Hearthstone: Witchwood

I've been updating my website, Behance portfolio, Artstation site, social media, etc. pretty regularly and in the midst of all that activity, I forgot to keep up with this blog. I apologize. I'll get caught up and return to making regular updates.

The work below all appeared in the Hearthstone: Witchwood expansion released earlier this year. The three tree creatures represent different iterations of the same creature.

Gnawer of Rocks: The Mangittatuarjuk

Here's a "splash page" from the comics/picture book I illustrated, The Gnawer of Rocks. On this page, the ogress (called "Mangittatuarjuk" in the Inuit language) reveals herself for the first time.

The scene takes place in a dimly lit cave so this picture may look a bit dark against the white background of this blog page. Please click on it to see it larger and against a darker background.

Gnawer of Rocks: The Cave

This is an early spread from the book Gnawer of Rocks, which will be released next week. The book is a hybrid: part comics, part picture book. It's based on an Inuit myth about an ogress that haunts the north and eats unsuspecting children. In this scene, two girls have come across the cave of the ogress, known as the Mangittatuarjuk.

I'll be posting more panels, spreads and sketches from the book over the next few weeks so please "stay tuned".

Hearthstone: Vryghoul

This is my painting for Vryghoul, a card in the new Hearthstone expansion, Knights of the Frozen Throne. I've included my preliminary sketch with the painting. I had a blast painting this zombie-like character and I'm grateful for art director Jeremy Cranford's very helpful suggestions.

Meaningless aside that might interest someone: I often listen to audiobooks as I work and I was listening to Stephen King's Different Seasons while painting this picture. The book and subject matter went together well.

Gnawer of Rocks

I've been waiting to show this for a while. It's the cover to a book I spent most of last year illustrating, titled Gnawer of Rocks. The book will be released in October and is published by Inhabit Media (you can pre-order it on Amazon now, just follow the link above). I see it as sort of a hybrid between a picture book and a graphic novel. The story is told sequentially, in panels and splash pages, but is painted and presented in a format similar to the picture book I illustrated for Inhabit Media a couple of years ago, On the Shoulder of a Giant. Like that book, this one is based on an Inuit myth, although this story is considerably darker. It concerns some children who wander into the lair of an ogress.

This was a challenging project for me but a rewarding experience and I'm hopeful that it will go over well. The story Louise Flaherty, who co-founded Inhabit Media, wrote the book. I found the story fascinating!

I'll be posting more from this project soon but for now, I hope you enjoy the cover art.

Hearthstone: Tar Lurker

This is the third of 3 tar creatures I painted for Hearthstone: Journey to Un'Goro. The great thing about designing a creature made of tar, slime, etc. is that you can really play with the shapes and forms to create an interesting silhouette and (hopefully) a cool monster.

Tar Creeper

This is another (smaller) tar creature painted for the latest Hearthstone expansion, Journey to Un’Goro. It's a companion piece to the larger tar elemental I recently posted.

I've included a preliminary sketch. As you can see, the pose was modified a little in the final art.

Hearthstone: Tar Creature

I painted this creature made of tar and bone for the latest Hearthstone expansion, Journey to Un'Goro. I'm not sure what the final card will be titled but now that the image has been revealed on Hearthstone's site, I can share the painting with you.

I've included my sketch for the painting as well. Both the sketch and the final art were created in Adobe Photoshop.

Skylanders Battlecast—Cali

I've been given permission to post some more Skylanders Battlecast art so here we go...

This painting features Cali, an explorer/adventurer in the Skylanders world. She's being airlifted away from a group of green Chompies!

I've included my preliminary drawing above. All of the images I painted for this game are intended to fit into a card format that, in places, intrudes slightly into the picture. Consequently, there's usually a bit of extra space around the perimeter of each composition to allow room for those elements.

Hearthstone: Grotesque Dragonhawk

Here's another image painted for Hearthstone's new Whispers of the Old Gods expansion. This one was painted at the same time as the Berserker painting I posted last month and now that Old Gods has been released, I can finally share it with you.

I'll share a couple more paintings from the set here over the weekend so please check in again!

Capramace

Here's another illustration from Pathfinder Bestiary 5. This one shows a "Capramace", described  to me as a "feral, goat-man monster" that's "wildly chasing a victim". My assignment was just to show the monster so there's no victim here... unless of course you feel victimized by the sight of a hideous goat man.

Unlike the last few illustrations I've posted from this project, this creature isn't my own design. I was provided with a reference created by another artist which showed the creature in a crouch. My job was to re-interpret him into a more dynamic running pose.

Heikegani Crab

Here's a fantasy take on a real creature: the Heikegani crab, which is also referred to as the Japanese Ghost Crab. According to Japanese folklore, Heikegani crabs contain the souls of fallen samurai warriors. The version I painted isn't dramatically different from the real thing but the suggestion of a face on the back of the actual crab has been reinforced into a monstrous, distorted face. Plus, this crab wields a knife!

I'm not sure why a crab needs a knife but hey, knives are useful...

Painted for Pathfinder Bestiary 5.

Squonk

My first exposure to the word squonk and the creature associated with it came when I borrowed the Genesis album, A Trick of the Tail way back in high school! There's a song on that album named "Squonk" (it's a good tune, look it up) and it's based on the mythical creature of the same name.

The mythical squonk is said to dwell in Pennsylvania, of all places. It's a creature with ill-fitting skin, warts and blemishes. Ashamed of it's appearance, it spends much of it's time hiding and weeping and when threatened, it can dissolve into a pool of tears to evade capture!

This version of the creature was painted for Paizo Publishing's game Pathfinder (it appears in the Bestiary 4) and was described as a fat, hairless pig-like thing. I've included a preliminary sketch as well.

Now you know about squonks! I love the concept of this mythical creature so much that I'll have to re-visit the idea one day and design another take on it, just for kicks.

Squonk art  copyright © Paizo Publishing. 

Pathfinder Kaiju

Last summer, I was asked to design 3 kaiju for the game Pathfinder. Kaiju is a Japanese word for "strange creature" but has come to be known in english as "monster", usually of the gigantic variety. Godzilla is probably the best-known example of a kaiju, but he's far from the only one.

I was asked to illustrate 3 fairly archetypal kaiju for the Pathfinder Bestiary 4 book: a large, reptilian kaiju, a flying, dinosaur-like kaiju and an "insect" monster. The well-known Japanese film equivalents to these archetypes will probably be familiar to just about anyone reading this blog. Because these kaiju were somewhat archetypal, I couldn't go crazy and create really wild, exotic monsters. Nevertheless, I had some freedom to play and I had a good time with these illustrations, especially the insect/crustacean kaiju, which ended up being my favorite.

The illustrations were to be text-wrapped so they don't have backgrounds. At some point, I'd love to revisit this subject and paint a full-fledged scene of a kaiju wreaking havoc and causing destruction!

I've included both the final art and the preliminary drawings. In some ways, I prefer the clean simplicity of the latter.

The Kaiju images are copyright © Paizo Publishing.