print

Today i just collected a visual list of all the magic cards I got prints off.
Here it is. The posters are about the size of A3, some slightly bigger.

Dryad´s step

Here is a magic card illustration from core set 2011. It features a guy I did for an older card called Borderland Ranger. When Choosing the colors I was very inspired by another artist called Chris Moeller. He send me a handfull of WOW-cards and one had a really cool wood background that was rendered in a much lighter and realistic looking way than what I am used to. Chris´sky was almost white. So I wanted to at least try to use a more subdued palette and a lighter sky color. This is the result.

Of note: the right bottom part of the roots are only fist layer of paint.

Goblin Tunneler

This here is my favorite illustration. I think the reason is that it is pretty simple and straight forward in the design. The description was simple: A goblin with a hacking tool who has dug himself out of a tunnel. What I like about this specific work is that the brushstrokes are very loose and chunky but still precise accurate. I think it has thus aura of easiness that I constantly seek and that I find so hard to achieve. When it succeed it is not until afterwards that I realize that it went well: While in it it just flows without thinking.

One of the reason might be that the drawing is simple and the background is just like a wall. I felt I could relax a lot and concentrate on obtaining texture in the skin and material rather than painting elements. that is my downfall. If I start thinking too much about the elements it goes sour. "Oh well this is robe, its brown. the skin is red, the metal is grey and the cliffs are brown". I try, and by try I mean force myself, to paint texture within the same value instead of thinking too much in colors. If I go loose and muddy and dots different colors within the same value on, lets say metal, I get a nice dirty look. I can then add shadows and especially highlights to pull out the form. You see this in the metal hooks or the wedges in the belt.

Also I am pretty happy with the sloppiness of the cliffs to the right.

Progress shots

Dragon Magazine 389

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/TOC.aspx?x=dnd/4new/drtoc/389

This is a precious illustration to me. It is one of those where I took a step in a new direction. Where I took a chance and dared something out of the comfort zone, and also one , where I diverted a lot from the art description and hoped that they would go for it.

Jon Schindehette had just a week ago written an article in his blog Artorder, where he said that a good way to not get hired again, would be to stray too much from the art description. So when mailing him the sketch for this one, I was crossing my fingers that he would like the new approach...well he did, and I picked up the brushes.

In this painting I tried for the first time a zoomed out scene with smaller figures than what I am used to. I almost always focus on a main figure making a heroic portrait with a semi detailed background. I was in the mood for doing a more complex painting. also I wanted it to be more of a scene than a portrait. That is ofcause a lot more difficult, but I am glad I did. The painting shows a female wizard being hunted by Wyvern riders. ( there is one more on the rooftop ) I wanted to capture the moment where the hunter and the hunted sees each-other and the last fight begins. this is the moment that are always the most intense in roleplaying. I cannot count the times I have been in the situation where the pour wizard girl is, wounded, out numbered and without the equipment, that could safe you.

Notice the reward posters on the wall with her picture on them.

When painting the fighter I focused on making him a solid muscular guy leaning toward the heavy site, ( kind of like myself except for the muscles ) thus making him seem more real and dirty.

Mists of Zanaga

This is one of the Runebound covers I did for Fantasy Flight Games. The illustration is going to be used in a cirkular frame, but I still paint it almost rectangular. I enjoyed making up small details in the monkey-demons design. Especially the impaled body of a human king that is stuck on one of his horns, is a detail I am proud of. I looked at different monkeys to get the idea for the coloration.

Taunter and Godtoucher

Here is 2 magiccard illustrations I have been asked to upload.

Dungeon Quest

This is an illustration I did for Fantasy Flight Games. It is a classic dungeon crawl game, so the illustration had to be classic too. I really enjoyed doing this illustration. They gave me almost free hands and i came up with the idea of a wizard repelling the breath of a dragon. In the first sketches there was a figther too fleeing while the wizard was holding back the dragons fire, but the game was design to be played against each-other, not together, so I had to cut the figther.

In the game the wizard is wearing a half mask covering the left side of his face.

Ravenloft Boardgame

I was very happy to get this assignment. The painting is for a Boardgame set in the world of Ravenloft, called Castle Ravenloft.

I already knew all about the original roleplaying game and was very familiar with the cover illustration from back then. My job was to do a more modern version, while still being true to the original mood.

I have attached a version showing a lot of the referanches I used during the process.

In the end I did not pose for the Count myself, but made the pose up from my head, since the photo I took had me looking completely like an idiot - as I am sure you can tell.

Prey´s Vengeance

Here is a brand new magiccard illustration. It is one of 2 cards featuring the same 2 monsters. I think the light burning out the outline of the treetops are a nice touch. Also I played with the effect of warm light bouncing from the ground up on the tail and legs of the Baloth.

This is one of the paintings where I did not change anything from thumb to final painting. As a afterthought I see now that the yellow beast looks to much like a giant evil teletubby. Sadly it is one of my own designs. See what happens when you let me do something by myself! Gotta stop watching television with my kids.

Balor and friends

This is a cover for a Dungeons and Dragon Book. I was going to portrait a bunch of different demons having Balor as the leader of the pack. As you can see from the forst sketch his horns and face has undergone a lot of changes. Also the sketch shows how searching I am in this stage. I need a lot of trying lines to shape the form. I am not one of those who sees it in his mind first and then more or less print it out on paper ( Would be cheaper I guess ).
The colors are some of the brigthest I have ever used and the contrast almost hurt my eyes when I first started blocking in the colors. Paul Bonner, with whom I share a studio, walked by and exclaimed: "Oh my God", when he saw my first couple of layers. I do not think he meant it in a good way so turned it down a notch.

Sea of Blood

This is a cover I did for Fantasy Flight Games. I did a million or at least 40 thumbs trying different angles and setups before settling into this version.

The irony of it is that the final thumb that I liked took less than 10 minutes, where as the rest of them had me sketching and sketching for days. I try to convince myself that they are necessary and lead up to tha final good one. But boy do I wish I could just skip all the ugly ones and get right to the gold in one shot.

When I have sketched the details and all onto the board I ink the whole thing and greytone it in black acrylic, thereby establishing the values of the painting. the greytone painting is scanned and i print out a couple of copies to do colorroughs on.

The painting process is a fast process. I used only three days on this and the whole of one day was spend only on the barbarian. Him being the focal point and hero.

This is one of the paintings I will send in to Spectrum and I cross my fingers that it will get through.

Borderland Ranger

This here is one of my magic illustrations that went through a lot before turning into the version that was printed. I submitted a sketch as you can see here. It had all the dynamic and action that the artdirector was asking for. He told me it should look like an ”Aragorn of Magic the Gathering”, and I kind of aimed at that, just made him a little younger.

Somewhere in the painting process he turned into an Erold Flynn/Selda-pancy in a superhero-like costume. Jeremy – the artdirector – was not going for it. Not at all. So I tried to change it digitally and failed, like all the other times when I try to do major changes on the computer. In the end I reasoned myself into painting on top of Erold Flynn and kind came up with this more muddy leather weatherworn costume, thinking I got nothing to loose. To those who work digitally it might not be a big deal, but I tell you, there is nothing cool about me when painting on top of another painting. I have no Idea if I am messing thi sup for good or actually doing something nice...not in the first half an hour that is. Painting this way is slow. The correction took me the same amount of time as the whole first painting did.

The face got a redo and well...in the end I do not think any of the first ranger was left intact. Except for the strap on the shoulder pjece.

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.

Flockformer

Here is a magiccard illustration. I was asked to do a owl man wizard with a mirror staff. 

I did 2 versions and the art director Jeremy Jarvis said I could choose one myself. He liked both of them. 

The colors is my favorite combination. red and orange and purple. All of it balanced with grey.

Much to my own disliking I did the mirrored faces in the staff digitally. If the original had been bigger I would have tried to paint it with brushes.

Monstermanual 2

This here is my very first cover for Dungeons and Dragons. The book is: Monster Manual 2.

I still remember christmas 1984 when a friend of mine invited me to play this game he just got for christmas, and I killed my first Rust-monster. Back then, the illustrations inside the book and on the cover, was the only visual reprecentation of the world and the stories that emerged from our minds...and they were magical. I decided that, when I got grown up I would do illustrations like these. I would be Larry Elmore, Keith Parkinson and jeff Easly. 

Well I guess I just grew up right now then.

This cover was quite a challenge. it is one thing to make a monster look cool, but it is a great deal more difficult when the anatomy is weird like with the Demogorgon. He has 2 baboon-heads, feet and legs of a lizard and split tentacles from the elbow and down. And a reptile tail. 

When doing the thumb I constantly entangled the tentacles. There is a lot going on there. So I focused on getting the shapes of the arms look tight and interesting and the rest followed from there.  In the thumb I submitted I did not even concentrate on the background or much else but the figure. As long as I had that in place the rest would just have to not cover him up to much or even draw much attention. 

I got one correction...one that I had not seen coming. The art-director was afraid that it looked like one of the tentacles was caressing his crouch! Jesus! I am from Denmark, Land of Naughty; I should have seen that. I shifted the arms a little and we where back on track. 

Then I roughly transfered the thumb to the board. I do this by increasing the size of the thumb from 5 cm to 50cm on a copy-machine. Then smear the back of the copy with grafhite and transfer it by drawing on top of the line on the side that has the lines. Then I draw the final version directly on the board. This way I still keep the drawing proces fresh and spontainously, instead of transfering a neat and fully detailed drawing. I find that it looses a lot of life if I transfer to much. I ink the the whole thing with a pen and add greytones in acrylic. this here version is the final pencil sketch.

After the greytones I take another copy and do a color rough. This is very important to me. The color rough does 2 things. It lets me be bold and testy. When I am satisfied with a color rough I cheat myself not to be nervous when laying colors on the final painting. I have the color rough to prove that everything works. The second thing is that when doing the color rough I already mixed the colors that I am going to use.

The final painting is 50x40 cm on watercolor board. The orange from the color rough has been toned down a little in Photoshop. I kind of like the rough, and wished I had followed it more accurate.

Pathfinder

The red dragon smashing the adventures is for a Pathfinder cover for Paizo Publishing. 

I always enjoyed drawing situations from roleplaying games. Being a devoted roleplayer myself I draw from experiences via first hand knowledge. 

Well in this painting I wanted the heroes to be in serious trouble. The female has been thrown from the balcony and the fighter is down and burning...but I have left them some hope, since the sword of the man at arms is jutting out from the neck of the dragon. Who knows if it is a mortal wound?

The somewhat simple palette was chosen because of the paper I was painting on. For some reason I used a sheet I got left and thought it was the same thing I usually used, but when laying in the first layer, it felt totally different and kind of soaked into the surface in a whole other way than what I had imagined. So I took it from there and used a more thin way of painting. Kind of like a watercolor way. 

had I known I would have left some of the ornaments in pencil instead of inking them first.

the sketch is a scan of the board as it looks right before I start painting. 

Priest

I got assigned to do 6 covers in a row for Paizo Publishing. Before me they had used Wayne Reynolds and Steven Prescott, and I am a huge fan of both of them. So I really had to up it up a notch to be able to compete with those guys. 

The theme of the covers are a main figure and a widescreen illustration

 behind the figure. 

Here is the steps of the illustration for the main figure:

1

I start out with a sketch roughly done and focused on the face and the expression. 

2

Then i clean up the sketch and add the details. in this case a holly book, a sabre and strips of holly scripture hanging from his hands. I do a tonal study in Photoshop and submit it to the art director. 

3 

The final is done in acrylics on paper.