Chinese Dragons

I'm writing a bonus post this week. The images above are chinese dragons I designed for Paizo Publishing's recently released Pathfinder Bestiary 3. The three dragons you see are a water dragon, a forest dragon and a sovereign dragon. The latter is meant to be a golden king of the dragons.

I had a great time designing these pieces. Each dragon was described as long and serpentine and I tried to strike a balance between the stylized, graphic way such creatures were often represented in traditional chinese art and something slightly more realistic. In other words, I didn't want to make them totally realistic because I felt they would lose some of the design elements that really make them interesting. I hope you like the results!

Vampire Counts Barding Concepts

As I promised last week, I'm posting the barding concepts for the Vampire Counts. These designs, like the barding pieces I posted last week, were created for Warhammer Online. However, unlike the Brettonnian designs I posted last week, these concepts are much darker in tone, right down to the horse itself, which is as undead as it's vampire riders. Also unlike last week, I was able to design and paint the horse that would wear these sets of armor.

There are 3 tiers of barding, each more elaborate than the last. I incorporated a lot of skull/death imagery and used bat wings and similar shapes as a motif throughout the armor. As you can see, the colors are primarily black and red, for what should be obvious reasons.

All 4 pieces were created in Photoshop and Painter.

Property of Games Workshop Limited 2012. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission. Games Workshop, the Games Workshop logo, Warhammer, the Warhammer logo, ’Eavy Metal, the ’Eavy Metal logo, Citadel, the Citadel Device, Warhammer Armies: Vampire Counts, Vampire Counts, Wight King, Crypt Ghoul, Corpse Cart, Grave Guard, Blood Knights, Blood Knight Kastellan, The Black Coach, Spirit Host, Cairn Wraith, Fell Bat, Dire Wolf, Nightmare, Skeletal Steed, Hellsteed, Abyssal Terror, Varghulf, Count Vlad von Carstein, Countess Isabella von Carstein, Mannfred von Carstein, Konrad von Carstein, Nagash, Chaos, Realm of Chaos, Bretonnia, Skavenblight, the Empire, Border Princes, Karak Azul, Nehekhara, Priest King Settra, Khemri, Sigmar, Grand Theogonist, Dwarfs, Ogre Kingdoms, Grail Knight, and all associated marks, logos, places, names, creatures, races and race insignia/devices/logos/symbols, vehicles, locations, weapons, units, spells, special powers, items, rules, characters, products, illustrations and images from the Warhammer world and game system are either ®, TM and/or © Games Workshop Ltd 2000-2012, registered in the UK and other countries around the world, Used without permission. All Rights Reserved.

Warhammer Online Barding Concepts

I've been waiting to post these pieces for a long time! I created the barding concept art above for the Warhammer Online game. For those who don't know, Warhammer is a long-running tabletop miniatures game produced by UK-based publisher Games Workshop. The game's popularity has resultd in novels, comics and inevitably, a computer game. Warhammer has a rich, detailed universe and since I used to play the miniatures game, I've always thought it would be fun to work on the game. Consequently, when I had a chance to do some concept art for it, I jumped right in.

Barding is a term used to describe armor for horses. I was provided with a painting of a horse and asked to apply the armor to that particular horse so while I designed the armor in these pieces, the horse was created by another artist.

These barding designs are for a human faction in Warhammer called Bretonnia, which was modeled to some degree after medieval France, England and Arthurian legends. The idea was to create 3 tiers of barding, each more complex and detailed than the last.

I'd love to do more of this kind of concept work. It's really fun to just dig in and explore the possibilities in different armor designs, patterns, etc. If you like these images, you'll be pleased to know I have more. I did a second set of (much darker) barding designs for a faction named Vampire Counts. They will be included in my next post so please come back for more!

Property of Games Workshop Limited 2012. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission. Games Workshop, the Games Workshop logo, Warhammer, the Warhammer logo, ’Eavy Metal, the ’Eavy Metal logo, Citadel, the Citadel Device, Warhammer Armies: Vampire Counts, Vampire Counts, Wight King, Crypt Ghoul, Corpse Cart, Grave Guard, Blood Knights, Blood Knight Kastellan, The Black Coach, Spirit Host, Cairn Wraith, Fell Bat, Dire Wolf, Nightmare, Skeletal Steed, Hellsteed, Abyssal Terror, Varghulf, Count Vlad von Carstein, Countess Isabella von Carstein, Mannfred von Carstein, Konrad von Carstein, Nagash, Chaos, Realm of Chaos, Bretonnia, Skavenblight, the Empire, Border Princes, Karak Azul, Nehekhara, Priest King Settra, Khemri, Sigmar, Grand Theogonist, Dwarfs, Ogre Kingdoms, Grail Knight, and all associated marks, logos, places, names, creatures, races and race insignia/devices/logos/symbols, vehicles, locations, weapons, units, spells, special powers, items, rules, characters, products, illustrations and images from the Warhammer world and game system are either ®, TM and/or © Games Workshop Ltd 2000-2012, registered in the UK and other countries around the world, Used without permission. All Rights Reserved.

Warcraft: Surge of Power and Fumdal Mountainfrost

Fumdal Mountainfrost? I always get a kick out of dwarf names in fantasy fiction and that's a creative one. These two pieces were created for the World of Warcraft trading card game. The first was a challenge because the description called for the character to simply be standing amidst 4 totems representing the elements (air, fire, water and earth). Having a character standing and doing nothing is rarely ideal so I used a bit of forced perspective to add interest and I was pleased with the way the picture turned out.

The second illustration is titled Surge of Power and shows tree creatures (called treants in Warcraft) glowing with green nature energy. I've loved the idea of tree creatures since seeing the mean trees trouble Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and reading about the Ents in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy so I really enjoyed painting this one.

Thanks for checking in!

Gauntlgrym Gambit

I took an extended break from blogging to deal with life, work, holidays and to squeeze a little rest in where I could. However, it's the first Sunday in February and it's time to get back on the blogging horse! I intend to post something new every Sunday moving forward. There will be some new posts between Sundays as well but my goal is to give everybody something new (and hopefully enjoyable) on at least a weekly basis.

To begin, here's a piece I did for Dungeon Magazine #193 for story titled The Gauntlgrym Gambit. I'm including the preliminary drawing as well. Both the drawing and the final art were created in Adobe Photoshop. Feedback is welcome so please don't hesitate to leave a message in the Comments section!