SKETCHBOOK VOLUME 57
Welcome to Volume 57 of the Patreon Digital Sketchbook!
I really appreciate your patience over the past few months—things have been quite busy! To make it up to you, I’ve packed this volume with as much content as possible to make it extra special.
In this issue, I’ll be sharing artwork from a personal passion project, a fresh batch of new pieces for the board game Summoner Wars, and a collection of hand-drawn Kickstarter commissions.
So grab your favorite drink, and let’s dive into the art!
First off, it’s been a busy month as I’ve been hard at work packaging all your Wonderings Vol. 2 Kickstarter orders. As a way to unwind, I’ve been diving into a roleplay version of Red Dead Redemption 2! My character, Jeremiah Blackthorn, is working on starting a small portrait business to earn some in-game currency.
Below, you’ll find a collection of artworks I’ve created for real players in the game. While it might seem like I’m adding more work to an already full plate (and you’re probably right), I’ve found real value in experimenting with new styles, trying out different techniques, and most importantly, testing new brushes for my upcoming brush pack!
This here be Jeremiah Blackthorn, Irish artist and hot head.
I started out small, offering quick and rough sketches for just $50 in-game currency. It was a lot of fun and a great way to connect with people in the community.
However, I soon realized that $50 in-game barely gets you anything, and I was definitely undercharging!
A lovely lady named Zelda requested a portrait with her horse, and I probably should’ve declined—drawing animals has always been a major challenge for me. But I pushed through and ended up pretty satisfied with the result.
After that, people started requesting couples’ portraits, and since Jeremiah needed the in-game cash, he couldn’t say no!
The portrait on the right is probably one of my favorites so far. I feel like I nailed the balance between sketchiness and just the right touch of tones and color—exactly the right amount of effort for what I was getting paid. Plus, she turned out absolutely stunning!
Above is a portrait of Doctor Wheeler and Schuber, two wonderful characters I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in the game. As doctors, they travel all over the county, risking their own lives to help injured players. I was honored to create this portrait for them, celebrating their love—which, at the time, was a bit of a hidden secret!
I was also commissioned to create a wedding portrait for Jeb and Lilly. This was one of my earlier works, so I was still refining my process at the time, but I believe they were quite happy with the result.
Arthur and Harriet requested a couples portrait with an "absolutely badass, world on fire" vibe, so I did my best to deliver just that. Below, you’ll find a romantic portrait of Alexei and Firefly.
That’s all for now. I have a few more portraits in the works, but honestly, it's starting to burn me out a bit since I have more pressing work to focus on. I’m undecided about whether to continue, but if I do, it will be at my own pace and whenever I feel inspired.
I’m also really interested in doing some plein air landscape paintings based on the game’s scenery. This is something I want to explore for myself, to test out some brushes I’m creating and improve my skills with environments.
Work on the board game Summoner Wars has been progressing, and there have been several new factions added recently, including a few I haven't shared with you yet.
First up is The Forged, a faction inspired by steampunk engineering. This faction is led by a single engineer known as 'The Inventor.' The rest of the faction consists of his mechanical creations, which will take to the battlefield in his defense.
Click to enlarge.
This faction offered a refreshing change from the others, allowing me to design and illustrate a variety of steampunk mechanical robots. It was a welcome shift from the usual human characters.
Next is the Crimson Order, a faction of ancient vampires who wield terrifying blood magic on the battlefield. I especially love drawing dark, evil characters, so this faction was a real treat for me.
Click to enlarge.
This next faction of water-dwelling folk has a mermaid-like appearance but with a twist—they have two legs and can travel on land. I'm not sure what their final name will be yet, as I've heard a few possibilities, like DeepWater, BrightCove Fae, and Shimmersea Fae. I guess we'll have to wait and see which name they settle on.
THE DEEPWOOD GROAKS
Staying with the water theme, we now have a faction of fantasy frogs! I love when faction ideas are a bit wild and fun like this. I've never really drawn frogs before, but it's exciting to try something different with these groups. Many of the frog folk in this faction carry potions and bombs, which I thought was a cool and unique mechanic.
Click to enlarge.
ISLE VEKKID
Now we’re moving from frogs to lizards! Even though drawing animals isn’t my strongest skill, like I’ve mentioned before, it’s a refreshing change from just working on humans all the time. I really enjoyed experimenting with different types of lizards and giving each one its own distinct personality. The tentacled monster at the end was probably the most challenging—figuring out how to bring both the client’s and my vision to life for a creature that could attack everyone around it. The final result? Definitely unique, to say the least!
Click to enlarge.
From time to time, I’ve been commissioned to create some of the ‘event’ cards for the game. These tend to be a bit more detailed since they usually depict a scene with multiple characters, like the one shown below.
These event illustrations were created for the Spectral Conclave faction that I posted in the previous digital sketchbook.
Click to enlarge!
In addition to all the Summoner Wars client work, I’ve drawn hundreds of free sketches for Kickstarter backers. Every single one of the 400+ backers receives a free pencil sketch with their order, so creating those and handling all the packaging has been incredibly time-consuming. On top of that, I have 35 marker commissions to complete. Below is one of them, a gothic pin-up, which I upgraded from A5 to A4.
So good to work with traditional mediums again!
While working on these commissions, I saw it as a great opportunity to start posting proper content on social media again, especially since I felt like I hadn't been giving it the attention it deserved. I finally upgraded my phone for a better camera, allowing me to record high-quality footage of the artwork and create beautiful work-in-progress reels for Instagram and TikTok.
The response so far has been more than worth it, and Victoria and I really enjoy editing the videos and adding music. Initially, I was a bit frustrated that social media seems to force creatives into making video content—otherwise, static images don’t get much reach. However, I’ve decided to embrace it and plan to keep making short-form video content for the remaining 30+ commissions.
Some of the Kickstarter commissions are quite open-ended, with vague descriptions like "a blue-haired girl with horns," while others are very specific, such as "Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn."
A handful of people have asked for demon girls for their commissions - totally fine by me, I loved creating them!
A cute mermaid commission request
Recently I was sponsored by a new marker company called OLO. They’ve sent me a bunch of markers to test, and while I’ve only done one commission with them - I can safely say I’m really happy with the product!
Be on the lookout for more information when I post about them soon.
A little while back, I decided to do a couple of warm-up sketches before I got out of bed. The drawings below were some random creations sketched on my iPad for that purpose.
I’ll be doing some more of these just to get back into the flow of creating my own stuff again - creating things that fulfill my soul.
As some of you may know, I’ve been playing Overwatch for many years with my friends. I was recently asked by one of them to join their team in a 3 VS 3 battle that was being streamed.
After we chose our name of “Doom Kittens” I just felt compelled to draw up a cute logo for us…
Featuring Ghostpants, MKitty and Kitsune
Around the time of Dreamhack expo, when I created the Demon Girl pin-ups as seen in the last volume, I also dabbled with creating some other new works, which unfortunately got left behind as I moved onto more pressing matters.
Druid Queen
I figured I would show you even though they’re nowhere near finished. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get around to working on them again, however, I can be swayed! If you really like them, let me know.
Sakura Fae
Rune
On top of all this, I finally started plotting out a very large comission for a friend.
They requested a Grateful Dead poster with all the colourful bears. A little tricky to try and portray in my own style, but I think it will turn out pretty cool in the end.
That’s it for this volume!
Thank you so much for you continued support, there will be lots of art coming up soon - with another 30 commissions left to do, more Summoner Wars work and hopefully some new personal work very soon as well.
Till next time!
All the best,
Marty
