Back from Comic Con!

... and we had giant pandas at our booth!  I did this piece about a year ago for the Mists of Pandaria launch, and he's been seeing a bit of use here and there since.

He's life sized!  Or thereabouts...

Thanks to everybody who stopped by the booth.  It was an awesome time -- like always, packed full of too many amazing things to see.  Next year, would everybody please stop having so many amazing prints, books, toys and plushie pleisiosaurs?  My wallet cannot handle the awesome.

Zombie Unicorn -- now with paint!

Finally finished this guy!  Also... finally made a lightbox so I can get half-decent photos of these things.  Not much to say about it... I just felt like sculpting an undead unicorn.

Hearthstone Launch Art

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to paint an image that would be the announcement piece for Blizzard's new digital card game, Hearthstone.

Orc wins!

I figure you blog readers might like to know, beyond its blizzard-y content, I based the composition loosely around one of my very favourite paintings -- The Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks by Ilya Repin.

 There are few works of art that I think get across such a great sense of story.  Repin was a master of this.  I learned a lot about story with this piece -- makes you wish the man were still alive so we could all go ask him :)

Gnomon Live 2012

I had the good luck to have been invited to give a presentation at Gnomon Live 2012 in Hollywood this past weekend.  I'm really happy to have gone - to be part of the same lineup as such other amazing artists was a privilege.

Here's the piece I did to demonstrate different methods of creature rendering.

 

 

Thanks to everybody who turned out!

 

Zombie unicorn will cut you in the face!!

So it's been a fair while since I sculpted anything, and I was feeling the vacuum keenly for a while before I started this little fellow (ok, he's not that little, it's about 10 inches tall or thereabouts).  I dub him... creepy zombie unicorn thing!  Or.. I dunno... I'm not the best with names.

He is destined for a disgusting zombie paintjob and a mane/tail/fetlock/beard extravaganza with some doll hair I managed to get my greasy paws on.  I do love doll hair.  Hope you all enjoy!  I will post more pics when I have them.

Battle of the Aspects - WoW TCG Packaging Art

Moar WoW!   I happened upon the opportunity recently to make the packaging art for the upcoming WoW TCG Raid Deck -- Battle of the Aspects.  Word is, you can play as Deathwing or those other four dragons.  It was a wraparound cover, as you can see, hence the slightly weird composition, but to sate your curiosity, I've gone and found a picture of how the packaging will end up looking when it's printed up all snazzy-like by professional printer types.

How exciting!

You might have noticed if you often read this blog... i have a bit of a weakness for dragons.

Jonathan Strange - Another WIP

So I had another whack at the Jonathan Strange portrait I posted a while back.  I was trying to get a sort of 19th century portraiture feel.  The previous version, I felt was kind of too caricatured, and didn't feel as much like the character, looking back.  Here, I'm trying to get disheveled-yet-brilliant...

Anyway, it's obviously not finished yet, but I'm getting closer!  In the back the intention is to get a lot of those accoutrements common to Georgian-era portraits... like the busts of famous people and curtains and all that hanging in the back.  I've been getting a lot of inspiration from the paintins of Ingres, who (though french) was contemporary with the period the book (Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, by Suzanna Clarke of course) was set in.

Enjoy!

Progress Video - The Headless Horseman

As I did with my piece The Egg Thief a while back, I've made a progress video of my World of Warcraft Card Game illustration of The Headless Horseman

Click to Download Video - appox 4mb

Incidently, if you'd like to pick this up as a bunch of card sleeves, that's what was their intended use.
Let me know if you like these videos and I might be able to make more.  The way I work has the happy byproduct of producing a chronology in the layers, so it's not impossible to recreate the steps I took to make them.