Witchy women

Ushering in halloween with a scribbled coven of witches.

Further ship sketches

Honing in on the ship design.

Space Shippu

Sketching some space ships.

Chasm City Vistas

A group of rough shots from and of Chasm City, as described by Alastair Reynolds.

The entire city is situated in a massive crater on a planet far from Earth. Its artificial atmosphere is contained within a series of interlocking domes dubbed "The Mosquito Net". Following the ravages of a terrible epidemic known as the Melding plague, which causes the very buildings to warp and disfigure, poisonous gases begin to seep into the city's center, forming a cauldron of lethal density and temperature. As the once so prosperous city falls, the rich flee into the soaring Canopy in their nimble cable cars, leaving the poor to fend for themselves down in the Mulch.

'Chasm City' Characters

Listened to the audio book of Chasm City, book two in Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space saga. Some good hard science fiction. Here's some of the characters, as I saw them.

Fishing Boats

Some caricatured fishing boats I did some while ago but never posted. Dug 'em up!

Pagoda

A quick-ish black-and-white pagoda in line with the japanese theme. I didn't use any reference material for this one though, so don't get too hung up on the correctness of the architecture/flora/etc ;).

The Bleeding Edge - Alternate Cover

Watched some epic zen calligraphy last night (check it out, its awesome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAPuH8fadjw) and, inspired, I tried a different, cleaner look for the cover of my short story: The Bleeding Edge. 

The earlier version is here: http://thelakeandmountain.blogspot.se/2013/06/cover-bleeding-edge.html

Cooking With Gas - Title Screen

Been thoroughly engrossed by the story editor for Shadowrun Returns these last weeks, and haven't painted as much as I might have wanted to do. But the idea of telling a real, playable story set in the Shadowrun universe really appeals to me, although the tools demand vast amounts of time for trials and testing. I'll step back from it for a while, let the art flow back into my fingertips, sounds like a good idea.

In the meantime, two birds one stone: Here's the title screen for the main area in the story "Cooking With Gas".

Forerunner Capital

Behold! The crazy huge (described as measuring 100 k kilometer in diameter at the widest point) center of the Forerunner Ecumene - the Capital. Most likely, this will be the last installment in my Forerunner series.

The Primordial

The looming menace featured in the Forerunner trilogy by Greg bear - the Primordial, a.k.a. The Timeless One, The Captive, The Prisoner of Charum Hakkor. Did my best to live up to the epicness inherent to its many names.

Forerunner Armor Revisit

Another piece of input I received after posting on the forum was how the armor, while it looked awesome, would prove utterly impossible to move around in. Yes, the materials might have been flexible as well as tough (space magic, as so cleverly posited by one of the forum members) but in my mind the forerunner armor was supposed to be rigid, to the point of being able to stand on its own two legs. I dreaded the idea of a nylon catsuit with pieces of armor strapped on haphazardly.

Realizing that I must have stared myself blind at the architectural inspiration, I wanted to give it another try. Hopefully, this one would be able to flex a little bit better. Come now people, use your imagination!

Forerunner Anatomy Revisit

After posting the earlier designs on the Halo forums, some discrepancies in the design were pointed out, details revealed to me only as I started reading the second Forerunner novel. Apparently, Forerunners are supposed have patches of fur-like hair running down the length of their shoulders and arms, starting at the crown of the head and the nape of the neck. Furthermore, they have ear-sacks rather than the cartilage arches present in human anatomy. So, I decided to go back and rectify my ignorance.
I also allowed the poor alien to change into a more comfortable waist cloth.

Forerunners

Listened to the novel Cryptum by Greg Bear, set in the Halo universe, and felt compelled to design the armored garb of the master alien race, the Forerunners, along with their warmachines dubbed Sphinxes.

Mecha Libre Revisit

Man this would make for some great TV ;)

Cover - The bleeding edge

The cover illustration for a short story I've written. There's more stories on the way, each with an illustration to accompany it. I'm thinking of creating a new blog just for these, I guess only time will tell.

Smexy mechs

Some mechs... 'cause mechs.

60's Lunar Colony Suits

What if the Space Race didn't lose any of its momentum after that first giant leap? Here's what the settlers of such an early lunar colony might have worn, as influenced by the fashion of the 60's and early 70's.

Battle School

With the Ender's Game movie coming up, I wanted to explore my own ideas of what the orbital Battle School might look like.

Sparkpunk Character Design revisited

Polished up the sparkpunk character design for my portfolio. I really liked the way it turned out so I thought I'd put it up here as well. I hope you like it too :)

Old meets New no.7 - Knight v. Ship

A different take on the classic tale of the knight v. dragon. Perhaps this is how a first encounter might play out in medieval times.

Old meets New no.6

Been working on a new brush for some time now, and I finally seem to be getting the look I've been looking for.

Old meets New no.5

Crowning glory.
Tried to get a real sense of scale in this one.

Old meets New no.4

Old meets New no.3

The ultimate status symbol.

Old meets New no.2

Inverted as it is, this ship almost looks like an ancient effigy to some god or demon.

Old meets New no.1

I recently got inspired by Bungie's concept pieces for the upcoming Destiny. Fantasy meets Sci-fi - it doesn't get any more classic than that.

Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist

Painted a set of locations from the book, following Santiago's travels through Spain, Northern Africa and the Saharan desert. I tried for a more traditional painterly look with these, pushing the colors and proportions of things slightly into the realm of the fantastic. Hopefully, if you've read the book yourselves, you might recognize the locations. Enjoy :)

The Sorghum.

The pirates of Armada have managed to hijack an entire deep sea drilling platform - the New Crobuzon vessel Sorghum. With it, they plan to plunder even the earth itself, and fill their chests with riches of oil and rockmilk.

Armada - Scabmettlers in full clotplate

This is a weird one, so bear with me.

In Armada, a certain group of grey-skinned humans, dubbed Scabmettlers, are genetically gifted/cursed with blood that congeals almost instantly upon contact with the air. As a result, deep gashes seal shut well before the victim risks bleeding out, often trapping the slashing instrument in rock-hard scab mid-swipe. Not even a cut throat is enough to kill a Scabmettler.

In order to avoid blood clots in everyday life all Scabmettlers drink an infusion of a certain yellow flower, a flower with natural anticoagulant properties. This same infusion, when applied to both skin and a ceremonial skinning dagger, allow for the shaping of mineral-tough body armor. In Armada, the traditional Scabmettler fighting rituals draw huge crowds, beginning with the half-naked combatants drawing their own blood and subsequently shaping the flowing pulses of hardening blood into individual armor designs. Each design fits the fighter's personal style and physique perfectly.

All credit for this fantastical idea goes of course to the author of the book The Scar, China Miéville. I merely interpreted what it might look like in paint rather than words.

Armadan Sprawl

With each successful act of piracy, the city grows. A ragtag body of hull, mast and sail.

Armada - The Beached Siren

Stayed up way, way too late painting this :P Ah well, just got up from my beauty sleep, time to post it. It depicts a pub nestled in the bowels of the ship Siren, which has been melded rather messily with the metal husk of a bigger barge.

Armadan Sun Deck

Most of the shanghaied watercraft that make up Armada are riddled with brick and metal architecture. Bits of rusting hull nestle next to the barnacled wooden ribs of forgotten galleons. Amputated masts trail shredded sails. Rope bridges and wooden walkways form the city infrastructure, tying the ships into a cohesive and traversable whole.

Rudder Gate - Armada

Not that this exact location is ever mentioned in the book, but I really liked the idea of two rudders forming a gate when suspended above the water. I'm thinking this will be something of a one-time occurrence, as most of Armada's infrastructure is described as bridges and walkways above the water, not on the surface.

City of Armada

It's been a while. Been doing some freelance work, but nothing nearly enough fantastical to satisfy my inner eye. So when the beautifully conjured vistas of China Mieville started to overflow from the old brainbucket, I had little choice but to try and capture them on canvas.

In this case, it's the floating pirate-city of Armada, from his book The Scar.

Golden peak

A 2 hour painting of some mountain fastness.

Bow before Ditka!

And his Polish sausages.
Listened to the Cox n Crendor Show this morning. Jesse sounded a little worn out, so I decided to paint him this from the podcast. Dit-Ka!

Messing around with some faces and some colors.

Now, this one is just for stupid fun, pure and simple.
Commemorating the 2012 End of the World-tour by the Robot Mayans, sadly cancelled at the last minute. Yes, robot Mayans, hiding for centuries in their crumbling pyramids, as foretold by Jesse Cox and Crendor on their daily morning podcast. Oh, and the robots transform into Cadillacs. Never doubt it.