Here are some things I’ve been noodling away at lately.
 |
| Fog Giants |
These guys are Fog Giants, which are really stupid and very primitive giants. I liked the idea of making them look like inbreds, so I gave them small craniums and gawping mouths. I also tried to keep the color scheme very cool to underscore the foggy, damp environment.
I used some new brushes here, including a nice spatter brush and a great cloud brush, both of which I grabbed from last month’s ImagineFX.
 |
| Francis O’Furious |
This chap is Francis O’Furious. He’s my friend’s character, and is a simple-minded, vain heroic type. This was a lot of fun to work on because I’m very familiar with the character.
I worked this one up from a very rough sketch in Photoshop on a blue background. I hunted down a lot of reference for his sword and armor, and slowly pulled together the background from photos. What’s there now is actually just for placement — I don’t feel right about using photographic overlays like that. But I am into that pink and blue-grey background. It’s an unusual color scheme for me, but the serene quality of it offsets the figure nicely.
I’ve still got a bit of work to do, refining the textures, detailing the shield and face, and bringing up another level of finish to it. But I’m digging it so far.
 |
| Bee Haga, the Dark Queen |
Finally, I’ve got this one going on. A friend of mine dreamed up this character from another piece I did last year, and when he told me about her, I wanted to redo her design.
She’s half-hag, half-nymph, and a mysterious and powerful sorceress. As I was sketching her out, I began to realize I didn’t have anything to tip off the viewer that she’s a freaky abberration. So I started exaggerating her hands, eventually turning them into nasty claws. Then for extra horror, I painted them all blood-splattery. I figure that’s a permanent condition — a mark of her night hag heritage.
I got the idea for her headdress from looking at lampshades and umbrellas, and just added those big ol’ stars for fun. It evolved from a simpler shape, but I added those spikes to improve the silhouette. I further enhanced that by doing what James Gurney refers to as “flagging the head.” You call attention to the all-important face & head by offsetting it against a stark background shape or color, or by lightening the color behind it.