First Look: Cover: Aurelian

Hello All,

So, we've had the Pledge, The Turn and now, the Prestige moment...
Those nice folk at Black Library have now revealed my artwork (in their newsletter) for the new Horus Heresy novella by the über-cool Aaron Dembski-Bowden, titled: Aurelian

(Above)
Intense!
The result of a lot of
Hans Zimmer soundtracks
and a well outlined brief...

Needless to say the messageboards have been getting a lot of heat, people seem to like it, which is always nice to know.

Either way, I'm proud of it. Aaron has a knack of pushing the boundaries of what to expect in a cover and this one didn't fail to push against that. Check out his 'blog for a far wittier take on the cover art.

Sheesh, that boy's a GREAT writer... Cheers Aaron - you wonderful bundle of talent!

Next up on my drawing board, assassins and aliens...

Music To Paint By...

Hello all,

I just finished a nice big cover for my brothers and battle-sisters at Black Library and, by way of a teaser (kind of), I wanted to share the musical inspiration for the piece (the best bit comes in at 2:50 in):



YEEEAAAHHH!

Without giving too much away, this summed up perfectly the mood I wanted to achieve with the piece.

More often than not, I listen to soundtracks when working, mostly Hans Zimmer. Or have my iPhone on shuffle, so it'll keep me amused when it bounces from Lady Gaga to Dragonforce to Ennio Morricone ;)

So, anyone else use particular pieces of music to get them fired up?

Art Prints at Games Day 2011

Hello All,

A quick note that Black Library will be selling limited edition prints of the 'Path of the Seer' cover at Games Day 2011, alongside Jon Sullivans' awesome 'Battle of the Fang' cover:

(Above)
Come buy me at Games Day!

You'll be able to see all the insane* amount of detail that went into the cover in this print, there's even a special tribute to an 80's band in there, if you can find it ;)

See you there...!

* Well, 'insane' may be a bit extreme, but I did dream about swirling lines for nights after...

Cover: 2000AD Prog 1745

Here's my cover to this weeks 2000AD Prog1745, 'First Blood':

(Above)
2000AD Prog 1745:
The MkI Blackbloods
in their menacing glory.

A neat little brief from Tharg, with the BlackBlood MkI's looming over and reaching out to grab the reader... What's not to inspire an artist!

I took a few reference photos - as always, to get an idea of poses and look for any of those subtle shapes that can sometimes lift an image. In this case it was the angle of the little finger when the hand opens like that. Yeah, that was my big discovery in this pic. Little fingers! GO ME!

(Above)
The little finger, the way it's angled - LOOK!

Anyways, I drew up a thumbnail I *felt* delivered on the brief, luckily for me, Tharg the Mighty liked it:

(Above)
I submitted just the one thumbnail this time,
sometimes a risky approach, as I felt it most accurately
portrayed what Tharg was looking for.

So I went ahead and painted up the final image, as you can see here:

(Above)
The final image, painted in Photoshop.

Tharg was happy, I was happy, we're all happy! Am I right?

I still get a thrill doing covers for the Galaxies Greatest Comic, it really has to be one of the best gigs in the Universe!

2000AD Prog 1745 is in the shops on Wednesday - you'd be crazy to miss out ;)

Until next time, my fellow Earthlings!