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. 

The Host (TFSW #1)

Greetings. 

This is the Host of the Smoking Wyrm, the gleeful chap who welcomes all to his tavern of wicked delectables, and to the DCC zine Tales From The Smoking Wyrm, N'gilken Niarb. 

His name is an anagram (-ish) for our esteemed editor and long time friend, Brian Gilkison. Brian loved the original sketch of this chap when I first shared my sketchbook images to the Wyrm crew. The sketch was done around 2001 or 2002 while I was a player going through the D&D Adventure Series.  I used to make sketches during the session to illustrate what Charlie, our DM, was describing to us. In one of the adventures we encountered a Mindflayer who was a rather nasty fellow. I drew this surprisingly tight sketch of him:

Photo of the original sketch.

I showed it to the Wyrm guys and suggested to them that we use him as a host for every issue not unlike the Cryptkeeper from Tales From The Crypt, or Vampirella, or Tharg from 2000 A.D., or the Watcher from What If? etc. They liked this idea, but for proprietary reasons he couldn't actually be a Mindflayer. So we went with "Cthulu Cultist" for what he officially is. The key to maintaining this is that his hood will never be lowered, so we'll only ever see a gleaming eye or two and a few tentacles emerging from the shrouded shadow of his hood. I tweaked the drawing subtly, inverted it, and presto we have our host!

Close-up of zip on the tentacles.

The tentacles, and any of his exposed skin, are done by using a zipatone with graphic white highlight. This looks good in black and white and is also effective with colored. Speaking of which...

Color piece, a gift to Brian.

Here he is in color! I did this as a gift for Brian Gilkison, one of our esteemed editors at Blind Visionary, since he asked to buy the original but I am not currently selling originals. I felt a bit bad about that since N'gilken Niarb is a sort of anagram of his name, I went ahead and did a color version of this piece. I started off with applying and ink wash (see the first illustration above) then colored over that using Dr P.H. Martins Transparent Watercolors. He was quite excited to receive this from what I heard however not before the Blind Visionary guys made some scans of it to use for promotional purposes. I believe it was used on a Kickstarter or two already. 

Photo of finished piece, as used in Tales From The Smoking Wyrm #1. 

So there you have it: N'gilken Niarb. This is the first of many drawings I have done so far of this guy. Definitely more to come. 

Halfling Paladin (TFtSW #1)

 This is my "come back" piece. For many years I simply lost interest in the art that was my driving passion in the '90s and first few years of this century. There were many factors as to why this happened: 1.) burnout, 2.) disenchantment, 3.) Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition, and 4.) a serious relationship. Allow me to expand upon these points:

1.) My life was work and art for almost a decade with only fleeting episodes of time spent with friends, and I had done A LOT of art up to that point. 2.) ...and I wasn't getting anywhere with it. My attempts to break into comics/illustration were all fruitless and these leads that did bear fruit ended up dying on the vine. I wish it had galvanized me into pushing myself harder but these disappoints ended up  breaking my spirit. 3.) D&D 3rd edition. That game sucked me into it big time, I spent a vast amount of time coming up with scenarios, reading and mastering rules, etc. It was a lot fun, but it was a lot of work. All the way up until 4th edition launched, at which point we stopped playing it.  The time I spent on that was time I was not doing art, and quite honestly I didn't miss it. 4.) And finally I was in a serious relationship that also pulled me away from the art table.  That was all before 2010, the year that relationship ceased. Over the next few years I confess to being a lost soul. Trying to find myself and a purpose. I sank so much time into my work and it was difficult to get back into art. A girlfriend I had in 2012 got me motivated into painting again, which broke my long dry spell of no art production. My current love is now my muse and motivation and she got me to paint the painting for my son's room and the Presto painting. Seeing these works the guys working on Tales From The Smoking Wyrm were most persistent in dragging me back to the world of black and white illustration. And at the moment in the summer of 2019, I had just lost my job, and the promise of pay for art motivated me to at least try something out.  So I did, and this is the result:

It was my first brushed ink drawing at this size since 2002. And I was quite satisfied with it when I was done and it motivated me to do more. The Wyrm guys were thrilled with it and used it in their first issue. In fact they asked me to do more. Lots more! And I have been drawing ever since. 

Work In Progress shot, halfway through the inks!