More art! More sales!

Dungeons and Dragons released Fortune Cards recently. I suppose they are cards that somehow determine your fortune within an adventure. I'm not really sure. All I know is that last August I did 5 small, quick illustrations for the product. The original illustrations are on 8x10 canvas.

More than anything, I enjoy painting character portraits. The human body is a lot of fun to paint, and faces are even more fun. You can infuse so much personality into a piece just by adjusting the small details.

What also makes character portraits interesting is opportunity to inject the painting with the personality of the model. In the portrait of the Norse hunter girl above, I used my girlfriend Shelly as the model for the face. Shelly is certainly not Scandinavian. She doesn't have pale skin, or blond hair, or blue eyes. So she finds this painting really funny.

On a related note, I'm selling a booster box set of Fortune cards on eBay. This is only a 7-day auction , so get bidding!

Cards and original sketch for sale!

It's been a hectic 2011 so far. The work has been good, but I have had to put in long hours. I probably won't get a break in the action until mid-March. Unfortunately, due to non-disclosure agreements, I can't show you a single thing. So in the meantime ...

I'm selling some goodies on eBay.

It's a complete, factory-sealed Booster Box of Mirrodin Besieged. Also included is a sketch on the back of a Brass Squire artist proof card, showing a Phyrexian version of the same card. I'm also throwing in the Player's Guide Booklet.


Get your bids in, MtG fans!

Google Art Project

Google does some amazing things. Street View, Body Browser and now Art Project.

Art Project is a kind of Street View within the walls of the major art museums. The ability to "walk" through the galleries is pretty limited, but that's hardly the best part of this. What is most amazing is the ability to zoom in on specific pieces of art. You can zoom so far in on some pieces you can see the texture of the canvas and every color detail of every brush stroke. But don't bother reading my description. Try it out for yourself!

Vedalken Infuser

This new Magic card had no concept from the art director, other than, "paint me a cool Vedalken of your design." This is great for an artist to hear and I think in this piece I did what I had hoped to accomplish. I just wish I had planned out a stunning background, but at the time I wanted to simplify for some reason. That said, it's still the best of my recent work and the only one I will post to my site.


I provided a detail to show you what I was most proud of. Whether by the grace of the art gods or by luck, I was able to maintain the transparency of the shadows. I love this effect, but can rarely achieve it. The opaque illuminated head merges quite nicely with the brushstroke-y transparent shadows.

Tangents are annoying.

As I was putting down my most recent project on canvas, I was struggling, as I always do, against tangents. Tangents are an interesting feature of high school geometry, but are very annoying for artists.


For instance, take a look at the two T. Rex above. You can't really tell which Thunder Lizard is in front of the other, or whether they have dipped their tails in a tar pit and are stuck that way. The tangent of their two tails meeting is uninformative and draws way too much attention to itself.

Above is an improvement. Now we have more information, a little visual weight and we can now concentrate on the subject of the drawing.

But tangents get more annoying as the complexity of the image increases. In this drawing, All the circled points need to be addressed. Either I need to change the proportion of the bricks, or I need to change the position or pose of the figure. The shoulder area is not really a tangent, but the meeting of the shoulder with the brick edge is distracting.

Tangents and awkward line intersections happen automatically and often. My mind always wants to join two lines neatly. I always have to fight that response in favor of a more pleasing solution. By the way, enjoy these sketches because they are some of my best work recently.

Even the President uses reference.

He knows what he's doing ...

Jeffrey Jones Documentary

Jeffrey Catherine Jones is one of my favorite artists. His work is emotionally evocative and mysterious and unlike any other in the field. Part of the reason I like him so much is because his early work is a little rough and maybe a little too Frazetta-derivative. His recent work, however, is breathtaking. Jones' growth as an artist gives me hope. Improvement is possible!

That is why I'm so excited about BETTER THINGS: The Life and Choices of Jeffrey Catherine Jones. I really, really hope it is released.

Visit MaCab Films to see more footage and a longer cut of the artists interviews.

If you are an artist who wants to make sure this project is released, consider making a donation.