Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

The Book of Wizards is available for purchase!

At long last, my personal project, funded by Kickstarter, entitled "Gateway - The Book of Wizards" has been completed and printed, and is available for purchase on my etsy page:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/187375703/gateway-the-book-of-wizards-signed?

It features over 70 illustrations and is 126 pages long. It details the lives and exploits of some of the most famous and infamous wizards of The Great City of Gateway, and their connection to the underground movement to over-throw Chancellor Gideon and his Inquisitors, who have outlawed magic within the city.

I wrote and illustrated the entire book, and this book will be the first of hopefully many future Gateway projects.






Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Sketchbook - The Reckoning

I started a new sketchbook this year - I am going with the smaller "moleskine" sketchbook with the thick paper.

I had a bunch of these lying around from back when I worked at Big Huge Games/38 Studios. To commemorate the launch of "Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning" they had moleskines printed up for with the Reckoning "swirl" pattern on it that I designed.... everyone at 38 Studios / Big Huge Games got one but they had a bunch of extras so when the company went belly-up I grabbed a few more.

Thing was, I really didn't like working on the moleskine back then, I was still into my larger, 9x12, ring-bound Canson sketchbooks. My hesitation was the smaller surface area, but I decided to force myself to try it for more than one page because the issue with the larger sketchbook is the portability and awkwardness of it. I want to be able to have my sketchbook with me ALWAYS (A.B.Y.S.S. - "Always Bring Your Sketchbook, Stupid").

Another thing I did to realize this goal was I used velcro to be able to attach my pencil, my erasers, and my iPhone. I can even stick a kneaded eraser onto the velcro.

Anyways, I think it's working out - I find myself sketching in my sketchbook way more than I used to and I really like the sketches I have been doing.

Doing this also made me realize that we can be stubborn sometimes as artists. We get used to working a certain way, with certain materials, but the truth is if you just give something a chance, let it run it's course instead of instantly saying: "I don't like this, it doesn't feel like I expect it to", you may find that you can adapt to a new way of working and solve other issues that the old way was holding you back from. 

Eventually, these sketches will be included in my second volume of a published collection of sketches. In the meantime, you can purchase my FIRST collection of sketches here, on my Etsy site: https://www.etsy.com/shop/seanandrewmurray

-Sean