Eberron Revisited! (Kind of)

Hey, remember Eberron? It's still close to my hear because I was one of the concept artists that helped give visual cues to all the cool stuff found in the D&D off-shoot. I did a lot of interior art specific to the various Eberron books that came out in the mid-aughties - many of which I unearthed in my studio during my latest clean-up and containment surge.

This isn't a revisit to Eberron where I post a bunch of Eberron drawings so much as a ham-fisted attempt to get some of you Eberron fans out there to buy this old artwork I found and give it a better place to while away the rest of eternity than a shabby box in my studio.

Over on my Art-Blog I have posted a bunch of these old Eberron pieces including an epic panoramic cover painting of the dragon continent of Argonessen done for the Eberron book: Dragons of Eberron.

Any purchases over $300 also get an original Eberron-specific drawing such as the one at the top of this post!  Contact me at: steve2@rottface.com with any interest or questions!

AUTUMN NEARS!

Fall is almost here and for the sake of this draw-blog post, that means two things!  Football and ILLUXCON!!!!

Firstly, here's a sketch of a beefy football player.  The Cleveland Browns are my team so this here's a Cleveland Brown.  That said, you can rest assured that he is about to fumble (which will be returned for a touchdown) and that he will also probably have a season-ending injury.

But anyway, yeah - football is upon us.  I like football but I'm not a fan of things that signify the end of Summer.  I like Summer. This Summer especially has been a delight.  But oh well, guess it's time to grimace and watch my favorite tomato can humiliate northeast Ohio again.

Now, Illuxcon.  Never will you be able to see so much glorious traditional fantasy artwork in one spot at one time.  It's a annual fantasy art convention where a phenomenal crop of contemporary fantasy artists all set up and show off some truly masterful artwork.  For yours truly, it's always a humble-fest.  I go there every year and consider myself very fortunate to be among such great artists. Often times I wonder if there was some clerical error that got me into the show!

This year, Illuxcon has been moved from its usual November slot to September 11-15.  And it's also been moved from it's comfortable confines of Altoona to a new city further east - Allentown, PA.  This should be very exciting for everyone - I know I am damn excited.  And nervous!  And ill prepared!

A few things.  Illuxcon is split into three "shows".  There's a Main Show that goes on all five days.  There's a "Weekend Salon" that is just the two weekend days - and an evening showcase that is thursday and friday nights.  I am part of the Weekend Salon so I'll only be set up for all day Saturday and all day Sunday.  But don't let that deter you from enjoying all the IlluxCon has to offer for all five days!

Lastly, I did an interview with "Hipsters of the Coast"at a recent Magic: The Gathering GP.  Mind you, it has been word-for-word transcribed including all the "ums" and "uhs" and broken sentences I tend to use when I'm blathering on and distracted by answering questions in a bustling convention hall while signing cards. It makes it a bit of an awkward read and my short answers make me seem like a big jerk. Maybe I am a big jerk but I promise I wasn't trying to be on this particular day!  Anyway, there's some insight in the interview and I talk about my most sucktacular Magic card, too.  If you're into transcribed interviews with distracted, nonsensical fantasy artists, this is right up your alley!

Damn Dirty Apes

Just thought I'd post a little something since, ya know, I haven't posted much of anything in quite a bit.  This is the sketch for a painting that never came to fruition.  It is actually the precursor to my illustration for the Philadelphia Magic GP playmat (the one with the three-headed chicken monster).  This was my first idea but it was deemed not zany, crazy, or whacky enough.

It will probably never become a painting but it was a fun idea that kind of took shape while I drew it.  I started with the vague idea of apes in fantasy regalia.  But when I drew it, I liked the vapid/dejected look of the gibbon so much that I decided that he would be the catalyst.  In his hand is not a banana (as originally drawn) but a banana-like tooth from the water beast on the right.  See the little bloody hole in its gum line? The idea being that the banana-hungry gibbon saw the teeth and just had to have one - much to the discomfort and rage of the water beast.

PLANESWALKERS

So this week MTV Geek posted a teaser for the Magic: the Gathering promo Planeswalker cards that I was lucky enough to get to do the artwork for.  The five super-rare cards are to be unleashed to the slavering Magic fans at San Diego ComicCon this July.  The teaser showed the Garruk black-on-black promo card as an example of the nifty graphic quality of the cards - completely different from what one normally sees on a Magic card.

Despite the extremely graphic pos-neg quality of the artwork, I did do these traditionally (well MOSTLY traditionally - there was a bit of digital tweaking and cleaning-up that went on after I scanned them in). As such, there was just as much preliminary work and post work as there would have been had I just been painting these, believe it or not.  I had to plan them out as black and white graphics - establishing bold shapes and elements while letting go of lines and halftones to describe the forms and details.  It was most definitely a "less-is-more" approach - a different and challenging way of creating an image that I wasn't used to but welcomed never-the-less.

But before that, I had to draw up the right poses for each planeswalker and still establish them as drawings first - with all the appropriate details even though most of those details would get dropped out or covered up. So here's my preliminary work on Garruk as well as Jace.  As far as I know, an image for Jace's card hasn't been released yet but the same image is being used on t-shirts that are being sold at WalMart right now - some I'm thinking it is ok to show the sketch here.

One last thing, there has been a bushel of inquiries about purchasing the original artwork for these planeswalker pieces (apparently, non-digital planeswalker art is hard to come by!). That said, I'm going to be selling all five together in an auction on eBay in the coming month.  Don't worry, I'll post details about that when the time comes so, if you're interested, stay tuned!

CHRONICLE

A few months ago I did a handful of pencil illustrations for a small-production project called "Chronicle", a game designed by Timothy Nanzer.  He let me have a nice amount of breathing room as far as my takes on some usual fantasy tropes - always a welcome thing.  The above sour-faced antagonist is a hobgoblin. And he lost his balloon so step off.

This lumpy-mugged brute is an orc and he's sick of your knock-knock jokes.

If you're interested in finding out more, go HERE for the website or HERE for the facebook page.

Do NOT lick the carnivorous toads. Public service message.

Priestesses often look down their noses at infidels.

Tim and his game will be at Origins at the Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio on June 13th through the 15th so come and check it out!

The Toad God needs a burger.  Now get on that sesame seed bun, scum.

Some Ravnica Under-Drawings

Just to bridge the time until the next post of interest, here are a handful of my roughs that went on to become paintings for Return to Ravnica Magic: The Gathering cards.  Pictured above is the line drawing for "Gem-Eye Drake".

Below is the line drawing for "Crowned Ceratok" (one of my favorite pieces from this Return to Ravnica block).

And lastly, here's the drawing for a card called "ShowStopper" which is coming out very soon in the "Dragon's Maze" set for Ravnica.  Apparently, the final card art will grace the official playmat for Grand Prix Kansas City in July.  Oh yeah, and guess who is gonna be there to scribble on them all with  his trusty Sharpies? If you guessed "some tool" you are CORRECT!

Speaking of Grand Prix appearances, I'll be at the GP Providence in Rhode Island June 7, 8, and 9! If you're a lobstah-eatin' chowdah-head that happens also to be a wicked Magic fan, I'll be seein' you there!

GOBLINZ!!! 7

One last Goblin post.  I still have drawings from this defunct project left but they aren't really worth sharing so truly, this is the last of my goblin drawings.

Above are some examples of goblins from the Kung-Fu faction.  Highly skilled in being calamity-causing sub-par martial artists, these goblins fling themselves into frays and supply their own Bruce Lee inspired sound effects.

The goblins have a police force, so-to-speak.  But, let's face it, they don't really excel in keeping order.

Here are some gene-splicing "experimental" goblins.  Why are the genius goblins doing these experiments? Nobody knows...

And finally, the plutonium bomb faction goblins have somehow found a way to animate plutonium.  Not sure they really meant to, but now they have themselves a plutonium golem which goes around wrecking things and then contaminating the scene with radiation.  (Notice the plutonium bomb mechanic for scale!)

All images are copyright©Wizards of the Coast.