Kissed by Fire

While George R. R. Martin goes out of his way to dispel the themes of courtly romance so prevalent in medieval fantasy, the wildlings are another story. The free folk who live beyond the Wall and worship the Old Gods are completely and utterly romanticized. They are lawless, pray to trees, consort with giants, and talk to animals. Women fight alongside men, titles don't pass from father to son, and lead is taken by whomever has the strength. Their clash with the men of the Night's Watch, who defend the wall from wildlings and worse, is one of the lynchpins of the third book.

EDIT: John Bridges in the comments section made a great point on romanticism. I forgot about Craster, and yes, the wildlings romanticize themselves a lot of the time. I'd argue that Mance Rayder's speech about why he deserted the Night's Watch to become King Beyond the Wall is nothing if not romantic.

Those wildlings born with red hair are said to be kissed by fire, and are held as lucky. Ygritte is largely responsible for relaying the hallmarks of wildling life to Jon Snow.

The Hound

Sandor Clegane, brother of The Mountain and sworn shield to Joffrey Baratheon, is easily my favorite character in the series. He's emblematic of George R. R. Martin's ability to turn a character from abhorrent to sympathetic to tragic over the span of a couple books, while never losing what it was that made him interesting in the first place. Like so many characters throughout the series, the first impression of The Hound is not the one we're left with, as layers are peeled away and the inner workings are revealed. He's still a sociopath and a murderer and the all around baddest dude in King's Landing (except maybe for his brother), but at least we understand why.

The Dragon Prince

Back to Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire drawings for a bit.

The more we learn about Rhaegar Targaryen, the more bummed I get. He really seems like he would've been a great king, if Robert hadn't smashed his chest in with his warhammer on account of Lyanna Stark. His dad may have been crazy and his little brother may have been crazy, but Rhaegar seems alright. There are some neat theories about what Rhaegar's relationship with Lyanna actually was and what/who became of it.

The Dominion of Melchizedek

I did this week's cover for SF Weekly, for a story and interview about Pearlasia Gamboa, who is the princess and president of the Dominion of Melchizedek. She is also a con artist.

The Dominion of Melchizedek is only visible and/or above water at certain times of the day, and is located somewhere between the Philippines and Antarctica (they claim a large section of both as territory). The Dominion is a fertile land, known for its numerous gold mines and plentiful shell organizations. You can read more about her here.

The AD requested a fantasy map of the Dominion of Melchizedek, in the general shape of a dollar sign, with Pearlasia on a golden throne, surrounded by details from the interview she gave to SF Weekly. That's her husband (and vice president), David Korem aka Mark Logan Pedley on the left. On her right is a San Francisco man whom she conned out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Some details:
(probably the best figure I've ever drawn)
(some of The Dominion's natives)
(this is what gold mines look liks, I assume)
(who's that little guy?)

And the layout:

What a weird job.

AD Andrew Nilsen

The Damphair

What is dead can never die.

The fourth book in this series was a little jarring, and a little tough to get into. So many new characters are introduced and so many old characters are absent, since about half of the active storylines are saved for book 5. The real shining point for me was the development of House Greyjoy and it's three insane brothers: Aeron (this guy), Victarion, and Euron (the most insane of all).

Gonna do some more of these if I can find the time.

Bronn of the Blackwater

Just some upjumped sellsword.

Bronn is one of the characters who doesn't get a lot of screen-time (so to speak) in the books, but really makes the most of the scenes he's in. His introductory scene where he fights as Tyrion's champion against one of the Eyrie's best knights is so terrific.

The Knight of Flowers

Pretty boy Loras.

I have so many favorite characters in this series, a lot of which are secondary characters. I liked Loras best in the first book when he was just some teenage prodigy knight.

George R R Martin does a really great job making memorable secondary and tertiary characters. For all that's done in this series to show the horrible things that happen in war (example: all of book 2 and 3), there are certain times when GRRM goes pretty heavy on courtly romanticism. The Hand's Tourney is a great example of where these two opposing themes literally clash, as Loras Tyrell, beautiful sixteen-year-old living legend faces off against The Mountain, who is an eight-foot-tall mass murderer.

The Mountain that Rides

Gregor Clegane is the worst dude. In a series that focuses largely on moral ambiguity and paints just about every character in shades of gray, The Mountain is a monster.

I hope you guys like Song of Ice and Fire (and Game of Thrones, obvs). I have issues with the show, but those books are so good. In an effort to preserve my mental image of some of the characters, I've been doing some drawings.

I will do my best to keep these spoiler free!

A Short Story

Just messing around.

Updates and a note on Personal Work

There are now a couple new prints in my store, including the Frog Folio drawing in the previous post. My online store is here.

A week or so ago it was Draw Cat Rackham Day on Twitter, and I whipped this up.

Cat Rackham is the webcomic (and now print comic) of Steve Wolfhard. It is endlessly enjoyable.

This is a grayscale version of a drawing I was working on for awhile that I'm tossing into the ol' scrap-heap.

It isn't a paid job, and the deadline is flexible, so I have that luxury.

Priorities change when working on unpaid work or personal work. On a paid assignment, the emphasis is most often on creating the best piece within the timeframe that the client and budget allows. On personal work, there are different, less rigid guidelines. What is this piece doing for my portfolio? What is this piece doing to advance my drawing ability or career? Is this something that people would buy if I made it available as a print?

When the only reward for making a good piece is, well, having a good piece, working can become difficult. When there is a loose or no deadline, you have all the space to second guess every line, every mark, and to go back and change them.

On this drawing, too many of those little negatives added up and I felt like I was just barely treading water. The drawing is filed away, and we move on.

Frog Folio

Blogger's meltdown deleted this post, so here I am, reposting.

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Every year Dellas Graphics puts out a promotion calendar called the Frog Folio, which led to tons of award-winning illustration over the past fifteen years. AD Jim Burke was kind enough to invite me to participate this year.

Subject matter was completely open, apart from the inclusion of at least one frog. I've had this idea kicking around in my head for awhile and figured now was the time to make it happen.

This year's roster includes Rick Berry, Polly Becker, Ryan O'Rourke, Joohee Yoon, Roger DeMuth, Teresa Fasolino, Bill Mayer, C. F. Payne, and Bill Thompson.

Some details:

And the rough comp -

I basically grew up on kaiju movies, and the best part of this piece was revisiting a lot of those for reference. I don't have my vhs collection anymore, but there are a ton on Netflix Watch Instantly. If you haven't seen Ghidorah: The Three Headed Monster, you're in for a real treat.

This was actually done simultaneously with the last piece, in one weird week.

Facing a Daunting Challenge

I did this piece a couple weeks ago for SooJin Buzelli at Planadviser. It's about facing a daunting challenge, and is also about retirement income. I guess I've been thinking about weird birds a lot lately.

Sketches -

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It's been nice to hear reports trickling in about people picking up The Anthology Project v.2 at TCAF or Stumptown. So far the response have been pretty great.

Spectrum, Society of Illustrators

Good news, everyone! These top two pieces were selected to be in Spectrum 18, out this fall. The top one is from Turtle Soup and will appear in the Comics section, while the bottom is of course from The Hobbit, and will be in the Unpublished section.

You can buy prints of that Hobbit piece here, and purchase The Anthology Project, volume 2 here. That one starts shipping on April 27, though I think some folks have picked up copies at a couple of conventions already.
Additionally, this piece, which was done for Plansponsor Europe and went on to be selected (along with a couple other pieces) to appear in the Society of Illustrators 53 book is now part of the Society of Illustrators Travelling Exhibition. The selected pieces will be shown in several schools throughout the country. Cool!

I'm currently working on some cool stuff, but it's still secret, so shhh.

Frogs, kaiju

Hmm, I wonder what this stuff is for?

Kaiju was my lifeblood as a kid. I'm glad Netflix Instant has a few streaming. Helps fill the gaps between NBA playoff games. Ghidorah: Three Headed Monster is my favorite one they've got up. Wish they had Godzilla vs. Megalon or Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla.

Elliott Erwitt

I have a small piece in this week's New Yorker about an upcoming "Best Of" show featuring famed photographer Elliott Erwitt. You may know him from this picture? Or maybe this one?

Luckily for me he's also known for this one.

Seems like an interesting fella.

AD Jordan Awan.

And I'm off! To my next adventure!

Carl Fisher's Roads

These pieces accompany an article in the May/June issue of Muse Magazine, titled 'Carl Fisher's Roads.' It's a textbook excerpt about Carl Fisher, an entrepreneur in the early part of the twentieth century who had his finger on the pulse of America's growing need for personal transportation and the hurdles that needed to be overcome.

Highway engineer F.H. Trego recommended packing the following items on a long-distance drive in the early 20th century: an ax, shovel, and four-foot hardwood plank, 50 feet of heavy rope and 16 feet of cable, an extra engine valve, two jacks, two spare tires, three gallons of oil, a pile of cooking and camping gear, and a small pistol.
The first roads were nothing more than glorified game trails.
Early bicycles were extremely dangerous, and the big-wheel bikes (called "ordinaries") were essentially brakeless.
One of Carl Fisher's terrific business models as a bike salesman involved throwing a bike off the roof of a building and then giving a free one to whomever lugged the wreckage back to his shop. He also used a similar tactic when he sold cars later on.

A small diagram of the different layers of the typical road.

Prints of the top three images are available for purchase here.

I always love working for Muse AD John Sandford, though I have a tendency to bite off a whole lot to chew on in his assignments. These are all half or quarter-page spots, but I thought they'd make pretty nice prints, so I ended up working on them quite a bit bigger. Ah well!

Dungeons and Dragons and Drawings

This is weird. These are sketches of the five characters in the D&D campaign I've been playing in for the past couple of months. I can't say enough in favor of Dungeons and Dragons, despite the (well-deserved) stigma of being really, really nerdy. It's a great exercise in world and character building, and gives you a chance to think creatively and solve problems in a group dynamic.

Unlike videogames, which I still love, the quality of the experience and the end result is directly related to what you bring to the table. The more you invest in character creation and creative thinking (two of my favorite things, obviously), the more fun you have.

My character is the guy with the spear and the mace and the black, dead hands. All of these (especially pages 3 and 4) need some more work before I can do a final character drawing. If you can guess everyone's race and class, I'd be really impressed.

As stated in yesterday's post, I opened up an online shop to buy prints. It is here. They are super good quality and super affordable.

EDIT: Since folks are still guessing the character races/classes, they are as follows: halfling ranger, goliath fighter, dwarf bard, eladrin ranger, human cleric, and the eladrin ranger again.

Prints!

I am selling prints online for the first time!

You can buy them here.

I'm also giving away a couple on twitter, so you can follow me there and maybe win a free one.

Turtle Soup process

Hey folks!

There's a short slideshow of some Turtle Soup process work on the Anthology Project's tumblr here.

And remember, you can always preorder the book by checking out the link in yesterday's post.

Preorders

The Anthology Project volume 2 is now available for preorders!

Preorder!

More updates soon (hopefully).