Pyramid Hunters - Bones of the Sun God

Had a great time doing cover #2 for the Pyramid Hunters series, published by Simon & Schuster's Aladdin imprint.

The series is like a kid version of Indiana Jones and I love getting to research and illustrate these ancient locations, this one set in the Mayan Temples of Belize.

Thanks to the people at Aladdin for being so great to work with, as usual!

Red Moon Rising

A cover for Red Moon Rising, a new middle grade cover coming out from Simon & Schuster. It was so cool to have the chance to get into the epic Sci-Fi Western inspired world that author K.A. Holt has created. The Art Director really wanted to capture how bad ass the main character Rae is and to show her rugged, frontier world on a far away space colony. Of course it needed to showcase the huge, blood red moon that inspires the book's title as well.

This was a breakthrough project for me... Not only because I had the chance to work in the Sci-Fi genre, but also because of the scope of the image - the character, horse, environment and bold colour scheme. It was a fantastic opportunity and a really, really rewarding project.

Pyramid Hunters: The Iron Tomb

Here's a cover for "Pyramid Hunters: The Iron Tomb" by Peter Vegas.  I grew up a huge, huge fan of Indiana Jones - and the movies piqued an interest in archeology that would continue to this day. Although I never did become the heroic archeologist/adventurer I wanted to as a kid... becoming an illustrator is a close second - and still requires a lot of research and taking the odd risk! I had an absolute blast on this one. Thanks to the fine people at Simon & Schuster's Aladdin imprint for being amazing to work with, as usual.

Hollow Earth: Book of Beasts Cover

Here's a cover for the fantastic "Hollow Earth" series  by John and Carol Barrowman, published by Simon and Schuster's Aladdin imprint. This is for the epic final "Book of Beasts".

The books are about two twins with the inherited ability to make their artwork come to life. Art and historic paintings play a big role in the books as well - how cool is that! For an epic finish to the series, I was inspired by the peak moment where the portal to "Hollow Earth" the subterranean realm where all the creatures of myth and fantasy are imprisoned, has been opened. The book's heroes are beset by the villain riding a black, winged stag with Hollow Earth's creatures emerging behind them.

Thanks to everyone at Aladdin for another amazing project!

Dead City: Dark Days Cover

The Dead City books by James Ponti, published by Simon and Schuster's Aladdin imprint, have been amazing to work on. Here's the cover for the final book in the series, Dead City: Dark Days. My first cover for this series was way back in 2011 and it was my first series for a major publisher, so it's a little bitter sweet to be wrapping up.

The story revolves around Molly, the teen girl protagonist who gets wrapped up in the Omegas, a team of Zombie fighters battling the hordes of Undead that live in an under Manhattan. The books are high action and bring the Zombie genre to a young reader audience in a really fun and smart way while weaving in New York City history and culture. Working with so much great material was an absolute blast. Wrapping up the series with the big finale on top of the iconic Chrysler building was a fantastic way to cap it off!

Thanks to everyone at Aladdin for being so great to work with!

Eremos

Here are the first images from a new series of works titled “Eremos”

“Eremos” envisions the mythological archetypes of tribal cultures living ages after the fall of civilization.  These Mask designs are early explorations into gods, spirits and motifs for this world.

I’ll be continuing to work on these masks along with more narrative images based on classical mythological archetypes and will post more as they come.

For future news and art, please follow me on twitter and tumblr as well.

Some New Covers

Haven't had a chance to update this thing in a while... between personal work and freelance somethings gotta give.

Here are two sequel covers for the series I've been doing for Simon and Schuster's Alladin imprint, Dead City and Hollow Earth.

These were really great projects, coming back to something I'd done previously and being able to build on what I'd established for the look already but being able to make the images of their own as well. As usual the publisher was awesome to work with and I had a lot of freedom to run with ideas on these.

Dead City: Blue Moon

Hollow Earth: The Bone Quill

Hollow Earth

I'm happy to post my latest cover for Simon & Schuster, a full wraparound for the novel Hollow Earth, by John and Carol E. Barrowman.

The book is about the adventures of two twins who possess the ability to draw things from their imagination into life. It was a really inspiring concept that provided plenty of opportunities for great visuals and was a really fun read.

It was really nice to have quite a bit of creative input on this cover and I always love working with wraparound compositions. The long aspect ratio is so great for storytelling and I love the challenge of crafting an image that holds up on it's own yet still acts as a strong foundation for the jacket design.

Jessica Handelmann at S&S was so great to work with and designed an excellent jacket with a very elegant and modern feel. A big thank you goes out to her and all the good people at Simon and Schuster.

Guide Of Souls

This character is a Psychopomp or "Guide of Souls" - a mythic figure responsible for providing souls with safe passage to the afterlife. In Jungian terms, the psychopomp acts as a mediator between the conscious and unconscious realms. I thought developing a character based on that idea would be a great way to start visualizing a new world that I'm developing.

The basic idea of this project is to re-interpret the archetypes of the Monomyth from the mythic imagination of a people that have survived ages after our current civilization has collapsed. If humanity reverted to primal levels of culture and reason and mythology regained it's necessity to the human psyche, what would the myths be? How would a neo-primal culture interpret mythical archetypes in a post-collapse world? What would their creation myths be? What would their heroic myths be? What mysteries of existence would their myths express? What stories would they tell to explain the remnants of our decaying civilization?

These are the things floating around in my head to inspire me going forward with this and this Guide of Souls will hopefully help lead me to the unconscious realms where the creativity for this new project lies.

Pretty heady talk for what's basically a proof of concept.

Isis

Here’s a new personal piece that I’ve been working on sporadically over the last few months. I started it way back in June and although I initially put it down, after getting swamped with work and life it ended up being my go-to piece for the shorts breaks I’ve had in between projects when I was too burned out or uninspired to start something new.

Although I kept the working title of Isis, it’s not too firmly based in Egyptian mythology. The figure takes some inspiration from the classic depiction of Isis but from there I mixed up the symbolism a bit and tried to evoke a visceral sense of the cycle of life, death and rebirth.

Fox & Phoenix Cover

Well, after an extremely busy few months I'm really excited about this post - a cover for a brilliant young adult novel titled "Fox & Phoenix" by Beth Bernobich.



I was approached by Jim Hoover, an art director at Viking Press who thought I'd be a great fit to illustrate this southeast asian inspired world where the people have spirit animal familiars and the technology is powered by magic flux.

The concept was to have the two main characters and their familiars entering a bustling city filled with people, lights and magic and being a bit overwhelmed by it all. I put the characters into a dark, narrow alley that almost feels like it's going to close in on them, played up their distinct personalities and brought the city to life with lots of atmosphere and bright neon signs.

I really enjoyed getting my head into this world and bringing it to life and working with Jim was a real pleasure. This was a super fun and rewarding project from start to finish and I'm really happy with the result. It's scheduled for a Fall 2011 release and I can't wait to see it on the shelves!

Gallery Page Added

Hey hey...I've been crazy busy at work for over a month, so I haven't been able to finish any personal work lately. I did, however, put a selection of my finished work from 2007 to present into a Gallery page. I've been adding alot more work-in-progress stuff and sketches lately, and it's bogged down the blog a bit for anyone who'd like to get right to the goods, so now it's all in one place, HERE.
You can also access the Gallery by clicking the Gallery Link in the top right corner of the home page.

This image is an old one that got tweaked a bit before I submitted it to Spectrum. Turns out it's the one they chose to publish in Spectrum 17.

News and Art...

Happy to say I'll have some worked featured again in Spectrum 17. Not sure which piece or pieces yet... I submitted 3 images this year. Can't wait to see what made it in.

I've been finishing up this image for the last week or so. I had tried this idea out last year with some pretty mixed results... mixed meaning, well.. kinda shitty and overworked...so here's another attempt.



A little something I wanted to make note of involving the process on this one...

When I sat down to draw this, I grabbed a blank sheet to scribble on a bit to warm up my hand. What I ended up doing on it was blind contour drawings of the reference I'd printed out. I just focused on the contours in the ref and felt them out on the paper getting a feel for the rythm and flow. It ended up being a really enjoyable exercise and I think it'll become a regular thing. I loved the feeling of just putting down the lines without getting all tight and overworking them.



When I'm warmed up for the real drawing, I've absorbed the contours and have the reference images more in my head - my lines are then more likely to keep some of that looseness. I'd recently read Itten's Design and Form and thought his thoughts on warming up and preparing for work were gold.

From Johannes Itten's "Design and Form"



"My first morning periods in class begin with relaxation-, breathing-, and concentration exercises to establish the intellectual and physical readiness which make intensive work possiblee. The training of the body as an instrument of the mind is of great importance to a creative person. How can a hand express a characteristic feeling in a line,when the hand and arm are cramped..."

There's a few other real pearls in there too. I found his Art Of Colour to be a worthwhile read as well.

Carry On...

Well this turned out a bit awkward all around, but whatever...I'm pretty much done with it. I dropped the overall saturation - except for on the bird to pop it out a bit. I also changed the lighting a bit to cast it up on the baggage and the dude's face more - those things both helped it out.

Death

Here's one of the sketches from last post that I worked up. I tried to keep it loose overall and only tighten up a bit more in the focal areas.

Neon Dragon Final

So here's the final version of the Neon Dragon piece I've been chipping away at for the last month or so. It actually turned out to be much more of a learning process for me than I had planned, and the piece really benefitted from getting workshopped a bit. During the process I got some great input that helped me make up for some poor planning the piece suffered from in the early stages and highlighted some areas I need to focus on to push my work forward. It showed some promise as far as process and technique goes as well. There's more on that after the image, which will link you to my Flickr account where there's a larger size as well...



Back in December when I started it, I began thinking about major areas in my work and process that I'd like to work on for the coming year, I've been meaning to make note of them for a while and now that this is done, it's a great example of what is working and what isn't for me right now.

So here's a sort of manifesto/ art resolution for me going forward.

1 - Theme.
I need to always clearly establish a theme for any given piece I start...even for fun, personal work. My personal work in particular has often started with an image in mind, and gone from there, working in or just hinting at theme as I go. Instead I need to sort out exactly what my theme is first, or right after my initial thumbnail or idea, and then decide how I want the piece to communicate that. This should help keep the work focused and cohesive, as well as help make decisions for everything from composition, colour and design details to gesture and expression. It's what will make work compelling, rather than just an interesting image.

2 - Reference
In the last year or so I've really learned alot about how important good reference is, and I've loosened up a bit about how much I use and how necessary it is - even for less realistic work. Getting the right reference for a piece and using it without being a slave to it is key. I've been shooting my own for a while now and it's helped tremendously. I need to carry on with that and take it further - really spend the time to get what I need to serve the piece, not make the piece according to the reference that I have available. That means getting the right acting, costuming and lighting. I'm hoping this will help with some anatomy issues that seem to continually creep in to my stuff, I need to know how poses look in reality before I tweak them. Lighting and details in reference will also help to push my work into a more immersive, compelling reality of it's own.

3 - Posing and Expression
This ties in with the Theme and Reference points but deserves mention on it's own as it's really important. Once theme is established, the first thing I need to do is decide what my characters are communicating, and how to express that through gesture and expression. If I have characters interacting, I need to make sure they actually look like they're interacting, and compose the piece accordingly. This means making decisions and not trying to show too much sometimes - which is what I didn't do early on in the Dragon piece and it was a major setback.

4 - Tones
I've been starting to become more aware of tones and the relationship between tones. I've read from some really impressive artists that tones and tonal relationships are really important in creating realism. Using more reference and doing some studies will help with this.

5 - Saturation
I do like working with bright, vivid colours, but that can lead to over saturating the entire image sometimes. With more attention paid to contrasts of extension and balance in my colour work I can have areas of colour pop out more and the piece can be more realistic and dynamic. Working up from desaturated backgrounds to the foreground and hitting areas of interest with the highest levels of saturation and contrast will help.

6 - Perspective/Compostion
This goes along with not making decisions and trying to show too much - I sometimes end up defaulting to safe angles and compositions. With theme established, I need to decide who or what the primary subject is and choose an angle and compostion that best communicates that - in a way that is fitting with the mood of the piece, be it dramatic, static, dynamic, etc.

7 - Texture and Materials
Also tying in with reference, paying more attention to rendering texture and materials will help make my stuff more plausible and immersive. Really paying attention to how highlights break up and falloff is key. I'm not happy with my mark making as well. The right brushes and materials will help, but it's probably also just something I'm going to develop over time as I work at it. Like anything, the more experienced, comfortable and confident you are at something, the more style and expression can come through.

I think that's all I have on my mind for now - it's plenty to work on. Hopefully by taking the time to write all this out, It'll be more firmly established in my mind, and I'll refer back to this to remind myself once in a while.

Thanks for looking...

-Nigel

regenerate

Got the cast off my arm last Wednesday...
Here's what I've been working on...it's a bit of an experiment. I started off with graphite, watercolour and acrylic on Rives BFK but didn't end up keeping any of it in the final. I liked what the analogue stuff added but that step needed a bit more attention to hold up for the final. Good to know for the next one though.

Spectrum 16 and Mixed Bag Mythography

Well, it looks like I will have some work in Spectrum 16!

I was super surprised to make it in to say the least. I sent submissions in this year as a due dilligence kinda thing, with no expectations whatsoever of having anything accepted and I think I'm still in a bit of disbelief!
When I find out what piece or pieces got in and get an official correspondence from them it will probably sink in a bit more.

I am really, really flattered to be in a volume with so many incredible artists and I know that seeing my work amongst the many truly great pieces will be humbling but it will inspire me to work harder too. It's great to feel like the hard work and focus is paying of somehow, and I'm more inspired than ever to keep pushing myself, be more focused and work even harder. I've been looking up to the artists published in Spectrum since Volume 3, and this is a huge milestone for me.

So not to post news without art...

When I wanted to come up with a title for this blog, I wanted it to somehow relate to my personal work that is eclectically inspired and varies in subject a fair bit, but is still unified by my own influences and Personal Mythologies. I came up with Mixed Bag Mythography.

I wanted to make an illustration to serve as a visual interpretation of this title that would represent some of the inspirations and subjects of my personal artwork. I chose to personify the theme with a female character to represent creativity. She’s kind of a vagabond – wandering through the world much like how my inspiration will wander with no set purpose. She’s collected all kinds of trappings and artifacts, some of which represent my cultural background and inspirations, and others that I just think are cool and add interest.

All the pseudo-intellectual artistic descriptions aside: this is a character I thought would make a cool illustration for my Blog, with lots of interesting things to paint and opportunities to play with expression, colour, texture and lighting.

I hope you like it…



- Nigel

Steampunk CGTalk Challenge

Been a while since I updated...I've been pretty busy wrapping up my entry for CGTalk's Steampunk Myths and Legends Challenge. I'm not really into Steampunk but I am really into Mythology, so I thought it would be a good excuse to do up an illustration.

I started by brainstorming some myths and thumnailing what I thought might be interesting compositions.... Icarus, Gawain, Valkyries, Cyclops, Giants, etc...





After settling on an Icarus theme,I did more thumbs...



I had a pretty hard time finding a composition and pose that showed everything I wanted to show but was still close up enough to show the expression on Icarus. The one figure was going to be center of focus for the comp, so I wanted him pretty close up. I did this thumbnail up into a slightly more involved sketch, and then did a quick colour pass on it.





After this point I was pretty burnt out on the piece. I was so unhappy with it that I came super close to deleting all the work off my hardrive just to be done with it. I was happy with the decisions I'd made, but the art I had generated was pretty poor. Too much quick sketching without a real commitment. After a 2 week break I started the piece over again, sticking to the decisions I'd made, but with more focus. I started with some design work on the character...



Then after the holidays I started the work on the final comp. I was never really happy with the poses I had come up with, so I sketched a few more dynamic one out that had a struggling, grasping emotion to them, rather than the helpless resolve of the previous look and it really made the piece start to come together.

A rough block in of the comp with the colour scheme I had established before, but moved the light source to the bottom...



and went from there...



Did some design work for the airships and Steam Labyrinth after I'd roughed them in.



Then I did some rough 3d modeling to help block them in for the painting...



Got the 3d integrated...



and then pretty much just worked at it until the deadline to come up with a final.
I got alot of great feedback along the way that really helped the piece out, so thanks to everyone who gave input. I learned alot through the process and I felt pretty good with what I ended up with, but I'm really glad to be done with it.