Decorated Valour

Here is a new digital painting done using the line art from the pages of LEATHER WINGS. I love the idea of soldiers so heroic in their actions on the battlefield that their armour is decorated with commendation after commendation, each medal marking the survival of another conflict. The large main ribbon has an inscription that spells out the word "peace" using the Elvish runic alphabet in the hopes that, one day, through their efforts peace will finally be achieved.
I'm working on the tutorial for this painting so check back soon!

Lamin

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