Happy Holidays

The Krampus, companion of St. Nicholas. More here.
Inspired by Jon Schindehette's Art Order challenge. I sincerely hope you've been good this year! :D

Happy Holidays, and best wishes for the New Year!

~Shane

Website update!

A long over due update to my website, OreganoProductions.com, has been completed. And even longer over due is the new store, with selected prints and other goodies available for purchase, and with more to come!

Stop by, take a gander, and pick something up, ( Yeah, Christmas *IS* coming, isn't it :oP ) and leave a comment to let me know what you think!

Red

A red drake.

Phall

Phall :: painter 9.
Mostly done, what's left is just touch up and polishing.

Sith Happen

Done for a friend's birthday.

Study/warm up from a National Geographic ad.
Painter IX

Nibru

Nibru shall not be denied.

Done for the Conceptart.org "Different interpretations of the same thing" thread.

Recent work for Wizards of the Coast

Two recent images for Wizards of the Coast. Both can be seen in the Dragon 378 art gallery as well

The Apple Gatherer

A most foul and deceitful faerie, found only in apple orchards at dusk during the harvest moon.

It preys upon children wandering alone in the twilight.

If a child accepts and bites an apple offered by this creature, she is lost to this world.

It wears the fingers of children with the apples they accepted around its neck.

Pages from yesterday. More studies from Corbis.com photos, excepting a couple obvious doodles here and there.

Sketches from today and yesterday. Started with the boxed sketches on left yesterday in order from top to bottom. Today started with the little girl in top center, then worked left to right.

All images pulled from corbis.com after a search for "portraits."

Boxed sketches from yesterday -
1:: unknown.
2:: man on bus (1974)
3:: Masai woman

Sketches from today are as follows -
1:: Tunisian Girl in traditional dress (her eyes were even larger).
2:: George Bernard Shaw
3:: Anthropologist Professor
4:: Xhosa boy at initiation
5:: Florence Pernel

bashful 'bot is bashful.

found that penciliy goodness again

Pulled out the pencils yesterday and ended up drawing the evening away while chatting with friends on Facebook. I've made worse use of my time.

ImagineFX Cover Contest

Playing around with ideas for ImagineFX's 50th cover contest. I'm approaching this a little differently than I have before in that I am using texture overlays. I'm not sure how I actually feel about it - Part of me really likes the texture that this affords the image, but the other part of me is rebelling against the idea of not having painted what I'm seeing. To make this work in my head, I am looking at this as more of an exercise in graphic design.

Overall, it's fun playing around with a technique I've not previously used. I'll post further updates as I get a long.

In other News
I'd like to give a shout out to the crew at Nth Degree Fanzine, who I have worked with on and off over the past couple of years. They are back after a bit of a hiatus and I'll be doing at least one image for their online edition in the next week or so.

Also, wanted to say "Thank You" to Ben Watson and his dad Richard for some good advice and direction the other day. I really appreciate your time!

Contemplation of the world around us

I have been in a creative funk the past few days. I dumped a lot into a project that saw absolutely no return, and consequently was very discouraged by the result. In truth, I have probably taken it a bit harder than in reality I should have. However, the resulting slump has left me with some time to think about things, and that's never a bad place to be.

During this time I have drawn or painted absolutely nothing. In a way, it feels liberating, and I have used the time to do other things around the house, which I'm sure my wife will appreciate.

A few days ago I stumbled across this article on the New York Times :: Reviving the Lost Art of Naming the World. After reading it, I was left with a strong desire to do something I normally do anyway - that is, observe the world around us. I thought about how much time we spend in front of the screen viewing the world through a filter - not truly engaged with it. When I was a child, I couldn't fathom not being out in the muck and dirt and trees and shrubs. It was my world. I remember going hiking for hours at least, the full day until sunset usually, in the Ventura foothills in California. I did a lot of trespassing in those days, but really, there was no one there to say we couldn't. I remember the chaparral, dry gullies, and rattlesnakes and lizards. Poison oak and avocado trees ... The idea of being something apart form this never even entered my mind.

Living in the North West now as I do, observing the world is still very much a part of my life. I think, to truly be an effective illustrator, and artist, it is something that we have to do. And really, I would be surprised if an artist didn't do this. Being aware of your environment, where you live, the creatures that inhabit that world - these are the seed for creativity. And if you're someone who enjoys creating new worlds, as I am, where better a place to start than in our own backyard?

downtime

Had some down time today so decided to work on a doodle. Not really going anywhere specific with it at the moment, just seeing where stream of consciousness takes me ...


Also wanted to share this blog :: http://www.terribleyelloweyes.com - a wonderful bit of eyecandy for anyone who loves Where The Wild Things Are.

Book Cover Competition

Alright! So the book cover competition line up was today at Art Order. Check it out - some really great work. And a lot of effort put in by almost 70 people.

Final for mine can be viewed here:

and here with cover elements:


Kudos to all who entered!

Catastrophic Dragon

Done for Art Order's Catastrophic Dragon Challenge, but not finished in time so not submitted. Check out the entries - there is some sweet work there!

The idea behind this guy was taken from the Greek Titans - immensely huge, with a never ending avalanche of debris falling from his underside creating trail of mountain ranges where ever he has walked. For this I imagined him not so much as representative of a new breed of dragon, but more of a solitary entity forever roaming the world.

Book Cover challenge at Art Order - WIPS

I've been busy with freelance work recently, so I haven't had a chance to update my blog or to enter many of Jon's weekly challenges over at Art Order the past month or so. One that I missed that I particularly wanted to join was the dragon challenge, as I'm sure that will be spectacular - especially with the guest judges he's got lined up for that.

However, this past week when he posted the book cover challenge, I had to make time! Jon provided some refs, and a basic description of what was to be taking place, and an over lay for working around the book cover copy - the rest is up to the artist. I spent a day or so thinking about what I wanted to do, and finalized the composition in my head on Thursday last week, then set about designing the characters and how they would be positioned and interacting on the cover.

Once I had the basic composition down in gray scale, I started refining the image, beginning with the focal point of the painting and moving out - the rest will come after I've finished the faces to my satisfaction. This is where I will spend probably 90% of my working on the painting, and I won't move on until they look good to me.

One note; after conferring with Jon, I found that Drow (the female character) do not have pupils, their eyes being totally white - so those will be coming out soon, much to my disappointment.

Below are work in progress shots.

Toetoe was about 20 years old, and the sweetest cat I've ever known.

New Mask

A new Mask - this one has been in the works for a while. The original version didn't look right so I put it on the back burner. Finally got something that felt right with it.

Interview

Here's a link to an interview with yours' truly in the local paper. They totally munged the photo in the online version. Aw, well.

ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE! final

Final submission for Character of the Week (CHOW).

(here's a better resolution shot)

ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE! - work in progress

A work in progress done for CA's Character of the Week.

Variations

Just a quick post today before I run off to the day job. This is for ArtOrder's "Variations" Concept Tuesday contest. Just having a little fun with it :)

The (un)Usual suspects

This was done for ArtOrder's Concept Tuesday challenge, here. One of the things that surprised me was how ridiculously *fun* this particular challenge was. Once I got around to drawing the characters, (yesterday ... ) they only took a little while to do. I think I spent more time trying to settle on a background that didn't conflict with the characters than I did actually drawing them.

An interview in three parts: Jon Schindehette

I had the opportunity to interview Jon Schindehete, the author of ArtOrder and Senior Art Director for Wizards of the Coast for Character of the Week on Conceptart.org the other day. I've wanted to work for WoTC since I was kid (it was TSR, then). I want to even more now after talking with Jon. It sounds just all kinds of awesome.

PART I

PART II

PART III

SCBWI, wonderful peoples, and working digitally

This past weekend I was at the Western Washington SCBWI conference in Redmond, near Seattle. I had a great time, and got some very good notes from Grace Lin's breakout session on being a full time children's book illustrator.

Had a chance to meet some old friends and make some new ones: Deb Lund, Richard Jesse Watson, Dana Sullivan, Jim Di Bartolo, Michael Stearns, and Kevan Atteberry to name just a few of the wonderful people that I was able to talk to and hang out with.

From an illustrator's perspective, one of things that I was surprised by about the conference was the number of people that I spoke to who are interested in working digitally, or are working digitally, but are having challenges working in Adobe Photoshop, or are working only with a mouse. This is a bit of a multifaceted issue, in that many people (including some of the presenters) were only vaguely aware of Corel's Painter program. I don't want this to get into one is better than the other, but more of a "here's another option" post. I've been working in Adobe Photoshop since version 2, but for me, I find Painter to be far more intuitive and easy to use when painting digitally. Also, Painter is much less expensive than Photoshop.

The other thing that I was struck by was how many people are attempting to work digitally with a mouse. You *need* to get a Wacom Tablet at the very least. Corel and Wacom occaisionally do promotions where you can get Painter with a tablet. It makes life *so* much easier.

Ok, that's it for now. Time to go draw!

Haven't had much time this week for anything. Actively looking for work right now. If you know of something, give me a heads up.

Suburban dinosaurs - a wip. It's a bit of a recurring theme with me. I've been working on this piece off and on for a little more than a month now. The kid's face is fighting me for some reason.

A quick critter sketch.

Unfamiliar

Working up ideas for the next Concept Tuesday entry: An Unfamiliar Familiar. I haven't decided if I am going to abandon this concept yet or not. Still playing with it.

Boll Deevil

This was my second entry to Art Order's Concept Tuesday.