The Gravemaster! Finished!

Never has the saying "Art is never finished, it is simply abandoned" been so true... ha! But, I think this one came out pretty good. This is a piece for the "Book of Wizards" which still has ten days left in the Kickstarter campaign as of posting this, you can check it out here!

Hope you like "The Gravemaster!"

Book of Wizards is a GO!

As I have posted on Facebook, Twitter and on my Kickstarter page, I have reached and exceeded, my 10k funding goal in less than a week! Amazing! I am truly humbled and amazed by all the support.

Here is a sneak peek at a piece that is currently in progress for the book, you may recognize the sketch from an earlier post here on the blog!

Thanks everyone!

-Sean

Spectrum Pieces, and 90% on Kickstarter!

Hey all, I mentioned a while back that I got 2 pieces in Spectrum this year, so I wanted to show you what they were:

"Nightfishing" Personal Piece

"Ventrinio's Well of Souls"

Concept Art for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning



Also, my Kickstarter is now over 90% funded, and there are still 24 days left in the campaign! Amazing! Thanks again to all my supporters... I can feel it, I think this thing is going  to happen! I am already working on the book as we speak. New stuff will be rolling out on my website as the months go by.

My Kickstarter campaign has launched!

Hey everyone! Exciting news: I have launched a campaign on Kickstarter called "Gateway: The Book of Wizards"!

If you like my artwork, then you are in luck because this project is a book that I am attempting to self-publish filled with my personal artwork. It features many of the pieces you have seen here on my blog, as well as new pieces. It will take me about a year (I am guessing... you know, what with the full-time job and all), and I am planning on unveiling it at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2013.

So, check out the video, send it to your friends, etc, and if you like the idea enough, show your support by pledging... you will get stuff in return..... in most cases, the actual book!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/945275755/gateway-the-book-of-wizards

Sketchuns

Been a while, sorry... lots going on (be on the lookout for an announcement about a Kickstarter campaign I am about to start). Here are some random samplings from the last few pages of my former sketchbook, and my shiny new one.

spaceships:

Space trucks:

The Tree-Spirit

So, I think enough time has passed since this came out in the January issue of ImagineFX that I can post this now. Here is the tutorial image I did for an article on how to achieve an "Arthur Rackham-y" feel in your digital paintings. Enjoy!

The Gravemaster

Drawing for a new piece: The Gravemaster:

The Day of Reckoning!

Well, folks, today is the day. 5 or so years of development, and "Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning" is finally on store shelves! If you like fantasy, or you like RPGs, or you like fast-paced action games, or you like my artwork, then you might like "RECKONING"! The game is already getting great reviews, including a 9 out of 10 from IGN.com!

Check it out if you haven't already ordered your copy. Thanks all, more personal work coming soon, including several works-in-progress!

The Art Design of Reckoning

Hey everyone, check out this video 38 Studios' marketing team put together as part of a series called "Inside Reckoning" (That's the game I worked on that is coming out Februrary 7th).

It features my big fat head blathering on and on about concept art and such, but also shows some of my concept work, as well as pieces from many of the other artists that worked on Reckoning, such as: Andrew Murray, Jay Gillen, Shaun Martin, Jeremy Enecio, Taylor Fischer, Martin Kau, Kat Berkeley, Mike Daarken Lim , Eric Deschamps, and Jonathan Kirtz. Check it out, and also check out the DEMO of our game which is available now on XBOX, PS3, and PC!!!

Old Meg - Another quickpaint / Study

I am trying to imagine these studies as scenes from a movie and focusing on lighting and mood.

This one may be a tad dark on your monitor. Haha.

Just..... keep... sketching....

My article in ImagineFX is on the shelves!

Hey everyone, the latest issue of ImagineFX that features my article on "how to paint like Arthur Rackham" (not presumptuous on my part or anything) is ON THE SHELVES at your local Barnes and Noble or bookstore formerly known as Borders..... Go check it out!

I have intentionally made the image here small so that you aren't tempted to just settle for reading it on my blog.... (well, and there is SO much more info on the next 2 pages anyways), PLUS the magazine includes a DVD that has PSD files, and a video of the entire process of creating this piece... please support ImagineFX, it is an amazing resource!

MOAR!

Some sketches, and some speed-paints

Hey everyone, Happy New Year, I hope it is a happy, prosperous and productive one for everyone! Here's some new stuff! Enjoy!

Books with my art!

Hey all, just wanted to remind everyone that Spectrum 18 is finally out! In it you will find a nice full-page treatment of my "Wizard Alley" piece on page 268 (As well as nearly 300 pages of other incredible artists in the fantasy and Sci-fi genre)! Woohoo! You can buy it here on amazon:

Spectrum 18

Also, while I was at IlluXcon, I ran into awesome artist Jim Pavelec, who gave me my complimentary copies of his new book "Hymns and Wretched Offerings to the Golden Ones", which features 3 pencil drawings of mine. It's an amazingly beautiful book, and well worth buying, though you should hurry because there are a limited number of editions as I understand it. You can get it one of two ways, either from Amazon:

Hymns and Wretched Offerings of the Golden Ones

or Get it from Jim Pavelec's website

That is all. More sketch pages coming soon.

More Sketch-catch-up.

Sketch Catch-up. Part 01

Been too long since last I posted sketches from the sketch book, so here is the first of 2 posts to catch up! Also, thinking about how I want to design and arrange a printed "sketchbook" that I am going to make to sell at cons and stuff... it was very obvious from IlluXcon this year that I shoudl have had one already!

In The Valley of Glencoe

This is a watercolor/pen and ink piece I did for my wife's friend Olivia for her wedding present. We attended the wedding which was in Edinburgh, Scotland, back in April. The piece was created from a combination of sketches and photographs I took on site.

New piece: Nightfishing!!! + detail shots.

The BoneDoctor

New piece I am working on for my book. He is called "The BoneDoctor"

Also, I recieved some good news when I was out at San Diego Comic-Con a couple weeks ago: my "Wizards in the Alley" piece is getting a FULL PAGE in Spectrum 18 this year!!! WOOHOO!!!

Gateway Journal Day 07: The Mechanized Market

Just across the Great Canal is the neighborhood known as Watertown, so named because it is surrounded on all sides by water. Here there are also many canals and waterways, but it is a bit more working-class and industrial than Canal-City. There are numerous warehouses and small factories of various sorts and the waters a little more polluted. Today I ventured there by water taxi to see something I read about in a guidebook.

In the center of Watertown is a small but well-known market called "The Mechanized Market". It is found in a wide, but fairly dank and lightless alley that stretches about half a mile. Here, there are no merchants standing behind stalls or in tents, calling out to you to buy their wares. Nope, here all the selling is done by machines... vending machines of a sort. And everything is for sale, and I do mean everything.

The market got its start a long time ago during a period of uncommon prosperity. Merchants found themselves with an overflow of stock, and often could not sell many items because they did not have room to display them. So an enterprising young merchant named Kilao built a machine that would sell his overflow stock (usually shoes and umbrellas) for him. Customers put a coin in a slot, turned a knob, and out popped the desired merchandise. He called it a "Personless Merchant". He chose a well-travelled alleyway that saw a lot of daily foot-traffic and soon it became a great success.

Other merchants took notice and followed suit with their own machines, all of varying designs, and all custom-built to sell specific items: toys, flowers, live animals, dead animals, animal skulls, music-boxes, spectacles, newspapers, postcards, snacks, wigs, clothing of all types, alcoholic beverages, glass eyes, vegetables, spices, magical trinkets, wands, baubles, fabric, daggers, maps, watches, raw meat, and even small boats!

According to some locals, there was once a vending machine that sold corpses of recently deceased folk who made no arrangements for their interment. This machine had appeared very suddenly overnight and was the subject of much scandal and shock. The owner, a secretive mortician from Tower City named Cornelius Crane, defended his machine, noting that there were many legitimate uses for fresh corpses. But the city council saw the matter differently, and ordered the machine removed, which also began a new era of regulation and taxation on the machines.

Today, the alleyway is still busy with activity, but perhaps not as much as in its heyday. There is still an impressive variety of "Personless Merchants" here today, but one also notes the many long-unused machines, or some which are in serious disrepair, barely working and often guilty of stealing coin or vending expired merchandise.

A Random Smattering of Sketchlings

Recent random stuff from the sketchbook.

Gateway Journal Day 06: Nightfishing

So, after my ordeal the other night, I had to spend today talking to an overworked detective in the local Citywatch Station. Lately, there apparantly have been increased incidents of some sort of underground anarchy group that is tagging walls and knocking over streetlamps and such throughout the city.

The sense I get is that in many other neighborhoods people just deal with it and get on with their lives, but around here, in Canal City, folks tend to get a little more upset about this stuff disturbing their little paradise. I guess I don't blame them, but at the same time, it seems like a lot of real crime (like getting mugged at blunderbuss-point) gets overshadowed by Mrs. Klenderring's overturned flowerpots..... which may or may not even have anything to do with these so-called anarchists.

So my day was pretty much shot. When the sun was going down, I went in search of something that I could draw at night, braving the evening hours despite my ordeal from the night before..... can't live in constant fear... besides, now I am armed.

Anyways, I lucked out because last night, many of the canals in the neighborhood were lit up with thousands of lanterns of the Nightfishermen. Nightfishing is a long-held tradition here in Gateway, and on certain nights of the month (I think the moon cycle has something to do with which nights are the best) people travel from all over the city to go to the most popular spots... some of the best are here in Canal City.

It is so ingrained into the folklore and history of Gateway, that several little religions and cults have sprung up around the tradition, and often predictions about the future are made based on what kinds of fish are caught, how many are caught, and how big the fish are....

There were so many boats packed into the main canals, it was hard to find a good subject to focus on, so I wandered the lesser-traveled canals and found a small boat that really epitomized the bizarre and somewhat humorous nature of this tradition. I asked another onlooker if he knew anything about this particular boat. He said he thinks the leader of this particular Nightfishing cult believes that it is his destiny to one day catch a giant squid in the canals, something that has been rumored to have occurred once in the History of Gateway, over 300 years ago. The day after it was caught, an enormous tidal wave crashed into the city and wiped out entire neighborhoods. I suppose this particular Nightfisherman draws some sort of connection between the two events.

This night, thankfully, no giant squid was caught.