Start of the Working Day

I have just had a lovely start to the working day. When I checked my email I wasn't deluged with spam but rather rceeived a couple of great photos I'd like to share.

tpena19 very kindly sent me a picture of her holding the prize copy of the Bugman's Game. I was relieved to see that it made its way across the Atlantic to California without incident and very pleased to see that it is now in the possession of such a happy smiley person.



The second photo is from an art collector who recently purchased one of my Magic: the Gathering originals and was kind enough to send me this picture of the painting in situ, along with these words.

…the painting is GREAT! My wife and I framed it and hung it in the living room (it shares a wall and exact framing with Parallax Tide by Carl Crtichlow) I can’t thank you enough again…

Fair warms the cockles of the heart and certainly sets me up better than the usual strong cup of coffee :)

Ninja Mountain podcast

The latest episode of the Ninja Mountain podcast is online today. I manage to sneak in with a very brief comment after having been prompted by the robot (!) interviewer. To have a listen follow this link:

http://www.megaflowgraphics.com/NinjaMountain/NinjaMountain029.mp3

This also reminds me that I failed to mention the previous week's show:

http://www.megaflowgraphics.com/NinjaMountain/NinjaMountain028.mp3

Where I made a slightly greater contribution, and also had the great pleasure of chatting to Steve Belledin about his work.

Warforged Titan: Eberron Campaign Guide

The Eberron Campaign guide was recently released by Wizards of the Coast; - info here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndacc/239647200

I had the above chapter start illustration in there, a Warforged Titan battling some adventurers. I have had the chance to work on a few of these now and I have always found them very satisfying. The large format allows you to go a bit wilder than some smaller interior illustrations might.

The one drawback is the layout restrictions. The image spread across a page and a half, which means that quite a lot of the image is sucked into the gutter about a third of the way in from the left. I try to create a composition that works as whole but also with the right two thirds and the left third standing alone.

In this instance you have the female shifter on the left. She fills that left third nicely, but also acts to draw the viewer back into the focus of the composition, which is the lightning blast and warforged adventurer.

The Winner is...

...tpena19

There were 604 peanuts in the tankard and she guessed 589 making hers the closest guess.

!CONGRATULATIONS!

I would like to thank everyone who participated in the competition. I have deliberately not posted any comments or new entries since the competition started, just to keep the entry nice and 'clean', but I have very much appreciated everyone who has come to my blog and made a comment. Thanks.

I have send a note to Tpena19 and look forward to posting the game off to her in the States.

Bugman's Peanuts Competition

Today is competition time on my blog. I am giving away a signed copy of The Bugman's Game board game, which has just been released by Games Workshop.


The Challenge:

Guess how many pieces of peanut there are in the pint-sized tankard pictured above. Please note that the salted peanuts I used come either whole, or else split in half, both have been counted as a single piece. I know, this makes it even harder.

Rules:

Enter by posting the number you think is correct as a comment to this blog entry.
Only 1 entry per person (if you enter more than once just your first post will be used).
If more than 1 person gets the correct number (or the nearest correct number) the first person to post the number will win.
Competition will finish on Saturday 1st August 2009 12:00 GMT (UK time)

The Winner:

The winner will be announced in a new blog entry. I will also notify them directly through the contact details in their profile. I will then send the game to any address you provide me with.


The Prize:

The Bugman's Game is a special promotional board game published by Games Workshop. It is only available for purchase at Bugman's Bar, which is in GW's Nottingham, UK, headquarters.



It is a light-hearted, beer & pretzels, game, whose objective is to get your Dwarf to the bar, then back again, with your food and drink. Sounds simple enough until you factor in the other Dwarfs, Trolls, Rowdy Revellers and the urgent need to get to The Bogs.




I provided all the artwork for the game; cover, board, cards and counters. It made a surprisingly refreshing change to flex my humour muscles and create some cartoon imagery - which I have always suspected I had in me.

I have included a few samples in this post.




I have had the pleasure of visiting Bugman's bar several times, and it is a fun fantasy themed bar. Adjoining it is a gaming hall which is also very well made up as a village square.

Here's a link:

http://warhammerworld.typepad.com/warhammer_world_news/bugmans-bar.html

Good luck in the competition.

Ninja Mountain podcast; Episode # 25

I had the great pleasure of participating in this weeks episode of the Ninja Mountain podcast.


To listen to the show please follow this link:
http://ninjamountain.blogspot.com/


This time around the episode was structured a little differently; here is a summary taken from the NM blog.


Ninja Mountain Episode 25 - Three Way Split. Its a big one this week as three seperate Ninja Teams assemble to deliver a triple whammy in a joyously confused magazine format. First up we have Anne Stokes and Socar Myles discussing the topic of being an awesome female fantasy artist in what can appear at a glance to be a male dominated world.
Next up its convention talk with Patrick McEvoy, Ralph Horsley and Jeremy McHugh - get the fat ole skinny on what to do at your next convention attendance! Whether selling prints or selling your soul to every art director you can lay hands on, this crack team discuss it all.
Lastly Andy Hepworth, Ralph Horsley and Jon Hodgson discuss the work and influence of truly awesome historical and fantasy artist Angus McBride.

Doodly Sketches

I think of myself as never having time for personal work. Invariably I feel the need to be working on compositional thumbnails, concepting sketches, or the like, rather than sketching for simple pleasure.

So it was a pleasant surprise when I found myself drawn into one of Jon Schindehette's 'artorder' challenges the other day, the results of which can be found here:
http://artorder.blogspot.com/2009/07/oso-del-le-fez.html
and here:
http://artorder.blogspot.com/2009/07/book-covers-and-adventures-of-oso-del.html

However whilst enjoying exploring my concepts for Oso I also realised that I do manage some personal work. Most Wednesdays I play in a Warhammer FRP campaign. This has been going for a couple of years now, and I regularly find myself doodling throughout the sessions, oftentimes this is work related...

... but if not they are usually representations of my character (of which I am on my second, the first - Josef Fraze - having had an unfortunate accident involving the wrong end of a Kislevite's sword). Dietrich Totenwasser is a Magister of the College of Light, and rather down on his luck at present, but still opposing the forces of Chaos.

The Images here are shown in reverse order of his career trajectory, though the wererat/skaven was a foe, not an incarnation! They are rendered in biro. I find that I can lay down a lighter line then firm it up when needed, but it is still relatively unforgiving.

This tends to mean that I 'follow the line' and end up with less considered pieces than my usual preparatory sketches, but conversely they can have more energy in them. I certainly hope you find them of interest.