Empire of the Ghouls

DMAC

I got permission to post my work from another RPG project. These are from a book called Empire of the Ghouls by Wolfgang Baur. It was done on a patron/sponsor system with people buying the book in advance and then having input on the process. Kind of interesting. I'm currently working on some pieces for another book that's going to have an Arabian Nights vibe to it.

More info can be found here: http://wolfgangbaur.com/opendesign/

Anyway, on to the monsters...

Vulture Sphinx:



The Last King:



Gnomish Vampire:



Deathcap Myconid:



I'll try to post some of my initial sketches and pencil drawings later.

NotASenator

The anatomy on that deathcap is way off. You should lurk more and see what other people are doing and then try again, because that is really a poor excuse for a myconid.

DMAC

I tried to get mushrooms to pose nude for me.

NotASenator

That's hot.


Also, the art style, color saturation, etc are consistent and I think that's really important for doing a rpg book. You want everything to feel like it exists in the same world.

DMAC

You know what my favorite thing about these is? I used the default spatter brush in Photoshop to do the mud spatters on the King's and vampire's cloaks and I think it worked really well. It's nice when things work out better than you expected once in a while.

Tonkka

Lookin' good DMAC.

NotASenator

DMAC wrote: »

You know what my favorite thing about these is? I used the default spatter brush in Photoshop to do the mud spatters on the King's and vampire's cloaks and I think it worked really well. It's nice when things work out better than you expected once in a while.

Just because I haven't experimented much outside the defaults, I don't know as much about other possibilities for brushes.

Do you have a custom set of brushes you normally use?

DMAC

I've found a couple of custom brush sets that I use pretty frequently. There's a batch by a guy who goes by EraserX that I use a lot but his site seems to be down right now.

NotASenator

DMAC, I'm looking at your site and I really heart your work. It's all superduper and stuff.

NibCrom

DMAC, you're stuff is always good, but I'm seriously impressed with these. Awesome coloring.

ph00l

Great as always, cept the thumb shading on the Gnomish Vampire looks really odd to me. Perhaps it's my darn imagination acting up again. (I'm out of my antimagination pills).

Rolo

I like the first two, but the last two are a little too... whimsical for my tastes. This is probaly more a criticism of Wolfgang's book than your artwork, but it's difficult to imagine a scary gnome, and the fellow above just looks more absurd than imposing.

The Myconid is better, but still looks a little silly since the size of the mouth makes it look like a face with hands and feet attached. If it's not such a serious threat then I guess that's appropriate, but if he's supposed to be as intimidating as possible then a little less exaggeration on the face/mouth area might help.

But that's just stylistic stuff. Technically, all of this is first-rate stuff, DMAC.

DMAC

I don't think I could draw a vampire gnome or an undead mushroom person and not have them be at least a little funny.

My scary stuff isn't really all that scary. It's more "Jim Henson's Creature Shop" scary.

TimTheSloth

There is nothing scarier than The Dark Crystal, I had a poster on my wall as a kid and it would creep me out at night.

CheerfulBear

The gnomish vampire kind of looks like he's hoarsely whispering, "caaaaaaaaake."


Edit: Which, as we know, is a lie. Please fix this, DMAC.

DMAC

Fixed. Now he's wispering, "haaaaaaaaam."

CheerfulBear

See DMAC, with a little bit of inspiration you can make all your drawings top-notch!

Way to go, kiddo!

DMAC

I aim to please.

Here's a process shot of the Myconid piece showing the pencils, flats, and final colors:



Fuck you, H-scroll!

Heartlash

That pencil work

is

awesome.

DMAC

Thank you. Here are the pencils for the vampire gnome and the myconid a little larger:

RusticCreature

Are these "digital" pencils? And if not, why come you purplefied them.

I demand answers!

DMAC

No, they're colored pencils. I do most of my pencil drawings with Sanford col-erase and Berol Verithin in terra cotta and Tuscan red.

srsizzy

Okay, those better all be erasable. If you are drawing some of this and not erasing at all...well then I assume you're probably drawing it more than once. If you are doing neither then...damn it.

ManonvonSuperock

i like the pencils a lot. even more so than the finals.

not that there's anything wrong with the finals. they are just more processed and plasticy than i normally dig.

earthwormadam

Whoa. Even more super than usual. Impossible!!!

DMAC

I usually do rough pencils and then print those out and trace over them on a light table to do my final pencils.

This was the cover of Wolfgang Baur's Kobold Quarterly #1.

Here are my rough pencils:



And here's the final piece:

ph00l

I think your work could be greatly served with a background, regardless how sparse. They all seem to be standing in white which is by no means bad, but I think it would add a lot to the work if they were in some sort of environment (life when you did Kit Fisto).

earthwormadam

Whoa. The lighting and colors are out of control!