Black Lotus!...on eBay!

Black Lotus - 14 x 16 in., oil on masonite

 

 More on this later but, long story short, I was asked a few months back to create new art for the Black Lotus (one of Magic: the Gathering's most famous cards). I was totally honored to do it and really enjoyed working on it. While the card won't ever be printed, from what I understand it will be the new look of the card for the Magic: the Gathering online game. 

 

Anyway, because of the huge response to the art I wanted to give everyone a fair shot at owning the original. If you're interested, you can find it on eBay here.

 

Also, I've (finally) started a Facebook page! Follow me here.

IlluXcon! + New Book Cover

Storm Riders 14 x 22 (-ish, it's at the framers right now), oil on masonite

Hey everyone! If you're within driving distance of Pennsylvania and and want to see some of the best fantasy/sci-fi/horror art in the world (for real) next weekend, I highly recommend you make the trek out to IlluXcon. Last year was my first time exhibiting there and I just about lost my mind between all the art and getting to meet a bunch of my art-gods. I'm really looking forward to doing it all over again and hopefully I'll see ya there!

Alright, moving on. The piece up top, which I'll be showing for the first time next weekend, is a book cover I did a while back for Tor Publishing. It was my first time working with them and I had a great time with it. The real challenge with this one was pulling off the value structure with so much going on, I spent a lot of time squinting at it trying to make sure the silhouette of the dragon stood out from the airship, etc.

Isperia's Skywatch

Isperia's Skywatch - 12 x 16 in., oil on masonite

 

This is my last one for the new Magic, the Gathering set, Return to Ravnica. I remember really wanting to get that sense of her just catching the last bit of daylight before diving down. The hardest bit was definitely figuring out how to treat the blues of her skin and clothes in that lighting situation without getting too muted.

Guest Post on Muddy Colors!

Last week I was asked by Dan Dos Santos to contribute to a dragon themed series of guest posts over at the Muddy Colors blog. If you're not familiar with Muddy Colors, it's got to be the best blog out there on the subject of fantastic art with a list of regular contributors that will make your head spin. Anyway, it was an honor to be asked and you can check out my post here.

Cyclonic Rift

Cyclonic Rift - 11 x 14 in., oil on masonite.

 

Here's another one from the new Magic set. It's always a little bit strange to me working on pieces that don't contain any figures but it was fun to just trip out on clouds and atmosphere for a while.

Azorius Justiciar

 Azorius Justiciar - 12 x 16 in., oil on masonite
 

Here's another one from the new Magic set. Her art description basically sounded like a fantasy version of Judge Dredd...if he was a wizard, obsessed with the law almost to the point of zealotry. This was one of those rare pieces that came together really easily and wound up really close to the way I saw her in my mind when I began.

Corpsejack Menace

Corpsejack Menace, 11 x 14 in.

 This guy's the first piece of mine to be previewed in the new Magic: the Gathering set; Return to Ravnica. Ravnica is world covered completely by a massive city so this year has been a lesson in how to paint cityscapes as fast as possible. Anyway, this guy's basically a massive fungal monster that lives in the huge sewer system below the city. I was given a reference sketch for this guy but I had a lot of fun figuring out how every thing fit together and trying to make him as terrifying as possible. 

The only crit I remember getting back on my sketch was to make sure his mouth didn't look too "suggestive". So, as funny as it would have been otherwise, I really tried to push the structure of his jaws on the final.