Ink Sketches - September 2016

I made the following ink sketches in the margin of my pages during "meetings" at work. 

Here's my take on One Eye from the Black Company:

Here's a dragon sketch:

Beholder - September 2016

Beholders have always fascinated me, but in my imagination they are quite different from the classic beholders portrayed in fantasy art.

This was a tiny ink sketch which I painted over in Photoshop. This was made sometime in 2016.

Into the Sky

In times of peace or war, rain or shine, it's important to take your dragon out each day.  There's nothing quite like the exhilaration of falling into the heavens.

Digital painting made in Procreate and Photoshop, April 2018. 

The return of the Pantiless Assassins 2018

The theme featuring assassin girls who like going commando is one of my favorite ones.

Here is the WIP:

This is a digital painting made on the iPad in Procreate, early 2018.

Green Lipstick

This is a 2 hour practice sketch I made on the iPad in Procreate, early 2018. I used a random photo as a reference.

Three Horned Demon

My favorite dreams are nightmares.

This is an ball-point pen drawing made in 2018. Only contrast was digitally modified in this drawing.

This was a big year for me, made a big move to a new state, started a new job, and for some reason the inks really clicked that year. Ink was my original love back in the day and I had stopped using the medium for quite a long time in favor of pencil and charcoal... but in the year 2018 something clicked and reminded me of how much I love drawing with ink and how much better the art actually looks on a paper when it's done in ink.

Janus

Description: In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Janus is the god of beginnings and transitions, thence also of gates, doors, doorways, endings and time. He is usually a two-faced god since he looks to the future and the past. The Romans dedicated the month of January to Janus.

 This was a drawing I made in January 2018 for a Character of the Week challenge over at conceptart.org, made in Procreate and Photoshop.

Medusa

Medusa is creature from ancient Greek mythology, a woman who is hideous in appearance, has serpents on her head instead of hair, and has the ability to turn people to stone with her glare.  She is oftentimes portrayed as a villain in movies and video games.  She was once a beautiful maiden priestess of Athena, who was seduced by Poseidon, and fell in love with him.  For breaking her vows to celibacy she was cursed, and terrorized the world until she was killed by Perseus.

I portrayed her as a serpent, in the style of the movie Clash of the Titans, or the video game God of War.

I did this drawing for a contest over at Deviant Art themed "Born Bad" in February 2018. The drawing was made in Procreate and finished in Photoshop.

Genie in the Lamp

I worked on this drawing from 2011 until 2018, little by little, until I had a major breakthrough with it finally and got it to a stage I consider "finished."

Below is an animated GIF.  I made this using an old antiquated piece of software (Magic Morph) that is useful in morphing images from one to another.  For example, you can take two portraits and make the face morph into another face, similar to Michael Jackson's Black or White video.  Rather than starting with two different images, I started and ended with the same image, and used control points to animate the background and foreground smoke effects.  I'm really happy with how this turned out.

Dragon Mother

This one took entirely too long... It was not my intention to draw all these scales when I started.

The design and pose of this dragon was inspired by Black Dragon drawing by Sandara.

Dragon Flight

Dragons, nasty creatures, but necessary in war.

Most of the time they want nothing to do with humans, and will unceremoniously murder any in sight. Dragon riders must always stay vigilant, else they might just become the victims.

That being said, some dragon riders, if they survive long enough, end up developing symbiotic relationships with their mounts. Especially in times of war. You see, dragons love war. If you lead them into war, they relish in it. If you feed their thirst for death and destruction, they will come to respect you, and listen to you... and that goad you carry, will no longer be used to smack them into submission, but to simply point them to the next target.

This is a digital painting made in 2018 mostly Procreate and finished in Photoshop.

Carrier Demon - Digital Painting from 2007

I started developing the Carrier Demon concept sometime in the 90s when trying to envision the different classes of demons thriving in the chaos of the inferno.

Carrier Demons are the torturers of whores and prostitutes in Hell. Their standing in the hierarchy of Hell is rather low, they are merely a step above regular devils and demon grunts. But Carrier Demons are physically very powerful, more intimidating in stature, and as common amongst all true demons, immune to the fire element despite their ability to manifest in the flesh.

Victims of Carriers get strapped to the demon's spike covered back in a prone pose, unable to move. The spikes of the demons have incredible regenerative and healing properties. Despite the pain inflicted upon the victim during the strapdown process, the spikes ensure the victim retains some fragment of sanity. Once the strapdown is complete, the Carriers go about their business in Hell, and their victims get raped, eviscerated, shredded, only to heal up to experience a new form of torture. This goes on until the victim's very soul gives up over time on the eternal scale, and is consumed by the demon...

This was a pencil sketch which was painted over in Photoshop, made around 2006, 2007 timeframe. This is also one of my first full digital illustrations. I have never been good in terms of backgrounds and no painting symbolizes this more than this one. When I was working on it I sought critique and help on the conceptart.org forums and got some really useful advice that was way beyond my ability to implement at the time. I've continued refining this concept over the years and have drawn a few more Carrier Demons since, but none with victims strapped on.

Other Demons:

First Post to Blogger

Yes, my website got hacked.  It's been down for the count for a few weeks now.  Since my hosting service is almost up I'm in the midst of trying some new things and this site is one of my tests. 

Now I need to figure out how to configure this blogger there/template and what I need to do in terms of gallery plugin, etc.