Dreamblade Designs

I did these miniature designs for Dreamblade years ago. If I remember correctly, at least two of them weren't produced, so this is the first time at least some of these drawings have seen the light of day. As always with miniature designs, I created a front and back view for the sculptors to work from.

The first image is an "electric sheep". He's actually more of a steampunk sheep because the idea was to create something with a clockwork or industrial revolution feel rather than a more contemporary robot sheep. I've always been very fond of this drawing.

The second entry is the truly disgusting Pus Cannon and this one may have been produced (I honestly can't recall). My assignment was to design a creature that literally had an organic cannon on it's back. It was to be covered in lumps and sores, some of them oozing. Yes, it's gross and yes, it was a blast to draw and yes, you're probably relieved that this piece isn't in color!

The third design was a great idea and I wish it had been produced. The concept was to have an invisible, gelatinous blob creature (not unlike the green, blobby aliens in some episodes of Futurama) that used a fake, friendly grandmother as a lure, like an anglerfish uses a dangling light to lure prey. If the miniature had been produced, the grandmother would have been made of opaque, painted plastic and encased in the blob, which would have been made of clear plastic. It would have been awesome! Ah, what could have been... unfortunately, they decided it was going to be too difficult to pull off.

Dreamblade Gnome

I'm busy working on assignments under non-disclosure agreements at the moment so it's back to the past for today's entry: a Gnome miniature design for Dreamblade. The assignment called for a mean-spirited "garden" gnome wielding some over-sized tools. It was a kick tackling a variation of such a popular, iconic character. As you can see, I provided front, back and side views for the miniature sculptors (that is, sculptors of miniature figures, although perhaps the sculptors themselves were tiny). I also included a side view without the arm, so the sculptor could see the beard and face in profile.

Playing Koi

Please pardon the pun in the title, I couldn't resist.

The signing at Galactic Force went well yesterday. thank you to everyone who showed up. I enjoyed meeting all of you!

Today, I was thinking about how certain subjects end up coming up more than once in assignments. Considering what I do, this is to be expected with things like skeletons, spiders, horses, armor, etc. but sometimes the subject matter is not so directly linked to fantasy and it can be fun, even refreshing, when that happens. The two pieces above were done a few years ago. The painting was a weapon painted for Dungeons & Dragons but the more interesting aspect of the piece (for me) was the koi in the background and the challenge of incorporating it into the picture with the weapon.

The second piece was a miniature design for Dreamblade titled Crypt Koi. It was intended to be on the creepy side and the art director and I wanted it's mouth open. However, for production reasons, the sculpture couldn't have a gaping, open mouth so we needed to fill it and settled on a grotesque, organ-like ball for the job. Nice, eh?

So, now you've seen the entire range of my artistic experience drawing and painting koi!

Octorilla and the Reluctant Beast

Things are a bit crazy here at Casa Jim right now, as I plunge ahead on various deadlines. Consequently, I'm continuing with this week's theme of posting Dreamblade miniature drawings. A lot of this work hasn't seen the light of day except as tiny drawings printed on cards and, of course, in the form of the final sculpted miniatures. I hope people enjoy seeing it.

The first of these two drawings shows a creature called (for obvious reasons) an Octorilla.

The second is called Reluctant Beast. The idea was to design a formidable monster that's downright timid and cowardly. His pose and posture needed to reflect that so I tried to reinforce it with everything from a tightly curled tail to "puppy dog" eyes. It was really fun to work on something like this that goes against type.

More Dreamblade

Here are a couple more miniature turnarounds I did for Dreamblade. I certainly miss working on this game! It always presented new and unusual challenges. The Hungry Ghost miniature design, pictured above, is an excellent example of the kind of challenges Dreamblade provided. In Tibetan Buddhism, hungry ghosts serve as a metaphor for people's attempts to attain their physical desires. Some are said to have "mouths the size of a needle's eye and a stomach the size of a mountain". That's a striking image and a concept I needed to capture as a figure that could be cast in plastic! I had a great time figuring out how to accomplish that and the design I ended up with is one of my favorites.

The second image above is a friendly monster, a creature that was supposed to be part building/statue and part monster. I drew on Maurice Sendak's monsters for inspiration and tried to capture the spirit of the monsters he drew in "Where the Wild Things Are" without simply aping his designs. Hopefully, I succeeded. Unfortunately, I don't think this miniature was ever produced.

Dreamblade Monster

Several years ago, I found myself doing a lot of "turnaround" designs for miniature figures (to be used, of course, in tabletop miniatures games). I hadn't done much of that sort of work before but I found I had a knack for it and really enjoyed it. One of the games I worked on was Dreamblade, a somewhat surreal game that involved warring factions of dream creatures that fell into categories like Valor, Fear, Madness and Passion. Today's drawing fell into the Madness category. My assignment was to create a creature whose head consisted of two crocodile heads combined, sideways. It's a cool idea and I ran with it, envisioning the monster as a sort of kaiju (a Japanese word meaning "strange beast"), something along the lines of movie monsters like Godzilla or Gamera. Because it belonged to the Madness faction, it's body contains some (hopefully) unsettling characteristics.