C7's Bree Cover

Here's the cover for C7's TOR expansion, Bree, and I'm really excited to show it as it was the first cover for The One Ring that I painted - feels like a pretty big deal, and I was actually pretty happy all the way through it! I didn't even feel there was an 'ugly stage' to this piece, it just came together smoothly. First up is the actual piece I created (covers can sometimes look a tad odd compositionally, given the extra room needed for text and bleed, and sometimes just so the layout artists can play about to find the best placements for all the different elements on the cover):

And this is what the final, finished cover looks like, with amazing graphic design from Paul Bourne:

It also seems to have been pretty well received by the game's fans, so I'm feeling good about that and very much looking forward to the next TOR cover I can sink my teeth into.

Thanks for looking!

Images © 2017 Sophisticated Games and Cubicle 7 Entertainment
Middle-earth, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and the characters, items, events and places therein are trademarks or registered trademarks of The Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises and are used under license by Sophisticated Games Ltd and their respective licensees.

Street Art

Later this week I'll be submitting an application to paint at Upfest this year, which is pretty exciting! The submission will be as part of a 4-man crew, but for the moment I wanted to drop examples of my street art work here, to collect them and give them a place on the sketch blog.

Ludlow Paint Jam, 2015

Above Boards, Kidderminster, 2014

Ludlow Paint Jam, 2014

Above Boards, Kidderminster, 2013

Above Boards, Kidderminster, 2013

It might be fun to look back at what I did in order to organise the Ludlow Paint Jam, but that's for another post - this one's all about the works created.

Thanks for looking!

My LAS Talk, 'Telling Tales - Narrative in Illustration'

I was booked to give the first talk of the year for the Ludlow Art Society's 2017 events programme, and I decided to bring a presentation on 'Narrative in Illustration'. The idea was to talk about the various aspects of illustration, using both my own work and some historical examples, to go into some detail about how story can best be conveyed in a visual medium when considering angles such as character silhouettes, camera tilt, the general atmosphere, facial expressions, the compositional structure suggested by the dimensions of the frame (and whether one panel is the best solution for the particular story you're trying to tell, with images of how multi-panel images have been used by various cultures), and a lot more besides! It's a pretty colossal topic, and in all honesty I only scratched the surface.

I think it was well received, though, with an unusually packed room on a grim and damp February evening.

I'd like to go back to the drawing board with this, see if it can be worked into an article, or maybe just refined as a talk to be given again, elsewhere.

It was also notable for me as it was the last full LAS evening meeting in my term as Chairman - the next one is our AGM, and halfway through that I will be stepping aside as my term is over, the meeting being concluded by John Jarvis, the next Chairman.

LAS Committee member Anne Fox was kind enough to take some pictures of my talk:

LWAG Bestiary Art, volume 1

Is this really the first post of 2017? Good heavens! It's been a bit quiet for work I can show, but that's all changed now with all the work from the Lone Wolf Adventure Game's Bestiary volume 1, and all the remaining Cthulhu Tales cards, now cleared to be shown.

I won't drop it all in one go, though, so I'll start with the LWAG pieces (deep breath, this update's big):

Thanks for looking!