The Offering

Here is the piece I have been doing as a private commision for fantasy art collector extraordinaire: Gregg Spatz. Hope you like it! I have also included the line-drawing as well.

CYBER-MONDAY DISCOUNT!!!

Hey everyone! I am offering a Cyber-Monday deal on my Etsy Print-Shop! All you have to do is enter the coupon code: "FISHPERSON" and you will get 20% off! Don't worry if you don't do it on Monday either, it will be valid for 2 weeks, until December 10th!

Woohoo! Amateur capitalism!

Here's a few sketches from older sketchbooks that I haven't posted here:

"Wizard Alley" now available in my printshop!

Just in time for the Holidays! What better way to say "MERRY HOLIDAYS TO THEE!" than with the gift of a print by yours truly depicting a group of mysterious wizards, warlocks, and male Wiccans meeting up outside of a seedy tavern where they have just been binge drinking and discussing the return of the Great Old One!!!! HOORAY!!! Get yours today!

2 Class Demos - promising pieces?

Last night I did a digital painting demo for my friend and co-worker Colin Campbell's digital illustration class at MICA. These are by no means finished, but I think they are showing promise. As always, they started from sketches from my sketchbook, as you may recognize the images from previous posts.

I especially think I may continue working on the street scene image.

Both done in under 2 hours.

Fantasy Mega-structure sketch, plus: Spectrum News!

OK, sorry I have been absent for a while, a few things to report:

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1. I am working on my first personal commission! I will be sure to post that when it's done, but I only just started so it may be a while. Plus, it may also depend on whether the buyer is OK with me posting it right away.

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2. Spectrum 17 comes out soon, and my piece "Oops" is featured in the Unpublished section. But ALSO, they use a portion of my piece on the inside front cover, which you can see a sneak peek of on this youtube video (it's the second page they flip to and it has 6 horizontal strips of various pieces from the book, part of "Oops" is the top one!). The book hits the shelves on November 1st (ish).

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3. Finally, I am working on an ambitious, and likely very time-consuming personal project, which, for the moment, I am going to remain fairly mum about, but once I feel that it is progressing in a satisfactory way, I will start dropping some hints and some visuals to see what you guys think. So, my posts may be a little more scarce (although they have been scarce already, haha), but I will try to post things when I can.

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For now, here's a quick sketch from the old sketchbook, kind of a fantasy super-structure idea.... plus a fancy-lookin dude to the right of it.

Cheers.

A single page of sketch

A quick post. The upper right drawing was inspired by a drawing Alan Lee did of a twisted looking mill that he did for LOTR..... I think it was for the burning of the Shire sequence. Anyways, what I liked about it was that the building felt very organic, like a creature crawling along the ground. I think it is important to visualize buildings and architecture less like blocks and rectangles, but rather as organice forms... even if they have straight walls. Rarely do you see a structure that is just a plain box with no other features.

"Wizard Alley", finished

OK, so I finished "Wizard Alley". Finally! Let me know what you think. Got two more pieces in production as we speak... stuff I have posted WIPs of before, but am going back to now... I will keep the Blog updated when I have more progress on them.

Couple O Sketches, and Thanks!

Here are just a couple little sketch pages for ya.

Pretty much done with the Wizards in the Alley piece, just had a few minor finishing touches I wantred to put on it, then I will post it.

I also wanted to thank everyone who came to my booth at Baltimore COmic-Con, it was great! I had a blast, and I sold almost 40 prints! WOOHOO! I am thinking I might try to do a couple more conventions next year, it went so well.

Anyways, enjoy!

Come see me at the Baltimore Comic-Con

Yes, that's right, I will have a table at the Baltimore Comic-Con tomorrow and Sunday, so be sure to stop by if you can!

My table is A85 in Artist's Alley, and I will be sharing it with Tim Coman, my Art Director at Big Huge Games.

Also, I will be selling copies of the one and only "Robots 'r' Cool, Zombies 'r' Jerks!" Issue #1!!! A rare collector's item, yours for only $1.75!!!!! You may even spot the one-and-only Devin T. Quin, who is even rarer!

Wizards in an Alley WIP

Hey everyone, here is some progress on this piece. Really trying to nail the mood here. Tell me what you think so far... is it too dark? Not dark enough?

Finding the Light in the Ordinary

So, I recently did an interview with a Chinese magazine called simply: Fantasy Art. It was a pretty cool experience, and a distinction I share with a lot of great artists and illustrators, many of whom I am not worthy to be amongst.


To make matters more surreal, they put my piece "Globechaser" on the cover! Check it out below!


Anyways, a big thanks to the good folks at Fantasy Art magazine, especially editor Lizzy Carft, and my interviewer: Winney! Thanks guys!

Comic-Con and the unveiling of BHG's new game!

So, as you all know, I have been working on a very secretive RPG project at BHG/38 for some time now. Well, 2 weekends ago, at the San Diego Comic-Con, we unveiled our game! Yay!

You can check out the official website for the game here! (There's some concept art to be seen from Jeremy Enecio, Daarken, and myself)

Below are a few pics I took of the event itself, which I attended, including images of 2 of the creatures from our game that we made into giant toy sculpts, both of which were based on concepts by yours truly.

Blog Exposure, with interview and CONTEST!

The nice folks at Zip and Ruth have kindly featured me on their blog this week, which includes links to my work, an interview, and a contest! The prize is a free print from my etsy printshop. Check it out!

Weekend Sketches, and Upcoming Events!

Spent a long weekend at my family's vacation house on the Chesapeake Bay. It's located in an area that has a long fishing industry history, and there are all these crazy looking fish-processing factories, as well as the ruins of older ones, hence the the sketch below.














I really love drawing factories and industrial stuff. I realized that it's even more fun to do without any reference at all, just doing it based on memory and speculation. This is something I do now and then, and want to start doing more: memory life-drawing.

I did it when I went on a trip to Ireland, we were in this ebus and wizzing by all these beautiful scenes so I had to try to take a mental snap-shot then draw what I remember afterwards. It's fun, try it sometime!

















In other news, I will be attending the San Diego Comic-Con this week on Thursday and Friday, so if you see a weird, bearded dude with a crazy look in his eyes, it is probably me, so say HI, won't you?

I will only be there as an observer, BUT, in late August, I will have a table in the Artist's Alley at the BALTIMORE Comic-Con, where you might also catch a glimpse of my very famous co-worker (and the executive art director of 38 Studios) Todd McFarlane!

Also, more progress on this drawing:

Robo-feelings.

Here's another WIP. I am trying to draw more robots. Hope you like it, let me know if you have any thoughts about it before I take it to finish.

Bowl-Full-o-Sketch

Wizard Meet-up

I've been working on this sketch in my sketchbook. Got the idea after watching Harry Potter, then going to the aquarium. Wizards are so fun to draw, and can look like anything. I want this piece to have a really spooky, back-alleys of London kind of feel to it. Also, when I was trying to say "fish-wizard" to my wife, I ended up saying "Wish-Fizard", which I think is actually a great name for a magical creature. So don't steal it. I OWN Wish-Fizard.

Getting the hang of it...

Another iPad sketch using Sketchbook Pro and the Pogo Stylus. Played with layers and more brush options this time.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

First iPad sketch using the pogo stylus

Works OK, but not perfect. Some day Apple will support pressure-sensitive styluses...... Won't they??


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Claw Knight WIP

Slowly but surely.....

A skosh of sketch

Stalled: Clawbeak

Introducing a new feature on my blog! Occasionally I find things that I started drawing, then just suddenly stopped.... either not convinced I was going to like it, or because I got on to something else. Who knows the fate of these stalled pieces... maybe they will live again... sooner or later.

Without further ado, I present: CLAWBEAK!

Temple of the Great Fish - Finished!

I have finished it. Let me know what you think. Prints are available on my etsy page: http://seanandrewmurray.etsy.com

Temple of the Great Fish WIP, and some sketchbook morsels

So, working on the Fish Temple piece. Doing it in watercolors and pen&ink. Hoping this one turns out OK, still perfecting this methof working. Basically, I printed out the sketch very lightly onto watercolor paper, and then I out down the base tones, then do a layer of line-work, then some more watercolor to pop out details and shadows, then highlights, but I am trying NOT to add highlights, but rather think about them ahead of time and just leave white space which is what you are supposed to do with watercolor.... so I hear.

Then a couple sketches from the sketchbook.

Sketcherlings

More transmissions.

A couple more works-in-progress on the easel....

The first image is another "stream of conciousness" piece, along the lines of "What's Mine is Mine", and the second one is an old pencil drawing I started a long time ago, and started working on again... I WILL finish it!

Temple of the Great Fish

OK, this is a new piece I am working on. This is based off of an old sketch from my sketchbook that you may have seen before.

I am going to print out this drawing very lightly on watercolor paper, then paint it with watercolors and pen&ink. I also have several other drawings in the works, but all at various states. My friend Marc Taro tells me I should post a photo of them on the blog anyways, just to show how big they are and to give everyone an idea of what is to come. I will do that soon.

I can't decide with this one whether or not I like the additional buildings/temples in the background, or if it should just be a desolate mountain-scape, making this particular temple seem very remote. What do you think?