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!