Lionel the Lion

In july last year I wrote about my first children's book commission by Mind Vitamins about Leif the Lion. Now, as I am happy to see it have finally been published for iPad (in three languages!), I thought I'd show you some of the final artwork done for the book.

Lionel in the Park with ol' Grandma. 

Lionel together with his friend Bee.

The pictures in the book were drawn with watercolour pencils on 350gms cotton paper. It was a fun project to work on and I learned a lot about planning your images for interactivity. It also led to another commission (with a very different theme) I will be writing more about later this year.

If you are interested in the book, you can get it Here. 

Leif the Lion

I was happy when I was commissioned to illustrate my first Children's Book, written by Anna Engquist about "Lejonet Lejf" (I am guessing the translation would be "Leif the Lion" in English). It will be published for the digital market this fall by the Swedish company Mind Vitamins. I was allowed to show some of the work here and write about it.

 

The requirements of the image were "City Park" and drawn with "Colored pencils". There are many colorful and old quarters in the cities here, so I picked out a few buildings for inspiration and started to sketch up the neighbourhood around the park in the story. The fun part was the challenge of using colored pencils again, I have not done that since the early school days (now it's mostly watercolors and digital images). I hope to show you more of the work done when it has been published.

Little Snow-White (Final)

So, it's July already! I believe I have a lot of stuff stocked up to show you this month. With a few days left to deadline for the Grimm Tales Challenge over at the Art Order, I have painted the last stroke of watercolor on this piece. I wanted to tell the classic story of Little Snow-White and put it in a steampunk environment. I used a lot of brown colors to get a feeling of dust, wood and leather. I really enjoyed painting this. 

Little Snow-White

I started to feel guilty for not updating my blog the past weeks, so I decided to give you a look into what's going on. Over at The Art Order there is a Grimm Tales challenge that is coming to a close next sunday. I've been working on an image from "Little Snow-White". 

This is the scene where the dwarves find Little Snow-White sleeping in their house. The idea was to bring some slight sci-fi elements into it, but still staying true to the original story, so I decided to go steampunk. Though I don't think it is visible enough yet, I will finalize gear, costumes and back/foreground this coming week and finish it of with ink/watercolor. When it's done I'll post it here.

Apart from the Grimm challenge, I have been busy with a game and a children's book I've been commissioned to do artwork for. I got images ready for uploading in July, be sure to check it out.

Éowyn and the Nazgûl (Final)

Finally it is finished and submitted. Thank you all that have been surportive during its creation. These are the words of J.R.R. Tolkien that inspired this piece:

"Backward she sprang as the huge shape crashed to ruin, vast wings outspread, crumpled on the earth; and with its fall the shadow past away. A light fell about her and her hair shone in the sunrise.

        Out of the wreck rose the black rider, tall and threatening, towering above her. With a cry of hatred that stung the very ears like venom he let fall his mace. Her shield was shivered in many pieces, and her arm was broken; she stumbled to her knees. He bent over her like a cloud, and his eyes glittered; he raised his mace to kill. "

I had great fun during this challenge and I learned a lot! Furthermore, here is a picture of the final pencil work for you:

Previous posts on this piece: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Éowyn and the Nazgûl (part 5)

Time is really going fast now. Last week before deadline. I decided that when I puzzle the final together in Photoshop I really want to maintain the feel of the original painting, but I also wanted to add some more texture to it, so I started to work on a separate piece in pencil, with the hope that when it all come together it will look great. I took a shot of the progress (sorry for the quality!).

Now I just got that dreaded sky left to draw (shivers)...

Edward Scissorhands

Edward Scissorhand is a movie of which tale I never get tired of. Thanks to Tim Burton's excellent directing combined with his unique visual style, perfect casting and a fantastic soundtrack by Danny Elfman, it got me hooked from the first time I saw it.

  

Not too long ago I discovered a blog called Scissorhands 20th. It is a wonderful tribute to Edward Scissorhands 20th anniversary where invited artists have contributed with artworks of their own visions of the movie. It brought back a lot of good memories, and this inspired me to make my own piece. So I picked up the ol' DVD and watched it again, put on some Danny Elfman music to get in the mood and got down to work. This is the result.

Éowyn and the Nazgûl (part 2)

Sorry for not updating sooner. This Art Order challenge have really gotten to me. I am currently past the stage of sketching and have started on the watercolors. As you can see, some changes have been made since the piece was drawn in part 1.

I removed the hood on the Witch King and added some more armor details to Éowyn. I changed the direction of the Witch King's head to make him look more leaning forward than before and I have removed some of the cloth. 

When the piece is finished I'll have more pictures of the work in progress for you.

Indiana Jones and Marion

I have always enjoyed the Indiana Jones movies, the adventures, the action, the romance, the mysticism. I did my first fanart when I was 8 years old, and I had not even seen a whole movie yet. A few weeks ago I picked up my Indiana DVD-box and felt it was time to watch it again, and after that came the idea to make this:

Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood escaping the explosions at the digsite of Tanis. The idea was to frame them with the black smoke in the background. I came up with this angle as thumb no 3. After that I started to roughly sketch it up... A selection of the progress below:

 

 From left to right: 1.Rough sketch (PS), 2. Pencils with first color wash, 3. Watercolor Progress, 4. Finished Piece (PS). 

The Trees of My Days

I have always been fascinated by trees. Each one is just perfect in its own way, and if I wander the fields somewhere and see a lonely old Oak, I can't but stop and feel like home... 

The background I made for this blog was put together by three paintings I had made where I was trying to reflect this, as shown below:

 

This was "The First Tree". Believe it or not, but I was sketching on this over a period of about six years+. It was the first page in my artbook of thick A3 watercolor pages, and I refused to start on the next page until it was finished. I wanted every detail to be there, every leaf (the very reason it took such time!). But in the end I felt it was not necessary to do so, and when I started to feel finished with the pencil work I was afraid to ruin it by coloring, because I had not been working that much with watercolor during that time. However, I took the courage to color it in 2010, and there it goes, "The First Tree" on the hill...

 

"The Field" was painted as an addition to "The First Tree" especially for the blog, and as soon it was done I continued with the third image in the series:

 

"The Second Tree" (original name, I know!). It took about half a day to get the second and third image done for the photoshop work to create the background. Now I'm not sure if I even want it as a background on the blog, but i will leave it be, for now :-)

Evil M

Second of 5 Illustrations I've been working on from "Arthur and the Invisibles". The throne of rubies felt like a nightmare at times, took forever to nail the right color. Happy with the result tho :-) Progress below:

Arthur And Princess Selenia

The "Arthur and the Invisibles" movies is to me a wonderful story well worth to be illustrated. This is the first in a series of 5 images inspired from the movies. Progress below.

I usually draw a quick rough sketch digitally first, and then go to pencil on paper. Thereafter I start to do layers by layers of watercolor washes until I have the desired result. I then go back and touch up the colors and make it cleaner in Photoshop.