Telekinetic Rat (TFTSW #1)

 One of the first things that the Wyrm crew asked me to illustrate was an example of a Telekinetic Rat. Sounded fun to me, so after a quick bit of research, I got started on designing this rat. 

Finished color piece.

My natural place to start any piece is in my sketchbook. After a few doodles and minor studies I came up with this. I showed the Wyrm guys who all seemed to dig it and it was decided that this would become the illustration. 

 Sketchbook rough drawing.

After transferring it to bristol board, it was time to define this rat with some inks. I used a brush, a Hunt 107 nib and a crowquil for this task.

Ink work in progress.

The scroll was a just an abstract doodle up to this point as I wasn't 100% sold on it. So I left it vague. But the time came to make the final decision and I kept with the scroll idea.

Finished inks on the rat. 

I knew when I sketched this piece that I wanted him interacting with a scroll. I had recently rediscovered a collection of old Warlock magazines from the '80's. It was a magazine dedicated to supporting the Ian Livingston and Steve Jackson Fighting Fantasy game books that were really popular in the UK at the time. The art was fantastic, and amazingly drawn. A lot of these artists also worked for GW (in fact GW took over the publication of Warlock in the later half of it's run) and were still producing work for them by the time Rogue Trader was launched on the world in '87.  That brilliant art work included drawings of maps, scrolls, tattered books and evil grimoires. It's inspiring stuff and they inspired me to attempt a scroll in that style for this illustration. 

Finished black and white 

Note the wax seal; it has the stylized insignia of T.S.G. imprinted upon it. This was an alias for Trevor Stamper, the publisher of Tales From The Smoking Wyrm, which he has used off and on since out High School days.  When this piece was published in the zine it was flip-floped but Trevor made sure that TSG logo was kept in the original orientation. 

Hi quality scan finale. 

As for the final color version in the first pic above, that was done as an experiment. A warm-up for getting back into coloring again with P.H. Martin dyes. The pink energy is a call-back to the days when the Simonson's worked on Marvel's X-Factor comic in the late '80s. Jean Gray's powers were often shown as manifesting in a color like this. However lay folk look upon this and think that the rat is being shot in the head... sometimes in art you win...*sigh*.  I since stuck this rat into quite a few different illustrations and I have been sure to alter this manifestation to look a bit less... explosive.