Armored Ascension

This is one more of my illustrations for Magic the Gathering 2010. The fist sketch I did was kind of ok but even when it got approved I still felt it I could do better. To me it was seen too much from the side, the knight was too relaxed and even a little goofy. So I tried to pump up the action. It resulted in the next sketch that i really felt had all the first one lacked. Jeremy agreed and I painted the illustration. I have seen so many digital artist using the burn tool to make it look like a light source is burning away at the edge of things and I wanted to do the same but with paint. I am not sure the result is all I aimed for. Next time I will do the effect first in computer on a color study and then copy it directly in acrylic.

Damn; I like the sketch better than the final. The horse should have been white.

Territorial Baloth

This here illustration is a rare success for me.

I did about five sketches of the Baloth charging forward and they all seemed less aggressive than the picture I had in mind. While cooking dinner I got a glimpse of a solution where the beast had the head held low and I did the thumb while the stew was simmering on the stove. I took a chance and sent it as it were to Jeremy, the artdirector at Wizards, hoping that he could make heads and tail of it. I was actually a little embarrassed having sent such a loose sketch. Having seen some of the other sketches that my fellow artist at magic submits I knew I was way beyond blurred sketching leaning on stick figure...But Jeremy liked the action and trusted me to go on.

So I simply transfered the thumb to a board and did all the detail - well most of the drawing actually - on the board. I have tried for years now to cut the stages of sketching and keeping the drawing fresh and impulsive while jumping directly from composition to final transferring. The rare thing for me is to actually succeed in cutting away the sketching and to seemingly effortlessly do a nice drawing almost from scratch and then proceed to the first layer of paint. If you compare the thumb and the final the bare silhouette is almost identical. I just added details.

I masked out the beast and did the background in coarse strokes and washes of thin acrylic. I use an airbrush to mist the wet paint with water, so that it doesn´t dry up too fast. That way I can control a glazing more precise, I think.

The mouth of the beast was inspired by Jason Chans Malfegor card.

The blood around the mouth was something that I added last because I thought the picture needed some color contrast instead of becoming to monochromatic.

Goblin Trailguide

This is one of the few cards I did for Zendikar Magic the gathering. I was really trying to do a detailed and rich background without having it confuse the figure. I always mask out the figure with frisket film to keep the main figure clean. It is always tense, when I take of the film.

The first sketch was kind of too nice. Jeremy Jarvis who is the great art director at Wizards, told me to watch out if it became too comical. My background has always been in comics, but doing traditional fantasy I am always aware of not doing it too comic-like. So when he said that I went back to the desk and changed it. I submitted a new sketch and got good to go.

The transferring look like this before I add greytones.

The final has a few things i like: the blanket he has on the backpack is only colored by the first wash. I kind of like that. The face is almost all done very transparent.