Concept Tuesday's Devolved Gnome

So I did this week's concept Tuesday challenge over at Artorder and wanted to share the results. The challenge was to devolve a Gnome from the 4th edition D&D manual and here are the results:

Here are a examples of the original concepts by Raven Mimura:

I thought that being a trickster fae, the Gnomes ought to be more primal and animalistic with their ancestry so, going off the original design, I based my devolution on the shape of the spider monkey. The Gnome, which now lives in the roots of trees, used live on top of them. Tails, long hands and flexible feet serve the early Gnomes in leaping through the branches and swinging from tree to tree gracefully. Tricksters from the start, their long tails and clever fingers and toes also aided in swooping down to steal shiny objects from surprised passerby and disappearing back into the leaves before anyone could register what happened.

So if you like my piece, please head over to ArtOrder.Blogspot.com and vote for me!

Oil Sketch

So in celebration of finally being able to go outside again, I decided to do some painting from life. Here are some windows I can see from my back porch. And by porch I mean fire escape.



I spent about an hour and a half on this I think. I am going to do more at different times of day to see how the light changes. This one was 5:30ish- 7. The little spot of yellow between the windows was only there for like 5 minutes, and it was fun trying to capture things like that as they came and went.

Charcoal

So I've been rediscovering charcoal lately and decided to do a few Fairy Tale illustrations in it for something a little different:

I was looking at a lot of Shaun Tan's work for these pieces, trying to channel his atmosphere and sense of whimsy. I really enjoy just pushing the medium around, rubbing and lifting out. Charcoal is like oil in a lot of ways with its fluidity and the way it stays 'live' on the paper indefinitely. It offers a lot of opportunities for those happy accidents, focusing on atmosphere and gesture. I think I will be experimenting a lot more with it this summer.

The story is The Maiden in the Castle of the Rosy Clouds. Though the title is a bit of a mouthful, the story itself is really lovely- sort of Don Quixote/Fisher King-esque with one of those perfect bitterweet endings I love so much. It's from the Swedish Folk Tales book illustrated by John Bauer, and if you don't know HIS work then you're missing out. If you're a fan of Brian Froud's art, you will recognize a LOT of Bauer there: