D&D Spot Illustrations and a Figure Drawing

Here are a few 1/4 page illustrations I did for Dungeon and Dragon Magazines over the past several months. The two characters on the left I did for Jon Schindehette, and the four weapons I did for Keven Smith. I've enjoyed doing pieces this small, the variety is a nice break from some of the bigger, more involved pieces I've posted lately.


Also, this past Sunday my friends and I went to an uninstructed figure drawing session, and it was great to get back to drawing from life. I felt a little rusty at first, but this stuff is like riding a bike.


Thanks for looking, I'll have more goodies soon!

Raccoon Skull

Hello! Boy, its been a while since I posted. Its going to be a little longer yet before I post some of the good stuff. I've begun some contract work for a gaming company in addition to continuing my freelance illustration, so I've been really slammed. The illustration assignments usually take several months to get published, and then the concept art can take years before its released, so sometimes I'm without much to share. Despite being productive as all-get-out.

So I sat down tonight and decided to draw something for the sake of practice. Just for me.


Hey, nothing elaborate, just a lil' ol' raccoon skull. It felt really good to sit and draw something from life... I don't think I've done that in over a year. Its moments like this when I really miss college. Ringling had open figure drawing every weeknight, through the figure-drawing club (with which I served as president for a year :D ). Jeez, I'd love to have that option nowadays.

Some of what got me motivated to do this was watching fellow illustrator Dave Rapoza's Crimson Daggers group. Highly inspirational! I encourage you to go check out how hard they're working. Its contagious!!!

Thanks for reading, I hope to update again soon. If nothing else, I'll work up a whole batch of skull drawings to justify a post. Heh.

Oh, Whoops!

Remember how I was complaining about all that "illustration-discrimination" stuff just a while ago? I guess I have to eat my own words on this one. Man, I feel like a tool.

http://soicompetitions.org/?section=institution_view_winners&institution_id=100&competition_id=30&entry_id=13998

Ringling enters all the pieces that make it into their End of the Year show, and so I didn't even realize this piece was in the running. It wasn't until I was checking Tina Sweep's blog (a good friend and good painter) when I saw that I had gotten in! Kooky! Tina's blog is here: http://tsweep.blogspot.com/ What is funny, to me, is that I did in fact enter this very piece in the student competition the year before, and it did not make the cut. Funny how life is sometimes.

While I'm at it, I guess I should upload some new art. Here are some drawings from the Dr. Sketchy's here in Baltimore. I'm usually a bigger fan of straight nude figure drawing, but its been such a while since ive had the chance to draw from a model, I wasn't complaining. I had good fun, actually. I hope it shows.

Also, a little while ago my friend from Ringling, Robb Gibbs http://robbgibbs.blogspot.com/ (now working at Firaxis up the road) and I took an excursion to DC to find cool things to draw. While the police would not let us park lawn chairs in front of the White House to draw, we DID get to draw some neat skeletons and stuff in the National Museum of Natural History.

More recently I got to participate in New York Comic-Con, and I had a great experience! I saw the James Jean show the day before it was to be taken down at the Jonathan Levine Gallery(and boy was it awesome), and that has gotten me all kinds of motivated to get back into traditional media. I stayed with a friend, Dennis Brown http://www.bagger43.com/ , and had the chance to pick his brain a bit about general art topics. I also had the chance to catch up with friends like Erik Jones http://irison.blogspot.com/ , Miguel Lantigua http://gluesblog.blogspot.com/ and Chris Johnson http://mrvisions.blogspot.com/ . I met people like Nathan Fox http://www.foxnathan.com/ , Irene Gallo http://igallo.blogspot.com/ , Jon Schindehette http://artorder.blogspot.com/ , and Jesper Ejsing http://www.jesperejsing.com/ , and walked away from every meeting very fired up and excited about what the future holds. Good trip, all around.

Lastly: A doodle.

Hopefully the next time I post, I'll be able to share some of the freelance I've been doing, not sure when I can let the cat out of the bag on that stuff! Soon I hope! Hope everyone is doing well!