It seems that I have not been able to get blog posts up as frequently as I had at one time desired. Much of what I am doing now is work that publishers do not want to be let out to the general public...yet!. I love showing off my art to those of you who appreciate it, but without the generous publishers, and their desires, I would not be doing what I do.
That all being said, many of you know that +Jeff Talanian's Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerer's of Hyperborea 2nd Edition is going to Kickstarter soon. (And if you don't...please do yourself a favor and crawl out from under that rock...I hear giant spider demons live under those)
This is going to be a huge tome of a book, and being in on the gory details has me salivating already. I have been tasked with a ton of art too (Class pictures, monsters, and comic style panel art) which is a good thing. On top of all that, I am in unbelievable company with this project.
There are many artists that I admire including the works of +Jason Sholtis +russ nicholson Val Semeiks, Charles Lang(cover), John Bingham and Peter Mullen. They have all been signed on to provide art for the book to go along with the fantastic art of +Ian Baggley. I have also seen amazing cartography work by +MonkeyBlood Design (Glynn Seal) and I have to say wow (Large Wall Sized Map in Color)!! Glynn is doing some amazing work right now, and his AS&SH work is going to be spectacular!!
On to the art and process!
I shared only a portion of this in a previous post, but I wanted to get a concept to final post up for the Huntsman, a new class for the game.
What is not shown here is the many gorilla images, ape images and other ref material I went through in order to capture the pose and expressions of all the pieces involved. I also was unable to grace you with pictures of me posing for the huntsman, so I could get the pose just right, trust me when I say you are not missing anything.
This first is the thumbnail rough to get the feel for the action. I initially wanted to see the front of the ape thing, but that defeated the purpose of this being a illustration about the huntsman. If you cannot see the face of the subject, then the subject is not the subject if that makes sense. A viewers eye is pulled to the face of the critter and it is completely forgotten that this is a picture of the warrior. So I had some re-thinking to do.
What that meant was that I had to take all of the reference images and try and show an over the shoulder shot of the ape. Those photos do not exist, so I had to begin visualizing the apes head from over his shoulder where the viewer would be. This image is the first rough from this angle.
Progressing on the ape here is the pencil work on the final Bristol Board where the final inks will be laid down. You can see that for the most part everything was tidied up and then his body was beginning to take shape. These are basic guidelines laid in, in pencil just to get an idea and as a reminder to which direction all of that fur goes, and the creatures expression.
Here we have the whole scene coming together. We have the over the shoulder shot of the ape being thoroughly skewered by the Huntsman, whose face you can begin to pick out. There are rough images around the page representing things that might appear in the foreground and the background. This established depth. The huntsman's mount is in the background as well, a sabre-toothed tiger, seemed appropriate.
Inks are getting fleshed out (excuse the pun) and now the ape critter is nearly completed. I key here I have found is that I usually work from foreground to background, especially in inks, in pencil it doesn't matter quite so much.
Now we get to our hero...so to speak. The huntsman has stabbed the ape under the arm pit, making it holler out. You can start to see some of that Hyperborean architecture in the background at this stage too, and the sabre-toothed tiger is beginning to materialize.
Here is the final image. You can see everything complete now. I purposely wanted the garb of the huntsman to be sort of thrown together, representing the many kills he has made over the course of his career. Look closely you can pick out boney plates, furs, tusks, skulls, talons, and all sorts of "trophies" from his previous kills. I also wanted to illustrate the point that he not only employs the spears for his kills but also a bow. (Extra credit goes to those who can pick out where he started his hunt from...here is a hint his bow still rests there)
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| Copyright Del Teigeler 2016 for North Wind Adventures. |
The statue of Apollo, disfigured and broken, remnants of ruins on the hills, the moons of Hyperborea, plinths, obelisks and debris all over the place. This was a fun image to work on, and only one of the ten class pictures lined up for the world of Hyperborea!
The anticipation for the AS&SH 2nd edition is palpable among the social sites of the inter-webs, and if you have not joined in on the superb quality and fun that is the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerer's of Hyperborea game system this new book is a great way to hit the ground running. Be sure to check out the Forums for the game and get in on some of the conversations.
Thanks for looking, comments always welcome.
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