigsticker as it was originally named), you might be confused by its final form. These concepts faithfully follow what I was asked to create. There is some of me in there, but these are in line with what production wanted to see. I had some really good chats with my AD while working on these, and she really pushed me to go nuts and 'have fun and do something cool,' which have been the words I mostly worked by on all future WotC projects. So I went back to the drawing table and took up where I had stopped with the third concept and made the leap to the approved Blight Rat design. There were no middle steps and no other versions. I had three rejected concepts and then hit a home run. I learned so much in that leap.
And at the very end of the project, I would get a little figure of my monster to hold in my hand. It has never gotten better than this. I wish every assignment ended with a little toy of your work. That would be really amazing. If you want to see more of my Dreamblade work, you can see everything I have shared here on the blog.
That's all for another exciting Wednesday on the blog. See you back here Friday! Until then...
Twenty years ago yesterday, I received my first assignment to work with Wizards of the Coast (WotC) to design monsters for a new miniature game they were developing. I had met the art director a year earlier at San Diego Comic Con and had a great portfolio review. I kept in touch over that year as my life completely changed. We would leave LA for a fresh start back in Florida with a better job and 99% less abuse and
While the miniature game, Dreamblade, only lasted a few years, twenty years later, I am still making monsters for WotC. Not as many as I once did, but WotC is now my only client in the gaming industry that I still take work from. I never expected this to last twenty years, and I certainly didn't expect the journey that I have had with them. But I guess I am still doing something right if they want me to make monsters for them.
Over the years, there have been some really amazing highs and some lows (in some
I have worked with some of the best art directors in the business, and through them, I have learned a great deal about being objective with my work and understanding that revisions are all part of the process. I know I will forget some people, but working with Kate, Jon, Dawn, Emi, Stacy, Jeremy, Peter, Cynthia, Taylor, Forrest, Zack, and plenty
I have some really exciting work waiting to be released. Work I have waited twenty years to make. I can't say more, but hopefully later this year, or early next year, I will be sharing it with you here. This coming work is in many ways a full circle moment for me and a wonderful way to acknowledge two decades of making game art.
About ten years ago, I started hearing from people that they had enjoyed my work since childhood. It always made me feel weird, because that just didn't seem possible. But there is no escaping that reality now. I now have fans who are younger than my career. I do not know what is next with me and WotC, but I will keep making monsters for them as long as they will let me and as long as it fits into my schedule. The Grand Bazaar has priority now, but I always find it hard to tell WotC no. So, a MASSIVE thanks to all my art directors and fans for being a part of this adventure! It has been a crazy ride.
That's all for another exciting Monday on the blog. See you back here on Wednesday! Until then...
This month marks twenty years for me in the gaming industry, and this is also my twenty-sixth year as a working artist. I have
Today, I have another of several pieces I did for a game that was never completed. As mentioned previously, I originally painted these in 2010, the project never saw completion, and my work was shelved due to NDAs. In 2015, I received permission to share the work I did on the game as long as I didn't talk about the specifics of the project. That was the only time I shared this work. I always liked the work I did for the game, and they always had a soft spot in my art heart for them, well, most of them. The images created would have been used as hero art for various monsters encountered in the game. I loved the photo studio quality
As a side note, you can see more about this monster here on the blog. I always enjoy the
That is all for another exciting week on the blog. See you back here on Monday! Until then...
This month marks twenty years for me in the gaming industry, and this is also my twenty-sixth year as a working artist. I have
Today, I have another of several pieces I did for a game that was never completed. As mentioned previously, I originally painted these in 2010, the project never saw completion, and my work was shelved due to NDAs. In 2015, I received permission to share the work I did on the game as long as I didn't talk about the specifics of the project. That was the only time I shared this work. I always liked the work I did for the game, and they always had a soft spot in my art heart for them, well, most of them. The images created would have been used as hero art for various monsters encountered in the game. I loved the photo studio quality
As a side note, you can see more about this monster here on the blog. Another fun one where I could just make a fun monster and enjoy the painting process. I like insect monsters right behind reptile monsters, so I was right at home on this one. This is still very much a favorite of mine and not the only scorpion monster that I have created over the years.
That is all for another exciting Wednesday on the blog. See you back here on Friday! Until then...
I am thrilled to share another new piece from The Grand Bazaar of Ethra VanDalia! This illustration is for Book Two: The Completed Circle and is the next character piece in the book, the Hauteur Girasol Administrator. One of the issues with retranslating a story written thousands of years in the past is that the original writings are incomplete. While I will go into more of this in the book, suffice it to say there are some holes in the story. One of the isolated sections involves a female Girasol that has come to the rescue of the heroes and has slaughtered a group of Gallionic Gallowglass that were asailing the stories' band of heroes. You may remember the Girosal from the first book when their species was nearing its end, but here, they are at their prime and a rising presence on the planet. I look forward to writing and sharing more about them. I present to you the Hauteur Girasol Administrator - and oh so many dispatched Gallionic Gallowglass.
As a bonus, I have some images of the rendering process of this piece so that you can get a better idea of it taking shape.
That is all for another exciting Monday on the blog. See you back here on Wednesday! Until then...
