GOBLINZ!!! 5

Yet MORE goblin drawings (I told you I had a lot of them!).  This batch includes some conceptualizing of the "Dark Arts" goblins and the "Dracogoblins".

The Dark Arts goblins dabble in all sorts of seedy and exceptionally dangerous projects - all having to do with tapping the demon world and using volatile enchantments and potions.  It goes without saying that they don't know what they're getting themselves into.

The Dracogoblins are the goblins that deal exclusively in dragons.  From catching to wrangling to taming (doesn't really work out too well) and also egg harvesting, these goblins work an extremely high-risk job.  I like the goblin that has a pathetic little net to cast on a dragon - he cowers behind his ceramic heat-shield knowing his job sucks.

Lastly is the guy with what HE thinks is the suckiest job but is really one of the safest (with a mortality rate of merely 57%).  He's the fertilizer goblin - and his job is to scoop dragon shit all day long and take it to the agriculture goblins so they can use it to fertilize their warped, monsanto-like crops.

Once again, all these images are copyright©Wizards of the Coast.

GOBLINZ!!! 4

Can't get enough goblin-oriented pencil drawings?  Well then, I'll have to oblige.  Here we follow up the previously posted "Brewing Faction" goblins with their own Beer Battle Cart which they can only use on downhill antagonists.  Notice the goblin puking - if I can work the act of puking into an illustration, by golly I will!

Above and the next two drawings are some goblin structures.  We have Goblin Political headquarters, A plutonium bomb factory, and a sorcerer's tower.

Looking at the plutonium bomb factory, I am reminded of my approach to goblin society.  Their society is much like how human society would be without ANY regulations of any kind and if you scrapped almost all design aesthetic.

And lastly, a goblin dentist.  He can help you with premium dentures OR budget dentures.  And no need to fuss over Novocain and pain relief - he doesn't really believe in that.

GOBLINZ!!! 3

Here I present to you some members of the Mobster faction of goblins - including, of course, the mob boss.  The "Gob"father, so to speak.

Also included here are "legal" mobsters, otherwise known as the political faction.  ZING!  Take that, politicians!  The decree-maker goblin (above) is one of my favorites!

This little fella is the mayor's assistant.  Below is the mayor goblin pictured with a member of the "Dark Arts" faction.  Appropriate.  - Zing again!!!!

GOBLINZ!!! 2

Tossing out a few more goblin drawings for ya.  Here are a trio of drawings for the Goblin society's favorite spectator sport: GoBall.  I have no idea how it is played but it's fun just to come up with the possible positions.  I intended to draw a goalie goblin, too but never got around to it.

Yes there are even Goblin hippies.

Yes, there are even narcissistic self-improvement Goblins. Who forget to improve their legs.

GOBLINZ!!!

To start out 2013 on my blog-o'-pencil art I'm going to be posting a whole mess of goblin drawings.  With tongue-in-cheek I often endearingly generalize that my job is "drawing goblins".  It's often easier to tell people that have no clue about the gaming world, the fantasy art world, or the fantasy gaming art world that I draw goblins and dragons all day then to try and describe not only what a collectable card game is or Dungeons & Dragons, but also to describe how my artwork fits in with that.  I'm usually pretty sure that no matter how much I say, the listener only hears "draws goblins and dragons all day" anyway.

*This drawing is my fave - sums up all you need to know about the flavor of the goblin world. A frying pan, a plunger, a board with nails? All viable goblin weapons!

You and I know of course that I draw and paint a whole lot more than just goblins.  HOWEVER, in 2007, an art director at Wizards of the Coast, having just seen my concept work on Lorwyn, called me up wanting me to work on a little online game side project.  The game was all but entirely based around a humorously crazy, chaotic, and extremely volatile society of goblins.  This of course, sounded like loads of fun to me.

*There were many different goblin factions - this one was all anarchists! And the piece at the top is the Brewing Faction.  How fun is that?

I worked feverishly from my home studio for a few months on this project and churned out dozens and dozens of drawings of goblins and their genius-but-dangerously flawed technologies and tools. I never found out how the game was actually going to work or what it would finally look like - it was shelved indefinitely for years.  Just a few months ago I found out that the project was dead.  This was sad to me because I thought there was some great and fun ideas put together by the art director and myself.  I passively inquired whether the rights to the images and ideas could be bumped down to me but Wizards still owns the rights it all (for whatever it is actually worth to them).  I wondered about repurchasing the rights to my stuff but I have enough other stuff going on right now that such a transaction, if even feasible, can wait for now.

BUT, the good news is that I am free to share the drawings as I please!!!  So enjoy the silly goblins - and remember that they're all copyright©Wizards of the Coast.

Werewolf Anniversary

Back in Spring I got contacted by an old, familiar company.  It was White Wolf Games.  My first true freelancing gig was with White Wolf just before I graduated from CCAD in 1995.  I then proceeded to spend the better part of the next six years being a work horse for the horror-based RPG company - illustrating for nearly all their World of Darkness properties: Vampire, Changeling, Hunter, Mage, and most notably Werewolf: The Apocalypse.  Indeed, much of who I am as an artist I can attribute to my years drawing and inking hundreds and hundreds of were-animals of all shapes and sizes and of all cultures and character.

The more I inked illustrations for White Wolf, the better I became - becoming a student of how Mike Mignola composed his images with line and large shapes of moody black.  Mignola's love of mythology and mythological paraphernalia and design motifs seeped into my own bones as I was called upon to develop the looks of each werewolf tribe (which were often tied to geography-specific history and mythology).  This attention to design and antiquities from ancient cultures still heavily persists in my artwork today.

And of course, I developed a pretty good ability to take pretty much any animal and anthropomorphize it - a skill incredibly useful in pretty much any fantasy game I have worked on since then.  Being able to draw a snarling, slavering predatory mammal head is something I barely go a week without having to do in some form or another.

But it's been a while - I can't remember the last Werewolf project I worked on, nor when that was.  It was probably around 2002 shortly after they restarted all their properties - which was shortly after they ended the previous epoch with "the Apocalypse".  Which was ok by me.  I felt that I had put my fingerprints all over their brand - with the new brand starting, maybe it was time for a new anthropomorphized-creature artist to step in.  Plus I was starting to do more and more color work and there just wasn't enough of that to go around with the mostly black-n-white books for White Wolf.  Since then, the only White Wolf project I have worked on was one short gig doing a slew of Changeling full-figure spot illos.

But then I get this e-mail from Rich Thomas (who seems to have been at White Wolf as long as anyone) saying that they are working on a 20th anniversary Werewolf: The Apocalypse book and that they'd like for me to do full-color figures for each of the 13 classic Werewolf tribes plus the 3 "lost" tribes.  The chance to go revisit those old lycanthrope friends, well, I just couldn't pass it up.  White Wolf helped me pay my bills for a long time. The art directors allowed me room to learn on-the-job and to experiment with all sorts of different b/w techniques - some of it worked well, some did not.  And sometimes my art strayed too far into being cartoony.  But generally I'd like to think I gave them some nice artwork over a great many books.  So putting my Werewolf:TA boots on again, was not only sweetly nostalgic and still comfortable, but also a pleasure.

Pictured in this post are a selection of my cleaner drawings of the 16 illustrations I did for the 20th Anniversary issue.  Enjoy!

NAME THAT ALBUM COVER!

Here it is, folks! The "Name That Album Cover" contest you've been neglecting your personal hygiene for! Be the first to "comment" the correct album title and band(artist) name for all ten and win the delightful prize bundle pictured at the bottom of this post. And also bask in the glory of winning a contest for which you successfully employed your nearly useless knowledge of album cover imagery. Bravo!

The drawings are listed from ONE (first) to TEN (last) so make your list accordingly when you submit it. There should be no need to make a random guess here - I picked albums based on the uniqueness of the cover image - thus so there is no doubt when you put the drawing and the original cover side by side. If you're uncertain, why, you're already on the internet - you can find out if you're right in like, two seconds.

Good luck!

The reward for completing this inane little exercise in album cover imagery recognition is quite the treat (unless you hate my artwork, then it probably is tantamount to getting kicked in the groin).  What you get is a copy of my book AGGREGATE with a personalized sketch on the inside - an 8.5x11 print of my cover artwork for the D&D book: Dragonborn - and, to sweeten the deal, an original painting from 2004 of an Eberron hobgoblin skulking about in his crazy get-up!  Pretty nice, eh?  Now go name those albums!