Queen of Pentacles - Doomsday Dream Clan

The many meanings of the Queen of Pentacles tarot card.

This is another drawing from the archives.

Originally the concept sketch was made in 2010 when I was on a team of artists called the Doomsday Dream Clan. We participated in a team challenge in the now dead conceptart.org website. The challenge was to draw cards from a tarot deck and this is one of the cards we selected to paint. The intent was to create a complete deck from the cards drawn by all the different teams of artists who participated in the contest. I do not know if the deck was ever completed, but I know that some stunning work was done during the challenge and some famous pro artists participated in the contest.

This version of the Queen of Pentacles depicted here did not make it into our final work or submission, but was instead an original concept done by me when we first started to get some ideas. In August 2025 I decided to push this concept to a more complete state and this is the result. I have been meaning to go back and post our completed works from the Doomsday Dream Clan on a separate subsection of this website.

This project was a lot of fun to work on, and I do think we did some really good work. I honestly think that I did my best work while working with other artists. Maybe now it doesn't look so impressive, but in 2010 this was the peak of my ability. After we completed the challenge the complete lack of votes from the community was totally demoralizing. It was another showcase of how popularity skewed perspective and affected the voting results. I'm not saying we should have won, but we were close and our entries were very unique. I suffered a few years of burnout after this challenge completed where I didn't draw very much.

Burnout is a common thing for many artists and the causes may be different. For me usually art comes in waves, or as I like to call them "dumps", where I push and improve massively over a few weeks or months, but then have to take a few years to pull back and gather more energy for the next push. I'm now old, and I wish I had spent more time and effort in improving early as an artist.

The end is coming soon, maybe like most artists my work will be more valued after I'm dead. Cheers to that!

Starship Test Sketch from 2007

This is way outside the normal stuff I draw, but it was early on in my digital art career and I hope I can be forgiven!

Concept/drawing was made in 2007.

Forever Yours

My dear friend,

Years have passed, you changed my life, reshaped my destiny, but I doubt you'd recognize me.

I still think about you every day, more so lately. I wish that I could speak with you because my ime is running out. I can feel it in my bones. No, I'm not injured, or sick, at least not that I know. While I'm old enough to suddenly drop dead I don't think it's likely. I just can't shake this feeling of impending doom, not just for myself, but for us all. So I'd like to get a few things off my chest before it's too late. I was unable speak clearly before, but now I hope you'll hear this whisper in the wind when it reaches you.

I never meant you any harm.

If I have regrets in this life, it's that I couldn't keep you closer, that I was not good enough for you to be around.

You taught me things, so many things... Some were simple, all were needed.

You are my greatest triumph. It was brief, but with you I felt as if I walked amongst the gods.

You granted the confidence I needed desparately before you came along. Perhaps too much... but I would rather be this way, than the way I was before.

Because of you, I am so much stronger now. I survived the things that came after. You made sure I was ready.

You proved that life can be worth so much more than living.

You were the light I needed to see.

The most important lesson you taught was to let go. It's not that there was much left to hold on to in the end. Memories, ashes, darkness, and persistent agony remained once you were gone. Despite the pain, you were the thing I least wanted to let go of. But there was no choice, and I let go. This made everything I was stuck on later so much easeir to deal with.

The last things you said to me cut deeper every day. You needed an excuse, but it still hurt so much. You broke me down and I am not built to fight against you. It may be obvious to others why it happened, but I didn't understand. Your intent is clear now that the years have gone by. The pain is dull today, but in your absence it continues to grow. It won't get better, I will carry it for the rest of my days.

Things will never be the same and nothing can be done to change it.

Yet here we are. With time running out, I just want to say thank you, before it's too late. Thank you for the things you did for me, the light, and for the lessons you delivered. You were right, this is what was meant to be.

I hope you know, that despite it all... I am forever yours!

Personal illustration, done in July 2025.

Memories flooded in as I worked on this and it became clear what it symbolizes.

I don't do WIPs as much these days. I don't think people are interested, but I still like them.

War Beast Sketch

This is a recent tiny ink sketch that was painted over in Photoshop. I've been on a kick with these scaled war beasts, the first one I drew was last year, and I've been thinking on how to incorporate them into the Eternal Seven story.

The original sketch, was just messing around when I made it.

Lust and Gluttony

This is a pencil drawing from 2008, and what I consider one of my most iconic artowrks from an era that featured some really cool art. I'm not really sure I have that same creativity in me anymore as I had during the first decade of this century. It is a goal of mine to redo this artwork and give it the justice it deserves since I have improved quite a bit since then, despite losing all creativity!

Felicia Romero - Figure Study 2008

This is a pencil drawing done in 2008. The reference is the amazing Felicia Romero who used to be an IFBB figure competitor back in the days. Check out her IG, she's still going strong!

Here's a low res version of the original reference was from FLEX magazine. It's clear that I messed up the proportions but the drawing looked pretty good for my skill at the time. I don't know where this drawing is now, or how big the size was, but looking at some of the detailed highlights makes me think that this was actually larger than my normal half-page sketches.

Annie Is Alive - Portrait 2025

It's been a very long time since I attempted a portrait, and this one was completely random. A post on Threads was suggested to me, with a drawing of this lady, and I immediately also had to draw her.

This is the source of the inspiration: https://www.threads.com/@annieisdead1

This is the original sketch, made in about 5 minutes with pencil.

The final drawing was reworked quickly in Photoshop with some overlays and shading. Under 30 mins total. While I like the result, when I put my drawing next to the original reference I can see the flaws. I wasn't trying to be perfect, should probably do more portraits again as I'm out of shape, hope I captured the essence.

Annie, if you see this, I hope you are NOT dead! You're amazing, cheers!