SKETCHBOOK VOLUME 56
Welcome to Volume 56 of the Patreon Exclusive Digital Sketchbook.
This month I am launching the sketchbook in a brand new blog format!
I am really excited to freshen up the Patreon rewards and be able to give you better content, this blog style format for the monthly sketchbook is going to be really great for showing you lots of artwork, sketches and videos all in one place. With the added bonus of interactivity with links to anything I’m discussing in the volume!
So.. Without further ado, lets get on with it!
I’ve added a little soundtrack for you too~
A few months ago I was planning on having an art booth at the Dreamhack expo in Melbourne. It was my first time ever attending the gaming convention let alone exhibiting and trying to sell my work there. I really wanted to do some new artwork that might cater for the crowd a little bit. Above are some of my initial thumbnails. There are a couple of Demon Girls, some Miss Fortune fanart, and some druid faerie ideas as well.
I decided to create two striking Demon girls with vivid colours that would make very eye catching banners at the convention.
Rough concept and Finished pencils.
Timelapse video above (click to enlarge!)
The final design of my first Demon girl, I wanted to go for extremely bright purple and pink colours to really grab attention.
For the second Demon girl I wanted to use some bright orange colours and add a little demon dude in there too.
I really didn’t have any concept in mind for these it was just based on pure aesthetics and something visually striking.
The final firey demon!
Exhibiting at Dreamhack was a success, we had a great time and met lovely people and sold a bunch of prints/books to cover costs and make a very small profit. However.. As usual for conventions these days, sales are not up to standard as what they once were. When you count all the hours it takes to plan and participate at a convention, not to mention working on those two brand new artworks.. it was a little disappointing.
However, I feel a gaming convention probably isn’t my target audience and we felt that people really wanted to buy things from established IP;. i.e. Fanart.
I only had a few old fanart pieces for sale, as that is just not my thing.
I want conventions to be great again, but for now I think my time and effort is better spent earning from other sources and focusing on my own projects.
CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE PRINTS!
I have limited stock of these two Demon girl prints, I will not be reprinting them!
I’m fairly happy with how both Demon girls turned out and at the very least it got me back into doing some art for myself again, so I am very thankful for that.
SUMMONER WARS
In the last few months I have been doing a lot more work for the board game Summoner Wars by PlaidHat games.
I have worked on two brand new factions that are created as expansions.
The first being the Chosen Grove; a druidic faction of trees ‘n naturey stuff.
I love drawing gnarly tree people so this was a faction that excited me to work on. The bear and the deer were kinda tricky though. As usual, animals are my weakness and I always have to go digging for photo references!
Timelapse of the Seed Bearer creation.
Going forward I’ll be adding lots of timelapses and extra goodies in the sketchbooks. I just have to figure out the right format. Using square space is tricky! Let me know if you prefer Gifs like this one, or videos you can enlarge.
The next faction I worked on is The Spectral Conclave! At first from my initial brief I thought this faction would be fairly easy. Described as shadowy figures with masks casting illusions.
In reality for some reason I got stuck on the Summoner for days trying to draw him correctly.
Thankfully, once I cracked out my mojo with the Summoner, the rest of the faction flowed nicely as I had that visual theme for all of them. A pretty unique looking faction and look forward to finding out how they play in the game! (I still don’t get too much detail on that part)
Above: More animals, however this time they were instructed to be a little weird ‘n wacky. My specialty :P
From here I’ve been assigned two Summoners for the next two factions to be completed in the future.
I’m not even entirely sure what these factions are going to be called but this first one will be LIZARD PEOPLE. I mean.. that is pretty exciting right. I’m going to have a lot of fun with these.
EDIT: I’ve actually just been commissioned for another 4 Lizard peoples, so you will see them next month.
The next Summoner is Cinis Stormrider, again details about this faction are scarce, but I can give you a few key words.. Dragons.. Fire… and Badass.
That about wraps up my Summoner Wars work for now but rest assured there will be heaps more to come.
I’ll leave you with a random bunch of doodles from my sketchbook, a book that is being far too neglected lately. I’ve also been dabbling on a whole bunch of new artwork here and there but I’ll save that for next time!
Thank you again for being so patient between updates, I honestly do not know how this year has gone so fast ahead of me already!
I would love to know your thoughts on the new sketchbook format and look forward to hanging out on stream very soon for all these kickstarter commissions!
OH, and here is a little youtube ASMR video I made.
Till next time!
All the best,
Marty