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.