Army of Me

People love steampunk for many reasons.  Two of which are, first, the costuming and detailing found in steampunk fashion is fun, beautiful and open to tons of creativity.  Second steampunk has set designs and a backstory that are absolutely fantastic.  Which is why I wanted to try my hand at a steampunk inspired illustration.  The image that I came up with is a story of a soldier who took it upon herself to take out a fleet of zeppelins, one at a time, by cutting them open and tossing in belts of grenades.  She's a specialized member of a rocketeer group who's job in the war effort is to turn the tide.

Lamin

The Art of Lamin Martin: Solitude

On Friday October 7th,The Art of Lamin: Solitude gallery show will explore artist Lamin Martin’s fantasy concept art hosted by Toronto Cartoonist's Workshop and Guerilla Printing. The Art of Lamin: Solitude will be a creative networking experience showcasing 18 beautifully immersive two and a half foot by three and a half foot canvases, from Lamin Illustration & Design, framed and presented in a gallery setting in Toronto's trendy and cultural College and Bathurst (at Clinton) area. Books featuring collections of Lamin Martin’s extraordinary work, and prints will also be available. For more information please click the flyer below!

See you soon!

Blood and Lavender

One of the first images that I worked on when I began digital painting was Blood and Lavender. I always considered it to be one of those images that got away because it never really came out the way that I wanted it to. The lighting, the colour composition, the values never really gave the haunting sense of strange beauty that I was initially going for. Since then I've learned a few new tricks, new processes and new painting techniques that I felt I could finally apply to this illustration to do it justice. Below is the before and after!


Blood & Lavender After

Blood & Lavender Before

Blood & Lavender Line illustration

Electric Playground Interview

Recently Electric Playground visited Czyonoft Studios, the game studio where I'm working as a concept artist,  for a preview of the work going into our upcoming game Yinasia.   We were featured in EP"s "First Look" segment and as one of the concept artists on the project I was fortunate enough to be interviewed on some of the creative process that went into the character designs.  Below is a clip taken from Season 21 Episode 184 featuring a "First Look" at Yinasia as well as a link to full episode.


Low quality clip from  Season 21 Episode 184

High quality full episode from Season 21 Episode 184

Yinasia Concept Art

While working with Czyonoft Studios as a concept artist on our upcoming title Yinasia I had the great opportunity to come up with designs for weapons, armour, creatures and the main character Leo.  Below you'll find promo material that I painted where those designs are put into action!

Alamptria 1 - Bloodstone Crypt

Here is another novel cover that I completed for Alamptria 1 -  Bloodstone Crypt, by Canadian fantasy writer Richard A. Valicek.

For this image Mr. Valicek was looking for a classic embrace between a vampire and a human.  In keeping with that tradition I researched tons of romance novel covers before coming up with something that is mysterious and seductive.

Baroque

In my journey to find new and exciting ways to conceptualize my images I took on the task of learning Maya. The reason I decided to start using Maya was for me to be able create and maneuver 3D objects through space and then arrange them into environment mock-ups that I then paint over in Photoshop, kinda' like sketching in 3D. It's a quicker and more efficient way of establishing my perspective in a 3-dimensional plane without having to plot vanishing points and draw perspective lines which can be very time consuming. The learning curve for such a powerful application such as Maya is pretty steep but if you love what you're doing you can find fulfilling enjoyment in every challenge. Below is the process!