Tutorial - Fantasy Renaissance

Hello everyone!

With the year coming to a close I feel now would be the best time to say thank you to all of the supporters who helped to make it possible for me to do what I love most which is draw. Thank you to everyone who came out to the shows and picked up a print or a book and thank you for all of the great feedback from all of my friends, new and old, who were most helpful in providing the necessary feedback to take my illustrations to places I probably wouldn't have gone. Without the right people around you, you will never achieve the right results. So instead of sending out a greeting card I decided to put together a tutorial that I hope will be helpful to anyone else who may be looking for an alternative creative process that they may not have thought of.
I'm a huge fan of the Imagine FX magazine publication and the website so to pay homage to all of their great work and helpful content, I put together this workshop in the Imagine FX style. Let me know what you think!


Click here to download the free PDF.


Take Care and Happy Holidays!

Lamin Martin

Dragon Lily - Leather Wings Semblance

Here is an image that will be the first of many that will be taken from the linework found in Fields, Decorum, Leather Wings, Apocrypha and Leather Wings Semblance and brought to life in full colour. If there are any suggestions as to what images you'd like to see coloured before others or if there are any helpful tips you'd like to pass along to help improve the colour work please feel free to send me your feedback. I'll be posting the process images of how I coloured this image in the next few days. So check back soon!

Lamin

Sorceress Colour Process

Above is the line drawing used as a guide for the digital painting that I worked on. Notice that the background is very sparse in terms of detail 'cause I wanted the colour to handle most of the detailing for me.



An overall wash of a dark turquoise was the base colour that the rest of the painting was built on.



Next I build up the figure ensuring that the lights and darks across her skin play well with the lights and darks found in the background.



The cloak is a very simple colour scheme of rich dark blues and deep reds. I orginally wanted her to be draped in a white cloak but found that her figure got lost due to the fact that there wasn't enough of a contrast between her and the cloak to really make her body and face stand out. Instead I went with the dark cloak painted with cool blues that pushed itself further into the background while at the same time forcing her figure forward.



The light from the staff comes into play now creating a warm contrast of light on a cool colour palette.



Here is the final with all of the fun flourishes highlights and shadows needed to give an a image that little extract push towards believable.

Thanks for checking out the first of many "process" blog entries that I'll be posting!

Check back soon!

Lamin

Legacy Posters Celebrating Women's History Month

I was given the great opportunity to illustrate the posters for, the Legacy: Celebrating Female Leadership Poster Series brought to you by Robert Small, internationally renowned fine artist of the Legacy Festival. Working on a portrait series of posters was another departure from my usual subject matter of fantasy images but I had to jump at the opportunity to stretch and grow as a well rounded illustrator.

To order your copy of the Legacy: Celebrating Female Leadership Poster CLICK HERE!

To view more of the beautiful work that the Legacy Festival produces visit www.thelegacyfestival.com

The Word On The Street 2009

The Word On The Street National Book & Magazine Festival celebrated it's 20th outdoor exhibition this year! It was a great day for meeting and greeting an audience that wouldn't usually attend a comic book convention and thank god it didn't rain which helped to draw out large crowds of people who were more than willing to support artists in all forms of their print media.

Batman Sketch

I don't really draw a lot of superheros but Batman is one of my favourite comic characters. This is a sketch that I did in honour of the Batman Arkham Asylum game that came out across all of the major platforms. It was requested by the cool guys as Oddly Studios to go along with the video podcast that we filmed to review the game. Once editing is complete I'll let you guys know where you can view the footage.

Lamin

Fan Expo 2009 Montage.

Here is a video montage of all of the fun and excitement that occurred during the Fan Expo 2009 weekend created by the good people at Guerilla Printing.

Toronto SpeakEasy Illustration Show 2009

The Toronto SpeakEasy Illustration Show was a night out for creatives where 30 talented illustrators came together to showcase their work in a gallery style setting. Being someone whose mostly exhibited at fast-paced comic conventions the SpeakEasy show was a refreshing, relaxed and casual art viewing experience where you could gather with a group of like-minded individuals in the creative field and take the time to converse with them about their art styles and creative processes.

Toronto Fan Expo 2009

The amount of people that attended the Toronto Fan Expo this year was overwhelming, so much so that fire and safety workers were called in to monitor and control the amount of people heading into the Toronto Metro Convention Center. Keeping up with and greeting everyone that weekend was a little tough especially with all of the hustle and bustle of a full capacity venue. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to meet one dedicated art fan in particular who went the extra mile by not only appreciating my art but also making it a part of him. The image above is of an art lover who took the back cover of one of my books ,Leather Wings, and had the design tattooed on his calf. Hopefully I'll get to meet him one day and say thank you in person. You can check out the rest of the photos from the show on my Flickr account.

Leather Wings Semblance available!

Leather Wings Semblance, the newest artbook from Lamin Illustration & Design, is debuting at Toronto Fan Expo 2009 today from the 28th - 30th. If you can't make it out to the show you can always pick up your copy of our new book on our website available now in our Marketplace.

$19.99
Leather Wings Semblance
by Lamin Martin
Dimensions: 11" x 17"
Format: 26 B&W pages of line art, full colour cover.
Genre: Fantasy

The lastest Sketchbook in the fantasy line from laminmartin.com.
Leather Wings Semblance, the follow up to Leather Wings, is a
beautiful collection of fully rendered black and white dragon
illustrations that visually bring to life the mysterious secrets that
surround the lost civilization of dragons. Consisting of 26 pages
of fantastic settings, emotions and imagination venture into the worlds
contained within the pages of this immersive 11” x 17” format book for
a larger than life fantasy experience.

Great Show!!

It’s been a little while since the last post but for good reasons the main one being that Wizard World Chicago was filled with so many cool people to talk to that I’m still recovering from the whole amazing experience.


Here are just a few of the many great artists that I met,

Diosdado Mondero

Misty Coats

Jim Su (Beach Studios)

Hugh Rookwood

Karl A. Nordman

Tiffany J. Tinsley

Marko Radulovic

Kevin Leen

Jason Metcalf

If you haven't seen some of the photos from Wizard World Chicago you can check them out on my Flickr account.

Off to see the Wizard!

Wizard World Chicago is finally here! If you're in the Chicago area feel free to visit us at Table 4318 where we'll be meeting new people and displaying new artwork.

See you soon!

Lamin

Dragon Island

Here is another image from Leather Wings Semblance, my new book coming out August 28th at Toronto Fan Expo. In this image I played with the idea that in dragon folklore they are able to hide themselves in plain sight. So why not have a dragon large enough and skilled enough in concealment to disguise itself as an entire island.

Leaf Dragon

For my image concepts I like to incorporate cultural or environmental elements into the designs. I have a love and fascination with nature and trees and of course dragons which is why it was a lot of fun combining the two and creating my friendly leaf dragon. I played around with different types of leaves that I felt would make the dragon look a little more exotic or tropical but I always came back to the recognizable and simplistic design found in the good ol' Canadian maple leaf.

Giger Dragon

Here is an image that is going into my new book Leather Wings Semblance. I am a huge fan of H.R. Giger's alien design, in my humble opinion it's the best movie monster ever created. Which is why I took the two creatures that I love the most, dragons and Xenomorphs (aliens) and combined them. Hopefully one day Hollywood will make an alien with wings and turn my fantasy into reality.

Storm Hawks - Piper

Here is a pin-up image that I did for the new Storm Hawks comic book available through DMF comics and Beach Studios. The characters name is Piper, the valued member of the Storm Hawks team who speaks five languages, loves to sketch and knows eight ways to make a surly Torka Beast fall asleep. The team’s stealth agent, Piper loves nothing better than coming up with the Most! Perfect! Plan! For those of you unfamiliar with Piper or the Storm Hawks team you can also catch the animated series on YTV.

Now here she is coloured and ready to step into the spotlight.

Here is the line work for a design element I used for Lamin Illustration & Design. I used the center faerie figure as a mascot of sorts throughout the entire site. She was part of this larger illustration but I felt she needed to be taken out of her ensemble casting and given a starring role.

Let's Begin!

Hello everyone! I’m very excited to finally open up the online journal and say welcome to all of the wonderfully creative people who are process junkies like me.
One of the things I love about looking at another artists’ work is trying to figure out their process. What’s even better is when that same artist gives you insight into what that process actually is which is why I’m opening up a forum such as this to post the sketches and notes that go into every image I come up with in the hopes that through my thoughts and my work it will take your art to the next level in the same way other artists have done for me.

For example here is a work in progress that will be going into my newest book, Leather Wings Semblance. It’s a bit of a departure from my usual subject matter in that the focus of the image is on the character of the landscape rather than the figures. It was a bit of a challenge in making inanimate objects like buildings seem alive and vibrant but of course the fun is in the challenge. So this blog will also serve as a record of my attempts at growing and progressing as an illustrator where your feedback will be taken in and put to use in upcoming images and books. Thanks for taking interest in my work and I will take the time to make this place a resource that you can tap into for inspiration.

Take care and stay creative!