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.

Full sails

And a quick 30-minute sketch of a ship to round things off for tonight, why not.

White cliffs

Another nature-inspired painting: the White Cliffs of Unspecified Nationality. Enjoy :)

Star stone

Root halo

Kept the inspiration going off of the mountain path study and did another naturalistic piece, enjoy.

Mountain Path

A pseudo-study of a National Geographic photo. Added a reddish temple entrance at the end as a point of interest. Beautiful colors man.

Moss island retreat

A nice little island retreat. Cosy :)

Arching caverns

Turning my stylus hand to some natural vistas.

The Pearlescent Express.

Dreaming of rain.

I left bed this morning with the last snapshot of a dream flickering insistently against my retina, and so I tried to translate it onto canvas before it inevitably disappeared. Don't ask me what the dream was about, I honestly can't say :P

Tried out some pure black and white character sketches. Now, they are pretty much painted straight from reference photographs, but still, good practice, and I really like the way they turned out.

A piece of fanart for the game Borderlands 2, featuring a feisty Maya the Siren. Awesome. Currently playing through it on this very same character, though with a few less extremities ;)

Oceanic aircraft

Paradoxical ain't it?
Had some good fun designing these ocean-inspired airplanes.

The Chain Stars.

My final piece inspired by Terry Pratchett's sci-fi novel "the Dark Side of the Sun", depicting the ultimate show-off interstellar accomplishment of a long-lost civilization: the Chain Stars - complete with a Sundog (sentient taxi-beings of the universe) in the foreground. Could well serve as a cover for the book, in my own modest opinion, although Kirby's works are difficult to trump.

Ships in spaaaaaaaaaaaaace!

Swamp Ig

So this small apparition of bone and too much pink skin, naked but for a few patches of misplaced hair, is how I imagine the swamp Ig from "the Dark Side of the Sun". Note the snorkel-like nostrils sticking out of its  temples, along with the webbed paws, perfect for lazily cruising through the swamps all day long.

The First Sirian Bank, in person, 4 hours.

The First Sirian Bank, in person, version 2. 4 hours.

The next chapter of "the Dark Side of the Sun" brought the reader into contact with the entity known as the First Sirian Bank, a sentient planet consisting chiefly of silicon, where tectonic activity over the billennia has led to the formation of countless transistors throughout the crust, making it in actuality the largest computer in the universe. In order to communicate with the other inhabitants of the universe, a stripped down robot chassis sitting in a cosy, carpeted cavern serves as a relatable avatar. The cigar is merely an added twist of familiarity.

 Phnobe streets 1. 3 hours.

Phnobe streets 2. 3 hours also.

Spent the day visualizing the cool and slightly dank habitations, or buruku, of the Phnobes, a gecko-like race of humanoids in Terry Pratchetts early science fiction novel: the Dark Side of the Sun. Read the description of it last night before getting to sleep and I haven't been able to get it out of my mind until now.
Well, time for the next chapter I guess :)

Limestone Skull. 1 hr.

Sewville. 2 hr.

2 pieces today, nice and loose. Getting faster :)

A view of the Eyrie of the great eagles in the misty mountains, originally meant as an entry for a fanart contest in recognition of the upcoming Hobbit movie. However, as my bad luck would have it, turns out contestants must be of US or Canadian citizenship to be allowed entry into the competition. As I am neither, I'll just put it here for you all to enjoy ;)

Design iterations on a Japanese bathhouse. Working on my interior views and perspective, which hopefully isn't too out of whack ;) The plan is to pick either one version, or a mix of several, and work it into a fully finished piece of level design.

Old Sam. 

Some half-finished paintings and sketches depicting old feudal Japan.