Recent posts on Fantasy

The Botanist

Made a little fun afternoon-painting, inspired by the local flower-shop keeper.

Botanist Artwork

“The Botanist” – Watercolor and ink on 11 by 15cm cold-pressed paper.

I’ve had a work-in-progress drawing on my Instagram account. Bigger projects I would post on Patreon, but this was but a smaller doodle.

Botanist Sketch

The drawing with water-resistant ink. I did a couple of lines of pencil sketches before.

Phoenix in a Birch Forest

Just finished another longer drawing. And I want to streamline my outreach a bit.

Drawing of Forest and Phoenix

“Birch Phoenix” – ink and markers on A4 paper.

Currently this drawing is for sale in my shop.

I should start measuring the hours I’m putting into these. It’s A4 sized, but I’ve spent substantial time on the details. I think I’m OK with taking a lot of time – it means less updates, but at the end, it’s the quality that matters. Working slow is just kinda my thing.
Then it actually kinda fits well to show work-in-progress steps on my Patreon art page. It means more updates there, but also that I can show stuff without promising results to too big of an audience… some pictures might just not work out after all. I will have to rework the page there a bit in the coming weeks, so it’s an advantage there that it’s not big. Maybe remove some higher possible pledges and promises of content, but make the basic promise more clear. I’ll stick to the lottery idea – but have to create more for that.

Detail View - Offshoot

Detail view: Small birch offshoot.

Detail view Birch trees

Detail view: Birch trees.

Also getting comfortable with my … let’s call it media strategy. My still relatively new Instagram art spot seems to work well with outreach – the advantage over Facebook and such is that a lot of new people see the content, not just old friends. Still a long way to go here (just over 100 followers currently).
I mentioned earlier that I’m trying a Reddit art profile. I would prefer it to all others – Reddit is more open, and friendly to creators. And that also is true for the community. But still they have to change stuff to make it work … and there is some resistance by users to the changes. It seems thought it’s moving in the right way (recently they added “original-content” tags for some subs), so I’ll stick to it. I just don’t trust Twitter/Instagram and Facebook with their secretive algorithms. Loish (an artist really rocking at social media) figures they tend to block outgoing links and Patreon stuff on Facebook. Maybe not yet on Instagram – but I just find it annoying not to know what goes on – and giving control over my content to them.

Detail view: Phoenix.

Detail View - Mushrooms

Detail View of Forest Ink Drawing: Mushrooms.

So maybe there will be better alternatives coming around – there is still room for adjustments. It would be nice to reduce the amount of publishing – right now it takes hours to make all previews (ever site wants different formats) and coming up with tags and all of this. All part of the job. But preferably I would like to spend that time making art.

Red Riding Hood and the Hermit

Two more drawings from the Inktober! One you can win in my art lottery, and the other is now for sale.

Both are experiments with new materials. The Red Riding Hood drawing is an ink wash on watercolor paper – definitely a technique I’ll use more often. The dye-based ink feathers into different colors, which gives it a pleasant effect.

Red Riding Hood Drawing

“Red Riding Hood” – ink on 23 x 31 cm hot-pressed cotton paper.
You can win this image by taking part in my monthly artwork lottery.

The other drawing is my first foray into using wood panels. This allows scratching back to white. A great way to work – and there is definitely more to come in this technique too. The durability is perfect – together with the quality ink, the varnish and the quality grounding, it’ll last 500 years at minimum.
You can now buy this original drawing in my web shop. And while I was at it, I also added two originals of my machiya paintings there.

The Hermit Drawing

“The Hermit”, ink on 20 x 30 cm wood panel.
Here is a view showing the board and some tools (the web-link is not on the actual picture).

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Medieval City Map Illustration

This fantasy city view is similar to the medieval towns map I’ve shown before. It didn’t give it the old hand-drawn map look, but since the other post is one of the most popular content here, I thought I put this one out too.

medieval imaginary cityscape with palace, map

This imaginary cityscape is more epic in scale – showing more of a capital with palace and manufacturing areas.

Medieval city palace detail

Here is a detail of the palace/castle area. The map is based of a complex 3d model that I then heavily edited in 2d.

Hand Drawn Medieval Town Map

Due to imaginary public demand, I’ll publish the pencil drawing of the medieval town map that I posted earlier.

This one I used as overlay to give the highly detailed 3d picture a more old time look. I got some requests about the other map, so just as with this one: It’s under the creative commons license. You can use it for free if you also share your product for free. I have also higher resolution versions if needed. Anything you sell needs a permission for usage.

You can of course hire me if you need illustrations in that or other styles. Would love to do an high quality ink map one day.

Pencil Fantasy Town Map

A little town in a forest. The version with the mixed in illustrated towns map is here.

Even Sinful Medieval Towns need Maps

Two more artworks for a cancelled game playing in medieval times.

I already showed two character model sheets of “Quest’n’Goblins” earlier. Here is a little towns map – I tried to give it a medieval style by making a pencil version of it, tracing it on top of the monitor… good for your arm muscles.

The latter artwork is a scene from inside one of the infamous taverns of the village.

Medieval Town Map

The town’s map (I’ve published the hand-drawn layer of the map also).
And here is the full resolution of this map.

Tavern Inn Keeper

It’s a pretty rotten place.

Female Hero Model Sheet

Since I posted the male model sheet earlier, I have to follow up with the female one.

Female hero model sheet.

First the final outcome in color. There is not much clothing and weapons – since this was supposed to by dynamic in the game, depending on what items you collect.

Heroine Pencil Sketches

And here are some early pencil sketches, starting with offering different designs.

Heroine design pencil sketch

And then detailing the chosen one.

And here a bonus character artwork:

Mysterious character Portrait

Mysterious! Who is it? Will we ever find out? … well no, the game was cancelled.

Scantily Clad Male Hero … Model Sheets

Some artworks from the game “Quest’n’Goblins”, that sadly didn’t see the light of day.

These are designs for the male hero (female one and some other stuff following in other posts). The “Model Sheet” is the final goal here, which means it’s not a marketing artwork, but directly for production: posed and dressed for being modeled in a 3D software.
I worked a lot with pencils for this project – especially for the early sketching. And then colored the final chosen ones. A very effective and fun workflow, that prevents the endless doodling and redoing that can come from working digital all the way.

Hero Pencil Sketches

Pencil sketches for the male hero design….

pencil sketch male hero

…of which the client chose the first design, which I then detailed out.

Hero Model Sheet

The final colored model sheet. There is not much armor – as those you would collect in the game.

Here is one little sketch that was left over:

Buff Goblin Pencil drawing

Not a model sheet – but I like this design of a buff goblin.