Early October

Nature fascinates me. It is so inspiring to see it change from spring to winter. Last month I went out and took a bunch of reference photos. It had been raining, as it does in the fall, and the small streams in the forest were raging with an overflow of water, washing everything out of its way. The leaf-trees had gone from green to yellow and orange, leaving a beautiful contrast to the dark and mossy pine around. The sun shone through the clouds and gave everything an almost magical golden touch.

My words cannot truly bring it to justice, but I hope that the latest painting I am working on will catch just a glimpse of the impression it left on me and on the same time continue on my ongoing Tomte-theme.

I regret to show you just a cropped teaser of the full picture at this time, but I promise to show more of everything as it progresses.

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Story of a Tomte (part 3)

Have had a nice holliday; walking the forest, picking mushrooms, blueberries, raspberries... made new friends, met a frog and longhorned grasshopper, and on top of all that, I finished the watercolor work on my piece about a tomte! It has a nice warm classic feel to it which I don't want to change.

 

Now a few digital strokes are still going to be added in order to work out the values better, but as this piece is larger than my scanner I will have to send it off for digital photo reproduction. that will give me a nice crisp image without too much paper texture to work with.

Story of a Tomte (part 2)

I have started the watercolor process of piece, thought I'd give you some progress shots!

 

The underpainting done...

 

Started to work on the shadows...

Story of a Tomte

Continuing on the trail of Scandinavian folklore, I am doing a small series of images telling the story of a Tomte and his many struggles. Below are early images from the starting process.

 This was the second draft that I made, it explains the general idea of the image...

I then did a little more refined sketch that I will base the finals on...

And a quick value composition in Photoshop I will use as reference when painting the image in watercolor...

Dragon Tale (WIP)

This is a portfolio piece I am working on. Before a finished image, there are always a lot of sketches and scribblings, this time I wanted to do this digitally first and then transfer it to more traditional watercolor.

I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Mirror, Mirror...

One of the most memorable scenes from the classic tale of Little Snow-White, is then the Wicked Queen is approaching her magic Mirror on the wall. As you might remember, not very long ago at all, I did a piece on Little Snow-White and the Seven Dwarves for the Grimm Tales Challenge over at the Art Order. I have continued on the story, and these are the most recent thumbs/sketches on the project.

 

 (Maybe it is silly to call these thumbs, because I rarely do any smaller sketches than A6 format, in this case A5 (8.3 x 5.8 in). The Wicked Stepmother Queen envy the beauty of Little Snow-White.

"Mirror, Mirror..." Had an idea to richly decorate the frame and let it reach from floor to ceiling, depicting creatures from the bottom of the sea to the skies above.

Comic On the Drawing Table

I have started to work on my comic book novel. I won't be in any rush to finish it, as previously mentioned it is a long term project. I will upload progress every once in a while and the finished pages will be available online whenever ready, so make sure to keep an eye out if you're interested.

Trolls Pre Final

I am done with the watercolor stage, next will be color enhancements and polishing on some details in photoshop. I am overall happy with the progress so far. Next time I post it will be the finished piece.

 

Trolls update

I wanted to show you the current progress of the "Trolls" image.

This image have really sparked my creativity. More to come soon.

Trolls

Detail from another work in progress. In an old drawer I found parts of a script I wrote back in school, together with a bunch of sketches about the trolls emigrating from our world, never to return again. This drawing was inspired from that.

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.

Desert Troops Concept work

As I continue to write on the story itself, I am still exploring the visual style of it. There is a lot of sand in this story, and thus I needed a battle-suit for the Desert Troops. I started out with Millie as she is one of the main characters of the story. Here is version 2 in progress.

  

 The drafts for this started in my sketchbook a few years back

The idea here was to give her a small cloak to make her stand out as an officer in command, however, I later rejected the idea as too many loose parts only tend to be in the way on the battle-field.

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)...

Éowyn and the Nazgûl (part 4)

I'm almost done with the lower half. I am not very happy with the sky however, so might do a repaint of it seperately. I have added Snowmane and a hint of King Théoden in the forground.

 I made a speedpaint of the changes before I painted them. I believe the sky will look something closer to this. It feels less busy but still frames the image. Final remains to be seen though.

Éowyn and the Nazgûl (part 3)

So, the under-painting is almost done. Soon I'll be able to put more shadows, colors and details into the picture. Thinking of adding some some more patterns in cloth and armor, but it remains to be seen how much I'll add to it. It is still possible I'll add a part of Snowmane in the forground.

Read previous posts on this piece here: Part 1 and Part 2

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.

Éowyn and the Nazgûl

I joined The Art Order recently and was really motivated to join in on the "Eowyn and the Nazgul challenge". After about 7 drafts I started to get that feeling of "satisfaction" with the work done so far. I decided to ink it, but there is still a long way to go. Here's a shot of the progress for you :)

I will post more of the progress when it's done.