Tuesday 13 April 2010

Dungeon # 177 Cover

Dungeon #177: The Master.
Approx 51 cm x 51cm. Acrylic. Original For Sale: £1500. © WOTC

The psychic energy flowed through the Rakshasa as he bent the will of the Goristro demon to his own ends. More souls would soon lie trapped in the rock beneath his feet...

The Goristro towers over the Rakshasa, but I wanted the latter to be the point of interest. I tried to achieve this by placing the strongest contrast of light and dark upon him, whilst also having the broadest range of colours. To add to the menace, and power, of the pairing I tilted the horizon and chose a low  viewpoint. The edges and definition also gets softer and looser as you move away from the focal point.

One pleasure of working for the online D&D magazines is that the turnaround between commission and publication is pretty quick. So rather than the months of wait that normally occurs this was a mere matter of weeks. Consequently this is very close to where I am wanting to push my painting at present, especially in trying to work hard on the focus.

Part of that concentration includes texture and edges. This was my first painting where I employed a matte acrylic gel. It provides a bit more body and lengthens drying time. This seemed to help especially with the blending in the background and on the spell effect.

Incidentally this is also the painting that I was working on when we recorded Episode #56 of the Ninja Mountain podcast. Listen here.

I also took  a number of 'in progress' photos and hope to construct a walkthrough from them.




6 comments:

  1. Amazing! It's one of my favorites by you, Ralph.

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  2. This is really great, alot of drama in it, nice colors and very well rendered, its a lovely piece

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  3. Really cool, love your works.

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  4. Peter I was especially pleased with how this turned out myself - thanks :)

    JG & maledictus Thanks very much :0

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  5. Love your work! That is one cool piece Ralph!

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