The Times They Are a-Changin' / Luke Skywalker

Well, I've been offline a few days whilst my family and I make the move from busy Nottingham to rural Lincolnshire. This should mean more help in looking after our two children, as both sets of Grandparents live up the road from our new Georgian townhouse (complete with its own study, from which I'm writing this blog - cool, huh!).

So, ideally, I should be able to spend more time working, woohoo!

Anyways, I digress - enough of my yakking and more pics:


"Luke Skywalker" was a portfolio piece to try my hand at likenesses. As an image I wanted to have a brooding Luke poised between the Light and Dark side, at the moment of choosing from the two paths. The intense contrast in lighting is quite illustrative and probably something I'd like to develop further.

"Luke Skywalker" Detail

He was fun to work on as, at the time, I was working at Free Radical Design on the Star Wars Battlefront 3 FPS project before it was moved over to another developer. He was made with 3DSMax, Maya, ZBrush and Photoshop. The bulk of the image was painted as I find it's easier to really get some character into an image if it's been hand finished.

Also, notice how I tend to add a low opacity CMYK noise 'grain' to the image to knock back the cleanliness of the finished render.

Trivia: The reference photos of me holding two wrapping paper rolls does not look anywhere as moody as the final piece ;)

Sneak Peak: Classic BattleTech

Here's a sneak peek from a series of internal illustrations for Catalyst Game Labs' "Classic BattleTech" RPG books.

It was a quick job and I re-used a technique from an old colleague of mine, Nick Carver, whereby you paint the tonal values in black and white first, then lay down the colouring at the end. This was a more painterly job as time was so short and I'm pleased with the results.

Anyways, here's the image:

Ooh, intense!

Also, I attended Bristol Comic Con this weekend and had a great time meeting folks who love comics and those who love making comics. I had a few meetings that might, again, provide some interesting and exciting news in the near future - so, WATCH THIS SPACE!

Breaking News!

Update time!

As if one post per month wasn't enough - now you get two in one day!

The newly announced cover for Horus Heresy: A Thousand Sons is up at the Black Library. Here it is for those who want to have a look right now:


I think this one turned out really well - especially when Darius Hinks' superb design work is added to the mix. Well done us!

And in other news, I'm in the process of setting up some verrrry exciting work with a world renowned publishing/ media house - I can't wait to go public with the news, it's going to make my year!

Right, deep breaths, got to calm down...

Horus Heresy: Mechanicum

Back to the semi-regular posts about my work on the on-going (and best-selling!) Horus Heresy series. This time round - 'Mechanicum'

Like Legion there was one main character to focus on in this image, this time an Adeptus. The detailing on his mandible and chest box were great fun to work on, even if it isn't always immediately obvious. I find that the interplay of light, reflection and shadows at least hints at the intricate detail I like to add to the characters.

The Martian setting was great fun to do, with the Forge, the crazy mechanical creatures and robots all adding to the carnage.

Artwork (c) Games Workshop 2009. All Rights Reserved. Used without permission

Trivia: The background robots and vehicles are all old Citadel miniatures, Crusader class robots and Imperial Moles - for those interested.

Black Library Live! 2009

Hello,

This is just a quick post about the Black Library Live! 2009 event which happened last week - and what an event it was.

The ever long queues, if only they were all here to see me!
Image courtesy Black Library Facebook site

Smaller in scale than the annual Games Workshop Games Day but the fans were certainly no less passionate. It's always great to meet the readers of the books, find out there favourite covers, listen to their theories about the imagery and generally just have a chat with the people that make it all worthwhile!

(L-R) Me, Dan Abnett and Graham McNeill setting up.
I feel like Brian May to their Freddie Mercury!
image courtesy Black Library Facebook site

In addition to the fantastic hospitality of the Black Library, it's always great to meet the other authors and artists - Dan Abnett, Graham McNeill, Jon Sullivan, James Swallow et al.

All in all a great day - I look forward to many more!

Horus Heresy: Legion

This was a difficult one, halfway through we decided the angle of the shot wasn't working so I had to re-render the whole thing from scratch to revise it. I think we ended up with a moody and atmospheric piece. I had great fun working on the 'Imperial Guard' in the pic, they were really exotic compared to the Space Marines I'd been used to.

Artwork (c) Games Workshop 2009. All Rights Reserved. Used without permission

I like the sky and general moody atmosphere in this piece - I was going for a Lady Elizabeth Butler feel with this one - if you get a chance Google her, do it - she seems to be a forgotten and underrated artist.

Trivia: The Imperial Guard were based on photos of me in a trench coat, kneeling on my living room floor holding a broomstick - Aah, the glamour of being an illustrator!

Grudgelore

Dwarf! Dragon! Coins! Corpses! Cavern! I went crazy for detail on this piece: jewellery, tattoos, the axe, dragon scales, charred corpses.

Once submitted, Marc Gascoine at BL wanted a few changes to make it more gritty and 'Fantasy' which I was more than happy to do as Fantasy art has a different aesthetic to it than Sci-Fi. The frustratingly great thing about this is, whenever these kinds of changes are made, I've always found the result to be better than the original.

Looking back at this piece now, I feel that my technique has moved to a more painterly style - so maybe Fantasy is a genre I'll revisit at some point in the future.

Artwork (c) Games Workshop 2009. All Rights Reserved. Used without permission

Trivia: Each coin in the piles surrounding the scene was individually modelled with a 'head' and a 'tail'.