David Petersen's Blog, page 7

Magic The Gathering: Camellia, the Seedmiser

Last year I was asked by Wizards of the Coast to do some Magic the Gathering card art for their upcoming animal set Bloomburrow (https://magic.wizards.com/en/products/bloomburrow). I played a lot of MtG back in the mid/late 90's, so it was an honor and thrill to become a part of the fraternity of MtG illustrators.

Here is Camellia, the Seedmiser. Squirrels are green/black mana cards with a penchant for bones. The set is in previews now and will be released August 2nd, and since Wizards of the Coast has already revealed my version of this card, I can share the artwork and process for creating it.

It began with a brief from my art director asking for Camellia descending stairs as a haughty diva showing off her leaf dress. 

I started with just squirrel anatomy poses at first until I had one I thought might be a good pose that conveyed 'diva'. On my lightpad though I made several redraws and iterations adding different costuming, trying a few hand poses, and because Julia suggested it––her tail draped over her arm like a stole. The branch and skull setting was suggested from the source material reference as well as the brief. I looked at some real animal skulls for reference.
The pencil roughs were assembled and combined digitally in Photoshop. At this stage, I also like to do a preliminary digital color blocking, to make sure I have the color and value tangents worked out, and also to show my art director at WotC so they are on the same page as I am (no one likes surprises in the later stages of a commissioned art piece). This is the stage where I can also easily make adjustments moving a character or resizing something.

With the pencils/layouts approved by my art director, I moved on to inks. I printed the digital composite out and taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. On my Huion Lightpad, I was able to see through the surface of the bristol to use the printout as a guide as I inked with Copic Multiliner SP pens. The art director for this card requested not to have any large or dense areas of black, so I kept the linework fairly open and was restrained with the amount of texture.
The inks were then scanned back into Photoshop where I could start the coloring process. This stage. called flatting' is the professional version of coloring-in-the-lines. Just flat color is placed in to establish everything's base colors. the art director also liked when my linework was softer in my Mouse Guard work, and wanted everything to have a dark brown color hold (ink lines colored to be something other than black). I also established other color holds on all the dress trim and details as well as the background to add depth.

Here are the final rendered colors for the art (sans card borders). I did the light and shadow and texture by using the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop with a stock textured brush. There was a last minute edit at the request of the art director to add more green, so I intensified the glow coming from the left to be unnatural light.

When Bloomburrow is released in August, I'll have prints and possibly playmats of Camellia available for sale.
The original inked artwork is up for sale by auction the the Facebook group: MtG Art Market: https://www.facebook.com/groups/mtgartmarket

Twin Many-Winged Hare Dragons

Last week on my Twitch Stream, we did the #DiscoveringDragons Community-Draw-Along! It's a fun event where I welcome all skill levels to push their pencils (or whatever tools they use to make art). It takes place on the first Friday of the month.

I worked on my piece live on my Twitch stream while viewers worked at home and then on the following Monday we shared our finished pieces.

Here is my finished colored Dragon. And below are my steps to create it as well as the community submissions.

For #DiscoveringDragons, I post two or three prompt words for everyone to make into a dragon. It's a nice framework for artists of any skill level to focus some time on an 'assignment' to shake the rust off or get the pencil moving again––all while also being loose enough that there's plenty of room for individual expression and interpretation.

This month the prompt was three words: Many-Winged, Twin, & Hare

I opened several tabs of google image searches of hares boxing each other, twin dragon coils, and various wing shapes.

I started on copy paper with the head of the right hare and then worried about how the two would twist and mirror knot together, so I scanned it into Photoshop and started digitally blocking out a body form and mirroring and moving the other layer until I got a placement that worked.

I printed that version out and on a lightpad and a fresh sheet of paper I redrew the twin's face and designed the bat ear-wings (after a false start with feathered bird wing ears) before scanning it back in to Photoshop to color block the rough you see here.

I printed out the above design at full scale and taped that onto the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. Using a lightpad, I was able to see through the surface of the bristol as I inked the dragon. I used Copic Multiliner 0.7 pen to ink the art.

The inking on this piece was mostly just about respecting the contour lines from the pencils and enhancing them with line-weight, while also not overworking anything to make it muddy. I finished the inks on-stream, but then afterwards decided I wanted to add a little texture inside the bat wings, so I inked those in before scanning it.

Later that same night after some dinner I started the coloring process. After prepping the digital scan of the inks, I established a color hold (an area where I want the ink to be a color other than black)––the overall lines became a dark brown and then a smaller hold on the pupils.

Then it was time to start the color flatting process––basically professional coloring-in-the-lines. Some of this is just to make it easy to re-isolate various parts when doing later painting & rendering. Some of of the colors were established in the rough, but I played with the final value/hue choices for a while before getting to this point.

For the final colors I used the dodge and burn tools to add shadows and highlights to give the dragons some form. Most of the work was getting the shadows where the interwoven knotting is happening.
Below you can again see the final Dragon...

But, as this is a community event, I wanted to share all the other entries posted in the Discord. 


Capt Nemo


Jonathan Towry

88UncleErnie


Nathan Pride


Nuvalo


redSkwrl


ShadowindART

VernNYC

Hellboy 30th Anniversary

For Hellboy's 30th Anniversary, I was asked to contribute a piece of artwork for a gallery exhibition at the Copro Gallery in Sherman Oaks, CA to celebrate three decades of Mike Mignola's creation. I've been a fan of Hellboy since the 2nd issue (my local store at the time somehow didn't get enough copies of #1 and I had to hunt it down later) and I've credited Mike's time with Hellboy as a roadmap for my goals for a comics career.

A decade ago I did a 20th anniversary piece: http://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2014/03/hellboys-20th-anniversary.html. To the left you can see my final colored (just for fun) piece, and below I walk through the steps to creating it as well as showing the inks that will be in the gallery exhibition (and for sale) 
The process started with lots of ruminating over what do do with Hellboy. I've never drawn him for a cover, but between the 20th anniversary piece and the Kickstarter print for the Drawing Monsters Kickstarter I didn't want to repeat myself. I opted for an action pose (this is after discarding a very static sketch of Hellboy with animals from Mouse Guard while holding the Black Axe). I kept the Black Axe in this rough, but I drew and redrew a few variations of his surroundings with iterations of bone-dragon/snakes he was smashing apart before wanting to include a belltower I saw on my trip to Lake Como in May. The crumbling belltower drawing and Hellboy drawing were put together in Photoshop along with some blocked in color and a special clock-face with the hands at 30.
The above layout was printed and taped to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 14" x 17" sheet of bristol. On my Huion lightpad I was able to see through the bristol to use the layout as a guide to ink from. I used Copic Multiliner SP pens to ink with. 
Since the original inked artwork was the piece to be displayed in the gallery show, I focused on making it read clearly without color. That meant adding a lot of tone and texture to all the crumbling bits of tower stones, while leaving Hellboy rather clean line-wise. The framed original will be available for sale through the Copro Gallery.


Just for fun, I wanted to color the inks after I scanned them. It figured it would be good to see the piece in color again (the purpose of the layout's color blocking was to help me see forms as I inked; what was coat or right hand of doom, or stone or beam, or bell, or sky).

This first step of coloring is called 'flatting' and is basically a professional version of coloring-in-the-lines with flat colors to establish each area's base color. At this step I also added color holds (areas where I want the inkwork to be a color other than black) to the entire background as well as the numbers on the clock and the 'US' patch on Hellboy's holster.

Below you can see the finsihed just-for-fun colors (I never make prints of characters I don't have the right for). I did a lot more painting on this piece than my normal coloring process. Rather than using Doidge and burn tools for the majority of the rendering, I painted in shadows with the same color as the dark blue lines of the background, and added in highlights with a lighter warmer color.





 

Recent Commissions

Here are some Toned Commissions from mostly from Lake Como Comic Art Fest and Heroes Con



A Scouting Mouse
A Fan's RPG Mouse Archer Character

Guardmouse with sword & torch

Raphael, a TMNT



Usagi Yojimbo


Guardmouse with a spear



Traveling Adventurer Guardmouse



Kenzie

Saxon

Lone Wolf & Cub

Beep the Meep


Sci-Fi Mouse



TMNT in Samurai Armor on a Sketch Cover

Lieam with a crab looming

Weasel wearing House of Slaughter Mask
from Something is Killing the Children

urVa the Archer on a sketch cover

A fan's Harengon D&D character

Guardmouse in Hawk Nest

Before leaving for Lake Como Comic Art Festival I finished a few inked pieces that would be Mouse Guard inked original Artwork available for sale.

My idea was that these would also serve as pages for the next Mouse Guard sketchbook tentatively titled: 'Past Whereabouts'.

To the left you can see the finished colored piece for the sketchbook, but below I'll walk through the process of creating the artwork. This piece started with the mouse drawing, a Guardmouse holding on to the edge of something, a high rock face, a tree trunk, or––as I ultimately drew in, a hawk's nest.

As I drew the mouse, I liked the plan that this was a younger patrolling Gwendolyn before her time as a Matrirch (though I forgot to add her normal skirting which would help identify her, but also makes sense not to wear when climbing harrowing heights.)

The pencil sketch was scanned into Photoshop so I could block in some color to help me see what areas where what textures. I also added in a photo of a halberd blade for reference.

The above layout was printed out and taped to the back of a Strathmore 300 series sheet of smooth bristol. On my Huion Lightpad I can see through the surface of the bristol and use the printout as a guide to ink from.

I used Copic Multiliner SP pens to do the linework, most of which was focused on giving the nest and branches texture and depth while leaving Gwendolyn relatively clean so she could be seen.

The original inks for this piece are available for sale in my online store:
https://mouseguard.bigcartel.com/product/guardmouse-in-hawk-s-nest After the inks were finished, I scanned them into Photoshop and started the coloring process. This first step is called 'flatting' because it's just about adding flat colors to all the various areas (her fur color, her cloak color, the sky, the branches, the nest, etc.) It's a professional version of coloring-in-the-lines. 

At this stage I also added a color hold (areas where I want the inkwork to be a color other than black) to the spots on the eggs. I also end up adding another one to act as a light corona in the final coloring stage) The final color rendering was done using Photoshop's Dodge and Burn tools (to lighten and darken whatever color is present) and a stock textured brush. I did use the paint brush a bit to make my own blush gradient in the background, and I selected areas with the lasso tool and shifted color balance to give nest twigs different tones and Gwendolyn's nose  bit of pink.

As I said at the start, this will eventually be published in my next sketchbook which may be out at the end of this year or the start of next (depending on timing with getting enough pages done between projects AND convention schedules)

Morose Wooly Dragon

Last week on my Twitch Stream, we did the #DiscoveringDragons Community-Draw-Along! It's a fun event where I welcome all skill levels to push their pencils (or whatever tools they use to make art). It takes place on the first Friday of the month.

I worked on my piece live on my Twitch stream while viewers worked at home and then on the following Monday we shared our finished pieces.

Here is my finished colored Dragon. And below are my steps to create it as well as the community submissions.

For #DiscoveringDragons, I post two or three prompt words for everyone to make into a dragon. It's a nice framework for artists of any skill level to focus some time on an 'assignment' to shake the rust off or get the pencil moving again––all while also being loose enough that there's plenty of room for individual expression and interpretation.

This month the prompt was two words: Wooly & Morose

I opened several tabs of google image searches of sad dragons, Pokemon's Snorlax, Rams & Sheep, and some Mercer Mayer illustrations

I started on copy paper with the head and then worried about fitting it on the paper, so I drew a small thumbnail of the body below it, scanned it into Photoshop and started combining and digitally drawing over the top until I had the bigger shapes figured out I also used a 3D model of Ram hors rotated to the right angle for reference).
I printed that rough out and on a lightpad drew tighter pencils on a lightpad and a new sheet of copy paper.

Those pencils were then re-scanned and I cleaned up my color blocking to help me see what areas were what colors (what was horn vs wool, etc).

I printed out the above design at full scale and taped that onto the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. Using a lightpad, I was able to see through the surface of the bristol as I inked the dragon. I used Copic Multiliner 0.7 pen to ink the art.

The inking on this piece started with the nose and mouth, but moved quickly to figuring out the texture and line density of the wooly hair so it felt matted and curly, but not heavy. I was unable to finish the inks on-stream, but returned to them later that night off-stream, where the inking continued on the rest of the body and the ankle and tail wool.


The next day, I scanned the inks to I could start the coloring process. After prepping the digital scan of the inks, I established a color hold (an area where I want the ink to be a color other than black)––the overall lines became a dark brown. Most of my #DiscoveringDragon pieces have at least two color holds, I think the is the first where I only needed one.

Then it was time to start the color flatting process––basically professional coloring-in-the-lines. Some of this is just to make it easy to re-isolate various parts when doing later painting & rendering. Most of the colors were established in the rough, but I played with the final value/hue choices.

For the final colors I used the dodge and burn tools to add shadows and highlights to give the dragon some form. Most of the work was in darkening in all the shadows in the wooly bits. and then––I opted to do a 2nd color hold on just the wooly bits. Below you can again see the final Dragon...

But, as this is a community event, I wanted to share all the other entries posted in the Discord. 
druffzilla

jodudeit
Knickolaus


Nate Pride

redSkwrl

88UncleErnie

VernNYC

HEROES CON 2024 paintings

For my return to Heroes Con next weekend, I've painted two 16" x 20" pieces in watercolor and color pencil. One of them will be put into the Saturday art auction at the convention. The other will be available at my table the next day with a price set from the winning bid of Saturday's auction.

I have not decided which will be in the auction––I think I'll decide when I arrive in Charlotte.

I wanted the paintings to work together as a pair (so if the winning bidder wants the other painting they can come buy it from me) but where each piece would work as a stand alone piece if they went to different buyers. I opted this year to do facing mirrored portraits of Celanawe and Midnight each with the Black Axe.

I did quick color blocking to help me see the forms but also to plan my colors and value ranges when doing the paintings
The pencil drawings were printed out (over 4 sheets of paper that needed to be patchwork taped together––with the help of a grid to get the alignment right) with graphite paper then placed between the printout and the illustration board.

By tracing over the printout drawing with a ballpoint pen, the pressure transfers the image onto the illustration board. This was done for both pieces 


I set up my two paintings and my watercolor trays (old Windsor Newton Cotman tubes that have mostly dried up and I use like dry cakes) on a TV tray and my desk with a large glass of water. It's nice to have two paintings going at once, so that you can swap between them when one is too wet to work and needs some drying time.

I painted the Mouse Guard portraits on my Twitch stream at the end of May.

Instead of now showing a great deal of photos tracking the progress/process of the paintings, I've put them all together in a YouTube video that you can watch below


Watch directly on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/53sW9UVxKNc

Vinelings Concept Art Revamp

Reap what you sow when you tangle with the Vinelings, a clan of humanoid-vegetation creatures that can control plant life to ensnare their foes, tangle the mobility of unwelcome travelers, and open the soils to rust and compost any war machines attempting to harvest them.
The plant species can vary from Vineling to Vineling, but they always have multiple vine or root-like arms and never show their faces. Wherever they wander, they cast off pollen and drop the seeds that cause them to stand for generations.

Or––that was the idea. In fact, they are a re-design of an old drawing I 'unearthed' when scanning pencil drawings for my Patreon.

A few months ago I shared a revamp of the Skullduggers from the same unmade gaming project.

Back in the earliest of the 2000's, I was toying with the idea of creating a table-top game (like Warhammer) with simpler rules for movement, army creation, etc. While struggling to design those elegant game mechanics (which never materialized) I only ever drew a few of the types of creatures to populate the game with.

To the right is that old drawing of a single Vineling (I envisioned these were the soldiers that could respawn.)
As a just-for-fun exercise, I thought it would be fun to redraw and redesign an older concept piece of mine like this (Plotmasters style).

I started the new version digitally keeping the basic forms and ideas, but making them as well as the pose more interesting. I did end up penciling the vine arms, legs and seed-pod staff traditionally on a lightpad overtop of a printout of the digital sketch. 

I wanted the arms to be more vine-like and to loose the grill/scarf (I think the original was inspired by the Black Wizard in Final Fantasy Tactics––a game I never played, but always liked the look of that character.)
I printed out the above layout with the pencil's also scanned in and added. That prinout was taped to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series Bristol. Using my Huion lightpad I was able to see through the surface of the bristol to the printout below and use it as a guide to ink from. I used Copic Multiliner SP pens.

This piece was a texture mess––and no good way to make it all make sense in black and white without adding shadows I didn't want in the final color...so I just did my best to control the density.

The original inked artwork is avilable for sale in my online store: https://mouseguard.bigcartel.com/product/vineling-original-art

When the inks were done I scanned them and started the coloring process. That first step is called 'flatting' where the different color areas are all painted in with flat colors..it's a professional version of coloring-inside-the-lines.
The color choices seemed obvious to me looking at the original and so I used similar colors when doing the digital sketch.

I also added a color hold (where I want the black lineart to be a color other than black) to the overall linework and a special glow around the eyes.
Here again are the final colors. They were rendered using the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop and a stock textured brush. 
I have no immediate plans for what to do with these guys, but between my Draw The Extinct creatures, Discovering Dragons, and a few more like this––I seem to have a nice bestiary for fantasy gaming...

Nadra Illustration

Last year I did an illustration for my friend Thorin who is developing a RPG setting and novel series called 'Nadra'. Thorin is the son of Alice Finch who was responsible for spearheading the Mouse Guard LEGO display and project that celebrated the Mouse Guard 10th anniversary.

Thorin commissioned me to do a piece from a moment in the first book's story that he could also use to make some tee-shirts or prints for the RPG community helping him develop the setting. I opted to make it possibly serve as a book cover, which you can see with mock-up text on the left. Below I'll go through the process of creating the illustration.

Thorin provided me with a lot (and I mean a lot) of reference ideas for each character. In addition to written physical descriptions, he also shared something akin to a mood board for the clothing, hair styles, and weapons for them all (including characters not appearing in this illustration--in case I opted for a different scene from the book).

I'm not known for drawing humans very well, so I did struggle with getting the pencil drawings correct. I looked at some photo reference for faces and drew each character separately. The rocky character had some wiggle room in the visual design (though Thorin did provide me with rock formations and petrified dinosaur scales for guidance)...I do regret how much I inadvertently used the Batman the Animated Series Clayface design. I assembled the drawings, tinted them all differently and did a quick blocking painting for the rocks and sky.

The layout was printed out on copy paper (this piece was 11" x 14", so it took a few sheets taped together) and I taped the printout to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. On my Huion lightpad I was able to see through the bristol and use the printout as a guide to ink from.

I used Copic Multiliner SP pens (the 0.7 & 0.3 nibs) to ink everything. I was very caution when inking the faces because if I was just a little bit off, it would ruin the character's expression. I used the finer nib for the faces and the larger nib for more of the costuming and outer contours. 

Even though I knew I'd ultimately be coloring the piece, I wanted to be sure the artwork worked in black and white, so I tried to be hyper aware of where the dark spots and textures were going so I didn't overwhelm the piece with visual clutter.
Once the inks were finished, I scanned them back into Photshop to start the coloring. This first step is called 'flatting' where all the base colors are established. It's a professional version of coloring-in-the-lines. Some of the ideas of the colors were established in Thorin's descriptions, but picking exact colors was a dance I had to do to make sure everything read well while also looking harmonious (like they are all in the same place). Originally I was going to go with a yellow sky like in the rough, but opted in this stage to play with some pink-to-purple gradients to make the setting more ominous.

I also established some color holds (areas where I want the lineart to be a color other than black) mostly on the swirling clouds, but also on one of the character's upper lip and on the dwarf's bow string.

Here again is the final colored art (sans text). The rendering was done mostly using the dodge and burn tools with a stock textured brush.

To find out more about Nadra, you can visit Thorin's website:
www.thorinfinch.com/nadra/

Lake Como Folio Print

 This weekend I’ll be a guest at the Lake Como Comic Art Festival: https://www.lccaf.com/

They will publish a folio of art pieces done by the guests and made available at the convention. You can see my finished piece here and below I’ll show the process of creating the piece.

For the layout, I wanted to include some architecture found in Lake Como. I happened upon a photo of a terrace with an amazing tile floor and used it for reference (though I did have to alter the scale of the roof and columns). I also found that the Kingfisher is a native bird there, and loved the idea of mice in partnership with the bird catching small fish (for oil, scaled skin, bones, and meat for the bird). I drew these elements on copy paper and then assembled them in photoshop and did a quick blocking color pass to help me see everything clearer.

The layout was printed out and taped to the back of a sheet of 14”x17” Strathmore bristol. On my huion lightpad I was able to see through the bristol surface and use the printout as a guide to ink from. I inked the piece with Copic Multiliner SP pens. The original of this piece will be offered for sale at Lake Como, but later in my online store if it doesn’t sell there.

When the inks were finished, I scanned them and started the digital coloring process. This first step is called ‘flatting’ where only flat base colors are painted in (like a professional version of coloring in the lines). I’d mostly decided the color choices in the layout stage. I also established color holds (areas where I want the inkwork to be a color other than black) on the background landscape and the details of the tile floor.

Here again are the final colors, all rendered in Photoshop with the dodge and burn tools and a stock textured brush. The folio with the print will be available at the con, and *if* I get any extras I’ll make them available in my store.