Exposé 10

A few months ago I entered some of my illustrations into Ballistic Publishing's tenth anniversary of their digital art annual Exposé 10.  It's with great excitement that we're pleased to announce that three of Lamin Illustration & Design's pieces made into the very prestigious collection of the top fantasy illustrators from around the world.  The due date for the publication to hit stores has yet to be announced but we'll definitely keep you posted once it does hit the shelves.  In the meantime you'll find the pages for the book posted below.  Thank you so much for all of your support!


Here are the selected images:

Here are the selected images as they will appear in Expose 10!

Page 44.

Page 49.

Page 66.

Solara

The challenge in working on this image was giving an overall softness to the light that I have streaming in through the window.  With most of my images there are one or two light sources found, but in this image I wanted there to be an overall warmth of light washing over the character that conveys a sense of calmness and ease because today is the day that this confident young dragon woman will be presented as a new born to the counsel as heir to her families throne.  Her name is Solara our dragon queen.  

Emma

Traveling by train has always been a love of mine even though I rarely get a chance to do it.  However I still have the opportunity to live out the experience through an illustration I call Emma.  She's on her way to meet with her father in a neighbouring city and is traveling through the countryside on a steam powered train that his company developed.  
The challenge that came with working on this image was easily the lighting.  I wanted to have a soft warm light source flooding in from the window behind Emma that would be a compliment to the warmth and confidence that I felt was part of her personality.  After playing around with multiple adjustment layers and overlay layers I finally came up with something that I hope conveys the sense of warmth and confidence that I want Emma to have.

Nakoma

The scientific studies linking birds as being the descendants of dinosaurs has been well documented and debated.  Without getting into the theory behind the debate I thought it would be a cool idea to come up with a species of birds that are descendants of dragons.  

Her name is Nakoma and her feathers serve as a record of her species' history.  She is one of the remaining few that lives on in legend.  The sketch for this image can be found in the pages of Leathers Wings!

Lamin

Lunachick

Here is an image taken from a line illustration found in pages of Solstice.  She is my interpretation of a heavy metal dragon woman.  I've always been into rock and heavy metal so I'm actually surprised that it took me this long to do a rock themed illustration.  This will be the first of many music themed images that will cover different genres across the music spectrum!  Rock on!

Lamin

Snap Dragon

Here is an interpretation of what a tropical wild flower would look like if it were combined with a dragon.  The image is called "Snap Dragon" a line-art image taken from Leather Wings Semblance that I really enjoyed working on.  I had no idea where I was going when I started painting this illustration but I knew that if I kept pushing through I would come up with something interesting.  I hope you like it!

Lamin

Then and Now

Here is an image I completed for the TD Bank "Then and Now" black history month poster competition! Unfortunately I didn't win but I had a lot of fun working on this image.  The feeling I was going for was a mix of a 1930's jazz singer combined with a 70's hairstyle.
What was also great about working on this image was that it was my first time working entirely on the Cintiq 21UX that I bought a few months ago.  It took me a while to get used to but drawing on a screen rather than on paper soon became very intuitive and natural.  I'm really looking forward to producing more work using the Cintiq as an integral part of my work flow.