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.

Inspired by Sparth a lot lately, that magnificent bastard ;) and so found the urge to try my hand at some random industrial setpiece.

 So this is what I've been spending most of my time on these last few weeks: a character design for a henchman/bodyguard in a sparkpunk city - similar to steampunk in many ways, but with a much heavier focus on electricity and early computer circuitry, rather than steam and clockwork. As seen on the mood sketch of the city setting, electricity would be gathered from the stormy heavens by huge lightning rod towers and stored in leiden jar batteries/capacitors.

In this case, i chose to go with the idea of a marksman (E), perhaps recently come home from military service abroad (Africa, or perhaps the Crimean), and now working as a gun-for-hire in the hard shadows of the city. The inductor-coils of his rifle are capable of firing semi-guided projectiles at very high speeds, surpassing that of gunpowder weaponry, and virtually without recoil. Some very good attributes for a marksman to have, right?

Vistas from a brainchild of mine nicknamed Sporeworld, a planet completely devoid of animal lifeforms if but for a few humans - presumably stragglers from some forgotten interplanetary colonisation attempt - struggling for dominion over the ancient and alien forms of forest life. Gas-filled spore husks, sentient pollen, temples of amber, flourishing clouds of condensation roots, and more.

I had thought to base a couple of short stories here, only, for now I find that I have to focus more intently on my painting skills. Hopefully it will pay off, and if anything sporeworld will serve as a welcome refuge for when I need a mental vacation ;)

Another quick, quick warmup sketch following the last one. Should have probably uploaded this one much earlier, i guess, but better late than never.

The summer's extended periods of languid free time aren't exactly doing wonders for my productivity... Doing some aimless sketching to hopefully get me back on the ball.

Dead jungle trees buried underneath great drifts of heavy grey ash.

Sunlight rarely pierces the thick veils of dust shrouding the earth. A lone land yacht with sails a vivid pink skips across the ash flats.