tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78238473829721336722024-03-05T17:51:20.085-08:00May Contain DragonsS Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.comBlogger164125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-649293785630211242013-06-21T17:01:00.003-07:002013-06-22T15:26:23.791-07:00The Role of Role Playing in Role Playing Games<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I want to
talk a little bit about role playing, because it's an incredibly
important part of the game to me. There are lots of ways to play D&D
and none of them are really wrong, but there are wrong ways to play
for the specific group of people you're playing with. Some people
want a well-crafted story, that may be lower on the combat side of
things, or something that's a pure numbers game, and it's basically
all combat-based dungeon crawling. The thing is that D&D is, as a
tabletop game, best suited to something that sits right in the
middle. If all you want is the combat and loot part of the game,
there are lots of co-operative video games, or miniature games that
have in depth and strategic ways around combat. If you're more into
just a story-based experience, other systems, like Fate or White Wolf
or Mouse Guard, are better fits for that kind of game.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; page-break-before: always;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I've played with groups who were
really not used to having to role play their characters, and it's
thrown them off a bit that I've forced that upon them, in some ways.
A lot of times it's about comfort level, you have to be okay with
pretending to be someone entirely different around other people. Some
people are okay with that, but remember D&D's primary demographic
trends towards the more awkward side of things. For me role playing a
character is huge. Not just as a player, but as a DM, it really gives me
an entirely new set of tools with which to manipulate the world. Not
only that, but it allows for me to compensate for balancing issues.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>It's not a Numbers Game:</b><br />
Allow me to get into that side of things. Dungeons & Dragons is not a balanced game. They've
done what they can, but there are ultimately a lot of ways that you
can fundamentally break the game in the way you build your character.
There are also a lot of ways that you can take the wrong set of
feats, or not specialize in such a way that your character isn't
super useful. This is exacerbated by the fact that some character
classes are slow to get the ball rolling (Monks, for example) where
other classes are really powerful right out of the gate (Alchemists
are a good example). One thing that this does often, is when skill or
combat testing events are going on in the campaign constantly,
characters that are less effective at those things than others may
start to feel like they aren't able to contribute to the party, and
that's where role playing really comes in handy. By having a fleshed
out character, I can bring other uses for that character into the
game. Bring their back story forward, or a connection that can only
be made by that character, based on who they are. It's something that
makes the player feel awesome, and gives them that sense that they're
contributing in a way that's important.<br />
<br />
I can tell you that, at least
the way I've always played, numbers can only get you so far. I recall
whilst playing Shadowrun with several of my friends, my dear friend
Tavish opted to play a cloned elven version of Pierre Elliot Trudeau
because why the fuck not? Now the numbers on Tavish's (nearly 8 page)
character sheet gave him absurdly high scores in persuasion,
bluffing, intimidation, etiquette, leadership and basically every
skill under the sun to let you talk your way out of any situation you
put yourself in. The problem is that Tavish himself doesn't always
make the best decisions for his characters in tense conversations and
it doesn't matter how critical a success you rolled, the drug-addled
prostitute with the nerve gas grenade you left unattended is probably
not going to care. This goes doubly if you don't happen to ask the right
questions (another unfortunate problem that elven-clone PET
frequently had). See, a lot of people may play that you don't
actually have to say anything specific, you can just roll your persuasion and get
the information or result you want. That way works if you want to
play D&D from a numbers-only perspective, but that doesn't allow
players to be rewarded for strong role playing.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>(Don't) Be Yourself:</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
One of the easiest things to do is to
role play yourself, and it's what most people do the first time they
have to make a character. It's basically a fantasy version of
yourself with a different history, and some cool abilities. That's
great, but I try to discourage that. I do this for a couple of
reasons, and the foremost one is that it's kinda boring. See, when
people are role playing themselves they tend to be somewhere in the
chaotic good spectrum of role playing (I'll get to alignment a little
later), and they tend to be very reserved in their actions. People
play themselves very safe. They're not likely to do anything crazy,
or rash, or often just take some of the risks that can make some of
the most interesting stuff in the game happen. Part of the problem is
that people like their character too much. I'm not saying you
<i>shouldn't </i>like your
character, but the fact is that your character doesn't need to be
someone you'd like, you just have like <i>playing </i>as
that character. In the entirety of my experience playing role playing
games, I can think of (maybe) two characters who are nice people who I
would like if they were real. Every other character I've played would be a
<i>horrid </i>person to meet.
The fact is that I love playing as them. Because of who that person
was, I was doing things that I normally would never consider, or
would consider as absurdly short-sighted and stupid. When you fear
too much for your own character's life (which you should, to a
degree), you tend to play characters in a certain way. It's fine to
do so, but I think you'll find that if you start playing characters
based on how much you like <i>playing as</i> them, as to how much you like
them as a person, you may have more fun.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Making RP "Worth It" for the Player:</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As a DM, I like to
reward strong role playing. Offering small incentives, like bonus
experience, for role playing a character well and for making decisions
not based on what would give the best outcome but based on what they
think their character would do is something that's important to
reward otherwise the character may as well just do the former and get
more out of it. This doesn't just apply to the elements of the game
outside of action sequences. I think it says a lot about a player if
the way they act in combat or other tense situations is reflective of
their character as a whole, and it's important to reward that
behaviour. So what if it is (statistically) a better idea to attack
an enemy with your weapon than to throw a taxidermy skunk at them, if
you think that's what your character would do then fucking do it. I
know, as a DM, trying to enacting a plan, or doing something creative
with your turn, I will always give a higher chance of success than
the standard “slash him with my sword” actions. It's important to
encourage this because it adds and incenitivises an entirely new dynamic to the combat
setting. If there's no situational elements that a character can use
in that scenario, it's jarring and flow-breaking as a game aspect, and
you may as well have all combat take place in bare, rectangular rooms.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Some Words on Alignment:</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Alignment is always one of the hardest
things to explain to new players, and it's a frequent point of
contention for veteran players. For those unfamiliar: every character
in D&D has what is known as an alignment which determines where
they lie on two axes: Law vs. Chaos and Good vs. Evil. This separates
all characters into 9 categories: Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, Lawful
Evil, Neutral Good, Neutral, Neutral Evil, Chaotic Good, Chaotic
Neutral and Chaotic Evil. These categories theoretically determine
how your character might behave in a given situation. There are no
degrees to which you can be a certain alignment, you cannot be
multiple alignments, you are pigeon-holed into 9 very loosely defined
behaviour patterns. I will say right now that I hate alignment as a
system. It is a crutch for bad role-players. Players who have no
sense of character are able to determine what their character should
do based on an incredibly vague, but restrictive system. “My
character would do this because they're Lawful Good” is a terrible
way to justify decisions. Your character should be making decisions
because you have a good sense that your character would make those
specific decisions, regardless of their alignment. Alignment, as I
see it, only has a place in terms of being a factor affecting
alignment-based magical effects. You could easily replace the
alignments with Astrological signs, or Elements, or fucking colours,
it doesn't matter. Alignment is a vague, generic trait that
determines whether or not the spell Blasphemy can do 5d8 damage and
nauseate you.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Another
thing that's been a point of contention with a lot of people I
discuss role playing games with is evil characters. Now I want to
discuss this because I trend towards playing characters that, while
not necessarily evil, are most certainly <i>bastards</i>. A
lot of people seem to believe that the primary issue is that an evil
character will derail a campaign, it will cause in-fighting and
problems within the party and generally will create discontent
amongst the players. To this I say, “you aren't doing it right,
then”. See, the thing is, in many cases people playing an evil
character take that as an excuse to kill other players, or rob them.
That's the wrong way to look at it. Being evil just means that your
motivations are entirely different. It's about cooperation. The
Dungeon Master needs to be able to provide motivating factors such
that the evil character has a reason to be there. The evil character
needs to cooperate insofar as knowing they should not be derailing
things. Playing an evil character can be a helluva lot of fun, but
you have to remember that it's not just about your fun, so when
playing that character, your actions should take into account the
fact that the rest of the party also has their own motivations. It's
both the job of the players and the DM to facilitate the needs of one
another. Basically, if you're playing an evil character because you
plan on using that as an excuse to troll the game, you should perhaps
find another group. I'm going to mention my good friend Kane again
(we'll see how many of these posts I can fit him into in a row). In
our most recent campaign, Kane's character was the only evil
character in the party. Now, the way he went about things and got things done was
certainly evil, but he played his character such that he was either
in agreement about where the party had to (or should) go, or played it
such that he went along begrudgingly forced by the party through threats or
other motivating factors. Kane played evil in his actions, but in such a way
that while it added flavor (or corpses), it didn't break the flow of
the game (or add the corpses of the rest of the party). What it did
do was create tension. I will say right now that in-fighting within a
party of characters is not a bad thing and I don't just say this
because I've never managed to make a character who gets along with
any of Tavish's characters. I say this because distrust amongst the
party gives an extra element that the DM can manipulate, and it means
that interesting character development can happen between the party,
even when there are no other characters around.</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I want to have
people I'm playing with become comfortable with role playing, and
it's something I do my best to facilitate as much as I can. Any of
the people who have participated in tabletop games alongside me will
confirm that am not afraid to make myself look like an asshat with
ridiculous voices, or actions or character concepts in general. It's
something I very much do on purpose. Partially because it's fun as
hell, and partially because it allows other players to feel like it's
okay turn into someone else. You get into character, because it's still less ridiculous than that
asshole over there is speaking with a thick Nigerian accent and keeps
asking “Where did you get dat a'm? I want dat a'm!”</div>
S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-42251904205014455912013-05-11T13:23:00.004-07:002013-05-11T13:30:15.068-07:00May Contain Dragons Gets a Makeover: May Also Contain Dungeons.<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="http://simonsweetman.com">My new website is up</a>, and with its
existence -alongside my <a href="http://sisweetman.cghub.com/">CG Hub page</a>- May Contain Dragons becomes a
little bit of a redundancy. I've decided to really change what May
Contain is all about, as a result. I'm still planning on uploading my
new drawings here as they come, but in addition I want to actually
turn May Contain Dragons into a proper blog. Like... one that's about
something. I actually love writing. I'm not particularly excellent at
it, but its something I really do enjoy, be that writing stories,
stand-up, hip-hop or critiques. I don't think I've had the patience
to be able to attempt to write even a short story in the last several
years (at least not one that stands alone), but what I have been able
to tell stories through, and what has been my primary method of
storytelling for the last decade, is tabletop games (and Dungeons &
Dragons in particular). What I'd like to do is use this blog as an
outlet for me to talk a bit about the game, just have a place to dump
all my views on the aspects of playing and, more importantly, talk
about running the game.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
To give a little bit of background,
I've been playing D&D (officially) since I was about 12 years old
when my parents sent me to camp over the March break, and the only
one I agreed to go to was Dungeons & Dragons camp. Before that,
even, starting with me and my brother and moving on to me and my
friends at school, I played a purely verbal version of the game. No
dice, no stats, just us speaking and walking around in the
schoolyard. So it's fairly safe to say that now, after over a decade
of playing D&D, I've acquired a fair amount of experience with
the game. I spent most of high school trying (and failing) to get a
regular game going with my friends, and it wasn't until my first year
of university that I actually managed to get a legitimate once-a-week
group going. The game is responsible for some of the most fun I've
had in my life, and it's certainly a large part of the reason why the
friends I play with and I are better friends than we might have
otherwise been. I think it can be argued that if it weren't for
playing D&D, I wouldn't have met the guy who became one of the
best friends I've ever had, and roommate for 2 years. So, it's a big
part of my life and I want to talk about it.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A lot of people are a little bit
unaware of just what the hell D&D is. The fact that I
continuously have had to explain that -while video games have been
based off of it- D&D is not, in itself, a video game. And while
it is called a “tabletop” game, it is also not a board game. The
game combines elements of both, and probably most relevantly:
improvisation. In fact, I would argue that D&D is closer to a
structured improv game, than it is to video games and board games
both. The way this works is that you have two fundamental roles while
playing the game: player characters and the game master (or dungeon
master, in D&D's case). The game master crafts a world, people,
places and every other element of the setting, essentially acting as
the god of this world. The player characters have character which has
their own unique background, skillset and motivations, who they alone
control within the environment crafted (and controlled) by the game
master (henceforth GM). That's basically it. Everything after that is
determined by what the game master and the players want to get out of
the experience. Generally, the players work together, going on their
own fantasy adventure which the GM then crafts narrative around.
Success and failures are determined by dice rolling which is modified
by statistics every character, creature, object and challenge has.
I'll get into specifics of play style in later entries, but this is
the basic idea of the game.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Obviously the game has rules. Complex,
pedantic, extensive rules. Learning any tabletop game requires
reading a literal textbook of information to know how to play and if
you've never learned or played a tabletop game before it's one of the
most daunting challenges you can come up with just to enjoy playing
(let alone running the game). One of my biggest struggles getting my
friends to play in high school was just getting them past the
character creation stage, which takes upwards of 3 hours if you've
never played before and even more if you're indecisive (Read: Will).
It's complicated enough that you get frustrated and bored just trying
to enter into the landscape of the game. A lot of people don't think
that initial time investment to learn to play is worth the payoff.
Those people are wrong. Not to say that D&D is for everyone (it's
not), but the multitude of ways you can play it means that the game
can be pretty much anything you want, and the game as a social
activity is something I cannot think of a parallel for.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A group of adventurers in a game of D&D
is appropriately referred to as a “party”, because that's
essentially what you're doing every time you play the game. Let me
break this down for you with my current weekly group as an example.
Every Wednesday -or it used to be Wednesdays, at least- I host 6 of
my friends at my apartment from somewhere around 6:30pm until a
little after midnight. Every week a set amount of the group are
designated to provide dinner, snacks and drinks for the group that
night. For the ~6 hours that we have a session we can usually manage
to actually play the game for 4 hours (maybe) and get sidetracked for
at least 2 hours. The reason being that we aren't sitting awkwardly
around a table entirely focused on a game, we're a group of 7 friends
who are hanging out and we happen to structure our night around
playing D&D. The other thing is, D&D is an incredibly
efficient generator for inside jokes, almost regardless of how you
play. When success and failure is determined by dice, karma dictates
that you will fail and you will fail hilariously and these failures
will be brought up again and again. Nearly everything in D&D can
become a joke. I was once describing an area and was attempting to
give the players the impression that something was impressively
crafted, particularly for being within a cave they discovered off the
sewage system. I was attempting to create a comparison of the
craftsmanship of the walls of the sewer and the walls within this
temple-like structure which is when I mistakenly used the term “tight
masonry”. The phrase may seem innocuous enough, but my friend Kane
latched onto that phrase. Now, every time I describe an area if I
don't specify the level of tightness of the masonry I get a whole
host of questions about wall integrity: “Wait, but Simon, how tight
is the masonry in here? Like... really tight? We're not talking loose
masonry here are we?” That's just what D&D does, it's a conduit
that allows groups of people to come together -much like the bricks
in a wall of tight masonry- and joke about ridiculous things that
happen over the course of their adventures. That's why I always try
and facilitate people learning the game, it's the reason why I do my
best to get people past the game's absurdly high initial learning
curve: because once you're over it, you have one of the best social
activities I can think of.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I'd like this use this blog for 2
reasons: firstly, to discuss the game from the perspective of someone
who plays it, and the styles and struggles that come up in that
world. Secondly, I'd like to use it to explain to those who might not
play the game, aspects of the ocean of information that is the world
of tabletop gaming. When I get into technical aspects I will always
try to explain what that is in the context of the game. And hopefully
(if I'm successful), I can get more people playing or interested in
playing.</div>S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-11962393372379631272013-05-05T19:44:00.002-07:002013-05-05T19:44:24.756-07:00Time Lapse Double BillHey folks, I have time lapses! For your faces!<br />
<br />
Okay so there are two to show here. One for "Bruisers" that I forgot to post up here a while back, so this is really just administration insofar as that goes.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/h2bJg6gpxDY" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br /></div>
The second one I have here is for my most recent piece, the Glabrezu. Unfortunately, my time lapse program stopped functioning properly during the last 2 and a half hours or so of the process, so the .avi files for that period of time are corrupted and I thusly was unable to put the whole process in the video. But all is not lost. Once the site is back up and running (it's down frequently) I will be posting a full tutorial on my process for this guy on ConceptArt.org. I've wanted to try my hand at tutorial-making for a while, and since I won this Creature of the Week round and I have so much of the process recorded it made sense to do the tutorial with this guy. Anyway, enjoy what there is of the process below.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/gsLZWhE4fBU" width="560"></iframe></div>
S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-45580506376561335332013-04-17T13:32:00.004-07:002013-04-17T13:33:37.435-07:00Glabrezu and a New SiteFirst and foremost, I have a new website! Check it out here:<br />
<a href="http://simonsweetman.com/">http://simonsweetman.com/</a><br />
<br />
My glorious return to creature of the week is also punctuated with my glorious announcement that I am leaving creature of the week. So, Clark and I have been moderating C.O.W. since October 2010, and we've been doing is since round 190. It's now round 294 and I'm getting tired. Clark is getting tired. Clark is super busy because he's essentially the art department for an entire company (by the way you should check out the game he did all the art and animation for: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wrMBAcniFhs">Roundhouse!</a>). I'm not actually so busy since I'm just finishing up my degree but I just don't really have the energy to devote to C.O.W. that it needs. So we'll be stepping down as moderators once we've seen through the round 300 spectacular we'll likely be doing.<br />
<br />
Anyway I finally decided to jump in on some Creature fun since it's been a dog's age since I produced a final for it. The topic was the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glabrezu">Glabrezu</a>, since I'm a huge D&D nerd like that. I was doing a time lapse for this guy and I have the entire first half of production for this, but my time lapse program died on me for the entire latter half of the process, so I think I'll be forgoing actually producing the video (sorry!).<br />
<br />
Anyways, here's the piece, hope you enjoy!<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy8Pc5tqvu0QYOIkBHluGWbKaOUws6yWS4fH7zp2b1J0jxaybabrC4dy56UFSG_V9zgOGN2R7vN5iHrJMt3ZLLDE1osQ-Ok1-TSeq3Rwy5CjdvSXntnQXdrC2-iqcKPjkzZtNoF3uuro0a/s1600/COW294-Glabrezu6.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy8Pc5tqvu0QYOIkBHluGWbKaOUws6yWS4fH7zp2b1J0jxaybabrC4dy56UFSG_V9zgOGN2R7vN5iHrJMt3ZLLDE1osQ-Ok1-TSeq3Rwy5CjdvSXntnQXdrC2-iqcKPjkzZtNoF3uuro0a/s320/COW294-Glabrezu6.jpg" /></a></div>
S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-28933089928712653112013-03-29T21:11:00.002-07:002013-03-29T21:11:45.972-07:00Shattered WorldHey folks,<br />
<br />
Here are two pieces I've done recently. The first was the second in a set of 4-colour process screenprints I did based on the China Meiville book, <i>Rail Sea. </i>A world I found particularly intriguing. The prints ended up being a 5-colour process: all of the white mist figures ended up as a fifth "ghost layer" in which the ink base was mixed with a bit of white and ultramarine. When using UV-based inks, the transparency is such that the ghosts come out very subtly. I'm super happy with the way they came out on this one.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkN79QkmJeHS5-gGTKMlH_CDdi-pGWYMeUFHlaFz4PlFcWYubL0Za4qEJ8sEyivb8_dBy7LavX64WggEbJ1e9yzkfQh6uph8y-ZpX4nnEHFkiG2UwbSmXlqmAJs1ZV0mh04cfXeYmBQwGS/s1600/Railship2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkN79QkmJeHS5-gGTKMlH_CDdi-pGWYMeUFHlaFz4PlFcWYubL0Za4qEJ8sEyivb8_dBy7LavX64WggEbJ1e9yzkfQh6uph8y-ZpX4nnEHFkiG2UwbSmXlqmAJs1ZV0mh04cfXeYmBQwGS/s320/Railship2.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
It seems very funny, to me, that the post after I go on a rant about skimpy female character design, I post this. An original character by me, female, and wearing almost no clothing. But before I'm accused of being a hypocrite, the reasoning behind the nudity present here is not appeal to any kind of male sex-fantasy in the same way that characters like the ones present in League of Legends can be construed as. Allow me to elaborate the process behind this piece.<br />
<br />
This piece will go on to be another artifact of my ongoing set of prints exploring this ruined world present in my last two "Railship" pieces, but that's not the origin of this drawing. As some of you know, I run a creature design competition on ConceptArt.org called <a href="http://www.conceptart.org/forumdisplay.php?81-Creature-of-the-Week">Creature of the Week</a>, wherein competitors are given a prompt from which they must design a creature. ConceptArt.org is also home to Evironment of Week, Industrial Design of the Week, Panel of the Week and Character of the Week. A recent Character of the Week prompt was "Mary Worth" (AKA "Bloody Mary") and their brief history of the character introduced her as being a normal, decent person until an accident disfigured her. She was told not to look in the mirror to spare her the horror, but did anyway driving her to madness and spawning the vengeful version that appears when her name is said thrice while looking the mirror. Now the prompt given specified that the piece could be set in "any time period", so that got me wondering: "What could have possibly driven Mary to insanity about her face". I came to the conclusion that she might lose her humanity if she discovered she'd never had any to begin with. What if she was an android with the firm belief that she was a human. Other entries wanted to capture the sadistic rage of Bloody Mary, but I wanted to show the more tragic side of the character. That's why she's depicted as such, I wanted to depict her in a vulnerable state, with all revealed, such that it could truly be seen the degree to which she is not human. I guess its up to you whether you feel that justifies my potential hypocrisy but I felt I should explain my logic there, at least.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ1NK3U4EbmVvx1OXJn52s2h0uuYr00p9hzxpxX7RyMEa5sYC8hzjgeLriVxkEDW5HWsYetiCqlpRoMdW9fl57AffuKpGZgu3qBaeqCd2hsrTIrHv8e2f4gLuSLhtCSxmOXqtQFq2YMA3L/s1600/WorldShattered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ1NK3U4EbmVvx1OXJn52s2h0uuYr00p9hzxpxX7RyMEa5sYC8hzjgeLriVxkEDW5HWsYetiCqlpRoMdW9fl57AffuKpGZgu3qBaeqCd2hsrTIrHv8e2f4gLuSLhtCSxmOXqtQFq2YMA3L/s320/WorldShattered.jpg" width="283" /></a></div>
S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-86548913275665223532013-02-21T21:17:00.003-08:002013-02-21T21:17:34.775-08:00BruisersHey folks,<br />
<br />
Just a quick drop-off. Here's a comp of 2 quickies I did. Each one is about 2 hours-ish, I think. Time lapse of both is imminent. Going for a more cartoon-y style. Maybe in the Borderlands school of design? Hope ya' like 'em!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFroxnKpXXcztdHa3yHsdUxepD7xeVkZcUOzaLjgCwSjXhYmjfdg9mFoZDaXI2ILinrGFEmSePATTiRyVYslnYUeEm7O-JVjCcFd21581PpnnCkwnaTA13KZm7gujtvpKrIp9uCod9b2hL/s1600/GolemComp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFroxnKpXXcztdHa3yHsdUxepD7xeVkZcUOzaLjgCwSjXhYmjfdg9mFoZDaXI2ILinrGFEmSePATTiRyVYslnYUeEm7O-JVjCcFd21581PpnnCkwnaTA13KZm7gujtvpKrIp9uCod9b2hL/s320/GolemComp.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-38148489720590507992013-02-09T22:48:00.002-08:002013-02-09T22:48:17.592-08:00Elise the Spider Queen, a railship, and a little rant on female character design<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
So, it's been a while since I've posted anything, and a lot of that has to do with my current schedule being a little hectic. At any rate I have 2 new pieces for your faces.</div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
This first piece is a drawing I did inspired by China Mieville's <i>Rail Sea</i>, which I'm enjoying greatly. I like the idea that a train (something that is by nature on a set path incapable of travelling where there no one has gone before) can become a vessel for exploration and for rediscovery. I've put out a very small run of CMYK screenprints (about 10.5"x 15", page size is about 13.5"x17.5") of this piece. If you want one you can always contact me and I'll see if I can work out shipping one to you. Up in the screenprinting studio there's a beautiful view of Montreal, and at the time that I work you often get this incredible light bloom hitting the top of the buildings across the street on Sr. Cats, so I wanted to emulate a bit of that with the lighting in this one.</div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-6mkFaWmLbcyBg_7Zv5TNf9X_HitUzAHWf29TW0dTpU7JUm1tfJ8KhLFloPDE7Y921SbFn40BpgAd9CvUYMwqDrhaTiTGrnBC-_7WcjFEaQfUmQisVIWNYa6pEC2VzbTcs7rA6dmXm2LB/s1600/RailShip1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-6mkFaWmLbcyBg_7Zv5TNf9X_HitUzAHWf29TW0dTpU7JUm1tfJ8KhLFloPDE7Y921SbFn40BpgAd9CvUYMwqDrhaTiTGrnBC-_7WcjFEaQfUmQisVIWNYa6pEC2VzbTcs7rA6dmXm2LB/s320/RailShip1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
This other piece is done for <a href="http://na.leagueoflegends.com/news/preseason-three-digi-art-throwdown-contest">this contest</a> for League of Legends, which I occasionally play. The idea was to portray any of the game's characters preparing for the upcoming season. I picked Elise the Spider Queen, as I play her fairly frequently, laying her new brood of spider underlings. Now, I feel like I need to address something as a disclaimer: this is not my character design. Now, League of Legends has some excellent artists behind it, and there are some truly beautiful designs at play in that game, but there's one thing that they have to improve on: portrayal of female characters. Now, I've, for the most part, imitated for the purpose of the competition, Elise's impractical and absurd outfit, so you can see what I mean when I say that there's some room for improvement. In all media, characters tend to display unreasonable standards of figure and attractiveness and, for me, I don't have such a problem with it. If you're creating larger-than-life fictional characters, why not make them attractive? But there is a slight problem I have with the particular trend, in video games (and in fantasy video games in particular) of clothing female characters in the smallest semblances of fabric imaginable. I felt I needed to get that out there along with this piece. I'm proud of the work I did on this piece, and I hope I win, but I want to make it clear that my own character designs I hope never to resort to the metal-bikini stereotype so prevalent in fantasy. Anyway, here's Elise, hope you like it.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUbpJC8fBtaXDyZqb6qNXukOQxznEgmhbVPbi9MH-qycYSfubOKNBVylBw_-5aN6lzB1f4JjL4ZgjK5DeSFjdsbVoka2eaPF-bLVZz1zeqAs2oY2Su0LuhpA_bnGHIS0Zw-B2HyazxfPNe/s1600/EliseLaysHerBrood%2528LowRes%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUbpJC8fBtaXDyZqb6qNXukOQxznEgmhbVPbi9MH-qycYSfubOKNBVylBw_-5aN6lzB1f4JjL4ZgjK5DeSFjdsbVoka2eaPF-bLVZz1zeqAs2oY2Su0LuhpA_bnGHIS0Zw-B2HyazxfPNe/s320/EliseLaysHerBrood%2528LowRes%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-85263419613480938042012-11-25T22:16:00.001-08:002012-11-25T22:16:20.000-08:00Koi Fizz Time LapseHey folks, just dropping this little number off. I was time lapsing the Koi Fizz piece's process so that I could do it up to look just like the League of Legends art spotlights. Here's the piece, for your personal enjoyment/fun:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/OaANcLHsp6o" width="560"></iframe></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Hope ya' like it.</div>
S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-9696829781657290742012-11-21T11:20:00.000-08:002012-11-21T11:20:02.145-08:00Graham Stark: PlaneswalkerHey guys, just dropping this off. I did this in a caffeine fueled binge last night as an art challenge for <a href="http://desertbus.org/">Desert Bus</a>. The challenge was to portray comedian from Loading Ready Run, Graham Stark, as a planeswalker in Magic: The Gathering.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEireP_KiFnJDF6cM9srvULac8v28u8FveiI3oSz1XcwnjnkiFAteyBmjkK9H-fXW8BB3dwtw5dgyInGHuwVTpMC8FIRKIHgPCyQvvx_KnT06ghAdMTmOYP0JPw_0s_RPvyCY3GeooB6S6q7/s1600/GStark_Planeswalker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEireP_KiFnJDF6cM9srvULac8v28u8FveiI3oSz1XcwnjnkiFAteyBmjkK9H-fXW8BB3dwtw5dgyInGHuwVTpMC8FIRKIHgPCyQvvx_KnT06ghAdMTmOYP0JPw_0s_RPvyCY3GeooB6S6q7/s320/GStark_Planeswalker.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I ended up winning the art challenge, which would have netted me my second prize from Desert Bus' list of amazing things to give away. Instead I decided to gift the item back to Graham Stark himself, who I feel could better appreciate the Magic: The Gathering themed prize.</div>
S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-21688815696558312152012-11-19T21:13:00.002-08:002012-11-19T21:13:45.485-08:00Sketch DumpHey folks,<br />
<br />
I'm back yet again this week (what is this some parallel world where Simon posts frequently?) with some stuff. I forgot to mention how awesome NYCC was. Got to see some really awesome stuff and meet some really awesome people, including someone whom I consider one of my personal heroes, <a href="https://twitter.com/mikeyface">Mikey Neumann</a>. I've applied to a few places to see if they want a piece of me, art-wise, but I've heard nothing back, yet.<br />
<br />
Second on my list of things to say and do... DESERT BUS. Okay, so every year I get drawn into watching this charity telethon. It's for about a week straight, with a group of sketch comics playing the world's most boring video game and generally also being hilarious. They raise money for Child's Play (they've raised over a million dollars total over the last 6 years of doing this event). It's hard to describe exactly what makes Desert Bus so addictive, but it's like being part of a big happy family while you're watching it. The chat as well as the large cast of characters on screen weave a community complete with it's own lexicon of memes. Plus, you can win sweet stuff (I personally won a sweet Chrono Trigger bundle which I am awaiting with much excitement). You can check out the insanity yourself <a href="http://desertbus.org/">here.</a> Desert Bus usually brings my productivity to a screeching halt, though this week it's actually been really good for my drawing, since all I seem to do is draw and watch Desert Bus. It's how I managed to do Koi Fizz in only about 2 days of on/off work. I've also, over the last month or so, done a lot of quicker stuff just for fun. Here's a bunch of that stuff...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI_9NwXj6qqTPg9O2j2FsKUEjxDogfx9wpC0UKuzsD4Bj-ECw8c-FxOSDOULnlQAdRUWBc1aIogwbgu7xccZKmqetONWYJ9smhNlPnz8avrWd3fZeYUA6XcXyMpYpFEpZymCF-8gQtnS2M/s1600/Mech-armed+Minions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI_9NwXj6qqTPg9O2j2FsKUEjxDogfx9wpC0UKuzsD4Bj-ECw8c-FxOSDOULnlQAdRUWBc1aIogwbgu7xccZKmqetONWYJ9smhNlPnz8avrWd3fZeYUA6XcXyMpYpFEpZymCF-8gQtnS2M/s320/Mech-armed+Minions.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsTRt1UvkMFLXV47_tNQANv2iZqmkVeE6DlhA2ZIsLiYo5OyhF_AUZiH9mtTe6A83YJTrrQ5tkpiLgTQOV2iYqHdjx1CzJZc-VfR0gAiNA2xDK7q5bnrxlQsmh9skc0Zu28004DR2dXss2/s1600/DreadbotVariants.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsTRt1UvkMFLXV47_tNQANv2iZqmkVeE6DlhA2ZIsLiYo5OyhF_AUZiH9mtTe6A83YJTrrQ5tkpiLgTQOV2iYqHdjx1CzJZc-VfR0gAiNA2xDK7q5bnrxlQsmh9skc0Zu28004DR2dXss2/s320/DreadbotVariants.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGwP5ttmRxY3SjVL-1E4IvRTc0UfnhGJWFhMsa2IamK5jsAicU-04DCZ5-WwTU2dkNXz0MWaJsQwDPw-7-RnL54G33RoPy4oNvysMfkHws7YpjF8iPYnFXsPaPywYVrDiILE2ymEhvsc2J/s1600/InfiltrationSketches.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="96" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGwP5ttmRxY3SjVL-1E4IvRTc0UfnhGJWFhMsa2IamK5jsAicU-04DCZ5-WwTU2dkNXz0MWaJsQwDPw-7-RnL54G33RoPy4oNvysMfkHws7YpjF8iPYnFXsPaPywYVrDiILE2ymEhvsc2J/s320/InfiltrationSketches.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk9MKdNi4DbSTXJNuSgPJoxr_437yiVglCX3SbVp2xPlNpICOwEZOVvEvo3fV1JFhykBTimauqygF6y6btyp6dOLBAJQNsmSLVNiWS9UH931YD2k3y-MLfQks2zJjdYF64t_ssvP8Zd9DG/s1600/Princess.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk9MKdNi4DbSTXJNuSgPJoxr_437yiVglCX3SbVp2xPlNpICOwEZOVvEvo3fV1JFhykBTimauqygF6y6btyp6dOLBAJQNsmSLVNiWS9UH931YD2k3y-MLfQks2zJjdYF64t_ssvP8Zd9DG/s320/Princess.jpg" width="245" /></a></div>
<br />S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-8631906410604370682012-11-18T13:14:00.002-08:002012-11-18T13:14:58.485-08:00Koi FizzHey folks,
It's been a while and I apologize for that. I'm a little distracted at the moment so I don't have a lot to write for the moment. I'll just drop this off. I made this as a potential alternative skin for the character, Fizz, from League of Legends. Wanted to do something dissimilar to all his current skins by doing an Asian-themed koi fish/koi dragon skin.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2_DnRdgeNb703_tbbqNCw7SBIVGSRDAOW7F37Gss-j3PGSqW8hHZYrrgwhP-zYfYUtzuNbIlJywdLB3ypxkP4Ah2ESIZtxleIVeoDFM2VHXMbAitUS2tMLN_NVVo8PSS_QrfD2XX24Qb4/s1600/KoiFizz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2_DnRdgeNb703_tbbqNCw7SBIVGSRDAOW7F37Gss-j3PGSqW8hHZYrrgwhP-zYfYUtzuNbIlJywdLB3ypxkP4Ah2ESIZtxleIVeoDFM2VHXMbAitUS2tMLN_NVVo8PSS_QrfD2XX24Qb4/s320/KoiFizz.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-17503148361850111582012-10-01T22:02:00.003-07:002012-10-01T22:06:10.747-07:00Time Lapse and The LoversFirst off, I forgot to post this when I actually uploaded it. I made a time lapse of twin arrow canyon. You can see at about 5:10 or 5:11 in the video, I actually fuck up and it's a mistake that I haven't corrected in the final image yet. I accidentally slice off a huge portion of the bow, which is why it's a little wimpy on the top half. I plan on correcting that soon.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/e0Wi1Oi34Xs" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
This second item is a drawing I've been meaning to do for a while. It's a concept I've wanted to do for a long time but couldn't figure out a composition I liked. I finally settled on this one. I wanted to evoke Kinoku Y. Craft's type of floaty, surreal-feeling fantasy, within my own style. I used this piece to explore fabric and textiles in a way I hadn't thought of doing before. I hope that comes through and looks okay. Cheers.
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUEq2AfVKHB57PHIC_gFLUhuGvThUOJPWmP2IptTjXuY5ByYTzlc6tP1PdZIAPcNCEM3J_gE1ecMCFhDjzslO_BUPwARtSJGLCbrP8Aq3mkSlH2vNuQZEjfUo_vCxXHIUw9kB30vN4knww/s1600/The+Lovers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUEq2AfVKHB57PHIC_gFLUhuGvThUOJPWmP2IptTjXuY5ByYTzlc6tP1PdZIAPcNCEM3J_gE1ecMCFhDjzslO_BUPwARtSJGLCbrP8Aq3mkSlH2vNuQZEjfUo_vCxXHIUw9kB30vN4knww/s320/The+Lovers.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Next weekend (Oct. 11-14) I'm headed down to New York to hit up ComicCon. I've never been to a Con before and I'm pretty pumped. Among other things (like potentially meeting Yoshitaka Amano), I plan on peddling my portfolio to companies to see if anyone may have need of a fantasy illustrator of my talents. We'll see, wish me luck.</div>
S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-40208300279939395872012-09-15T14:00:00.001-07:002012-09-15T14:01:53.959-07:00Twin Arrow CanyonSo it's official, I've switched to PC. With that I've also upgraded to using CS6. I really like the design and feel of CS6, but I get a little annoyed with the way that the brush panels are laid out. In CS4, my Brush Presets and my brush options were part of the same panel, and I could just select which I wanted with one click. Now, my presets are all in one window, and any time I need to tweak a brush's settings, I have to open a whole new menu. I suppose it's motivation for me to have my preset panel more robust, but it's something I'm going to have to get used to, for sure.<br />
<br />
My new computer is really working out in terms of making art. My old Macbook Pro is now in such a state of disrepair that it will no longer start up. It's going in for repairs on Tuesday. But the beast I've build has enough RAM to run PSCS6 with tonnes of processing power to spare. So what am I doing with that? I've begun time lapsing my processes. The piece you're seeing below is the first piece I've time lapsed. You'll get to see it eventually, when I've got some decent editing software to work with. Until then...<br />
<br />
This is a piece that came out of a doodle I did when I was visiting my family in Toronto, recently. The character is based on a character in game I ran on and off for a couple years, a gnoll by the name of "Grerr", whose ability two simultaneously shoot two arrows with a degree of proficiency was the bane of many a monster I had intended to be more challenging. Anyway, here it is. I've been really heavily influenced recently by the splash art for "League of Legends" characters so if you're familiar with that you should be able to see some of the style coming through there.
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt54RnV8qfPmsEbEDlHkfElaMvRG0O-6YfVjCfEtrNoqtQPY2nLCFxjgnW4a1mR3IawFOsn6jeSJtvlqj5uW_5jsTMDCE7E5lhJrrwBzX-6xxJ9_4K-GITbOXr581wef4Y7jQGobi1TwI9/s1600/Gnoll-Splash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt54RnV8qfPmsEbEDlHkfElaMvRG0O-6YfVjCfEtrNoqtQPY2nLCFxjgnW4a1mR3IawFOsn6jeSJtvlqj5uW_5jsTMDCE7E5lhJrrwBzX-6xxJ9_4K-GITbOXr581wef4Y7jQGobi1TwI9/s320/Gnoll-Splash.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-493303831571701502012-08-11T13:49:00.000-07:002012-08-11T13:49:53.856-07:00D&D Art Test: Round 2So, back in late april/early may I did a piece that I submitted for approval to Wizards of the Coasts' D&D art test for 5th edition. Artists were given 1 of 3 briefs to work off of, and could submit to one, two or all three of them at any point. I already did #3, but I thought I'd do #1 as well, as a challenge. The challenge was, given two examples of orc-like humanoid creatures, you had to create either the tribe cook or the tribe shaman. I did the shaman, obviously. I knew there would be a lot of septum piercings and bones everywhere and I wanted to do something kind of unique, so I thought: what kind of body piercing or sacred mutilations might a <i>really</i> brutal tribe have. I decided, because I had already liked the concept of the mouth being sewn together, that I would also have it that shamans have double-piercings which stretch their lower eyelids by having them attached to their cheekbones. I think it turned out pretty cool. Let me know what ya' think.
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicNY1o9t6eWS2ZjPxMKjN-R2N5OFFwPMNxnmdPX1xVbdB72yVuI0VkjTniwZbv12Dk59nYf7WUUkIq2P2u91ZDY3WEb5tktImtFqEk2TtlRpS_CutLKFSih09ya25UjHbbLRfo1vunfe3l/s1600/D&DArtTest1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicNY1o9t6eWS2ZjPxMKjN-R2N5OFFwPMNxnmdPX1xVbdB72yVuI0VkjTniwZbv12Dk59nYf7WUUkIq2P2u91ZDY3WEb5tktImtFqEk2TtlRpS_CutLKFSih09ya25UjHbbLRfo1vunfe3l/s320/D&DArtTest1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-10504918105935531462012-07-14T14:55:00.001-07:002012-07-14T14:55:09.869-07:00Skirmish at DawnHere's a little piece I've been working on and off for the last little while. Working night shift is not quite as good for my drawing habits as I had hoped it might be. Anyway, this is a piece based off of Naomi Novik's universe in her series of books under the <i>Temeraire</i> title. The series is a historical fantasy set during the Napoleonic war, only there are air forces which employ the service of dragons. It's an awesome series, if fantasy is your thing you should check it out. I didn't want to descend to heavily into the realm of fan art, so none of the actual characters from the books are featured in the piece. The dragon in the forefront is a breed known as the "Yellow Reaper", other than that, it's meant to be rather vague what breeds of dragon are in the background, or even which are English or French. I had a lot of fun with this piece, but it's gotten tiring to work on, so I'm taking a break from it, for a little while. Enjoy...<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0jzoFyBSg5kuLFKLR7SFyvXVBUvVl8nEkc1PQnliJ40IyGAev23oI_BWP31O6gBcTZbkKpg1_2hzJLlZFi3PTQwy9m7QiwOO6UuV2lMM2AaZze1UOQHV3XlnqqeqeJDN9uh8G7fwbBiFy/s1600/Skirmish+At+Dawn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0jzoFyBSg5kuLFKLR7SFyvXVBUvVl8nEkc1PQnliJ40IyGAev23oI_BWP31O6gBcTZbkKpg1_2hzJLlZFi3PTQwy9m7QiwOO6UuV2lMM2AaZze1UOQHV3XlnqqeqeJDN9uh8G7fwbBiFy/s320/Skirmish+At+Dawn.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-4436831810879592832012-06-03T08:50:00.000-07:002012-06-03T08:50:57.361-07:00SummoningHere my latest piece, I did just for fun. Went all the way from a doodle in my sketchbook to this piece. It's likely I'll go back in and fix the background, which is a little wonky and muddy at the moment, but I'm reasonably happy with the character and the root-beast.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhHQNrrv7wLfI3DkOFia-Rp_MHRgYYK80dr0IKXbFbZ933Wat5Ti-zEr7La9hfyZxzDQEO2CUkshSt1UHk3o9ncOYULMRPO9viIitKylGM1mYnYjsZ72MSxCDBJi6k1a6KhNRy9LyJM6SS/s1600/Summoning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="310" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhHQNrrv7wLfI3DkOFia-Rp_MHRgYYK80dr0IKXbFbZ933Wat5Ti-zEr7La9hfyZxzDQEO2CUkshSt1UHk3o9ncOYULMRPO9viIitKylGM1mYnYjsZ72MSxCDBJi6k1a6KhNRy9LyJM6SS/s320/Summoning.jpg" /></a></div>S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-30406226474486956692012-05-27T14:41:00.003-07:002012-05-27T14:42:49.470-07:00Bubblegum DerpsIt's been a long time since I did a Creature of the Week round. The topic this week was to create a creature who will explode as a defense mechanism for the rest of it's species. The round was called cute, fuzzy bombs. I decided to create these super derpy creatures that I had sketched while at work the other day. Total time on this piece: about 4 hours. Here's the description I gave for the creature.<br />
<br />
<i>There are few species quite as oblivious as the Bubblegum Blast-Rat. Breeding at a rate of approximately 100 new Blast-rats a month, per-member of the horde sounds like a recipe for disaster... and it is, but not in the way one would think. See the Blast-Rat is so oblivious of it's surrounding, that, upon seeing a predator the Blast-Rat will have a surge of adrenaline, which, unfortunately for it, it is highly allergic to. The allergic reaction trigger the massive quantities of phosphorous in the Blast-Rat's diet to ignite, cause the Blast-Rat to explode (creating a distinct popping sound). Often this may cause a chain reaction of Blast-Rats becoming startled enough to explode. An exploded Blast-Rat will usually leave behind it's large, bushy tail which often float around like tumbleweed. They are collected by local artists as they create excellent brush-making material.
It is said that the prairies that house the Bubblegum Blast-Rats are simultaneously the most fertile and least profitable place to build farms, often having ones crops blasted to smitherines right before harvest. It is said that the Bay farming family has lived on those prairies for a century. Their youngest son Michael taking inspiration from the Bubblegum Blast-Rats and going on to have a lucrative if mediocre film career.
</i>
<br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIf9OIUPB4UH2LX5-RT4ne4CmQpkUbSGXLu1rphswXG_qOKx2AhQ5884lOKJXJI7cCHPbsd4mrjTHZXlfA7RWH8R1KVjplbINR3S9XxGd8CDlyhi2WCP9P0BrFa9vMJbIGXuHXF3HQmqjJ/s1600/COW261_Bubblegum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIf9OIUPB4UH2LX5-RT4ne4CmQpkUbSGXLu1rphswXG_qOKx2AhQ5884lOKJXJI7cCHPbsd4mrjTHZXlfA7RWH8R1KVjplbINR3S9XxGd8CDlyhi2WCP9P0BrFa9vMJbIGXuHXF3HQmqjJ/s320/COW261_Bubblegum.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-36833354103812331162012-05-02T19:47:00.003-07:002012-05-02T19:47:47.564-07:00D&D Art Test: Culture - SoldierHey folks. Here's a new piece, done for the WotC D&D Art test. You can find the details <a href="http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Feature.aspx?x=dnd/feature/dndarttest">here</a>. This piece was done for the 3rd challenge: Culture. The challenge was to create a soldier or town guard based on the examples given in the brief.
Here's the artist statement I wrote to go along with the piece:
<i>The two full-colour characters shown as examples evoked a sense of both Russian and East Asian influences, but contained a lot of calls to an Inuit sort of sensibility. For a soldier within that culture, I thought something taking cues from Mongolian style armor might nicely tie the above influences together into something somewhat militaristic. When it came to the weapon I went through a lot of iterations with the character holding a various pole-arms and both curved and straight swords. I ended up feeling like this kind of great-club fit with the sensibilities of the rest of the design. I wanted a strong sense that the warrior culture was about physical might, and intimidation, so the war-mask paired with a big, heavy and blunt weapon felt right to me. I really got into the idea that masks might play an important role in the cultural identity of these people. With the more shaman-like character you get a much more serene effect. Here I wanted to have something that might call back to the masks on the armor of samurai, but still play within the confines of the pre-established design, so I attempted to take the visual cues from the mask of the shaman character and make more complex, gargoyle-like masks that might be seen as more demon-like and give a more spiritual side to the warrior culture. I've included a couple of examples of war-masks just to get a better sense of that side of things. I figured maybe in the warrior hierarchy, different levels of complexity in your mask, different patterns of war-paint might indicate rank. The simpler, less intimidating mask going to the low-ranking soldier, the ones with all the bells and whistles (and teeth) going to the officers.</i>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbTAOvFpWNHnpic35pSvLCu3GoFGxnsj6wMpcgx4PFZepG8W4QsoEvWt-ehXbLZ2Ml4PrTLm6PP1Nr8ZtuApw1ZIdoijRvxBOM_IVmA3tehyDv9K4iDIboBQj41sSdT3kPLOx8QetmKaPC/s1600/D%2526DArtTest_Culture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="282" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbTAOvFpWNHnpic35pSvLCu3GoFGxnsj6wMpcgx4PFZepG8W4QsoEvWt-ehXbLZ2Ml4PrTLm6PP1Nr8ZtuApw1ZIdoijRvxBOM_IVmA3tehyDv9K4iDIboBQj41sSdT3kPLOx8QetmKaPC/s320/D%2526DArtTest_Culture.jpg" /></a></div>S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-86825201304222071182012-04-08T11:33:00.004-07:002012-04-08T11:51:49.503-07:00Work dump from the last month or soWebsite planning has been delayed because... well... for the most part we've kinda forgotten about it. Also I can guarantee that Tavish and Natalie probably don't really have the time to worry about doing that kinda thing for me right now. It'll have to wait for this summer, which is approaching fast, so no worries.<br /><br />Here's a couple of pieces from the last little while, though I've been really lazy with my workflow lately...<br /><br />This is a piece I did for Character of the Week over on conceptart.org. They were doing "Dragon Riders", and having just finished the first of the "In His Majesty's Service" books, I wanted in. Artists in Character of the Week have a tendency towards going for badass rather than giving any of their characters a sense of personality or chemistry, so I wanted to approach it by giving the kid and his dragon a bit of a dog-owner type of relationship. Obviously <span style="font-style:italic;">How to Train Your Dragon</span> was a pretty big influence on the design.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg_fDgPrD-MoBQCrDp4FDvlf42RRLUi_Yzy2h2wdwFbmTqtRChWW0M-hED6rjSORbewL5-A0Yk5oI9EKgkYOOJEhI7-Ijit1Pb1tAct3loODwnzQ9gfe_0LobYo54N9JEG_rFioeUmhEXI/s1600/ChOW_DragonRider.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 197px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg_fDgPrD-MoBQCrDp4FDvlf42RRLUi_Yzy2h2wdwFbmTqtRChWW0M-hED6rjSORbewL5-A0Yk5oI9EKgkYOOJEhI7-Ijit1Pb1tAct3loODwnzQ9gfe_0LobYo54N9JEG_rFioeUmhEXI/s320/ChOW_DragonRider.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729101079293092466" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI5DNjULcWTkjvF5S1M6CaeSl-1FVLBWltPgo0It35xzzKLGuxRDiUqymQHzjautJNBq_jOssd3Szbx1N1ICOKkW-7FZPPDugZAwr9T7ygP3pgBQb9ZDzYn4EfQoRKljDInMPKFi4MVFUa/s1600/ChOW_DragonRiderChaSheet.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 306px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI5DNjULcWTkjvF5S1M6CaeSl-1FVLBWltPgo0It35xzzKLGuxRDiUqymQHzjautJNBq_jOssd3Szbx1N1ICOKkW-7FZPPDugZAwr9T7ygP3pgBQb9ZDzYn4EfQoRKljDInMPKFi4MVFUa/s320/ChOW_DragonRiderChaSheet.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729101551689344850" /></a><br /><br />This is an image from a set of creature design projects I've been working on over the course of the last 8 months or so. What started out as a Brynn Metheney-style exploration of an ash-based wasteland, turned into an exploration of creature design and cybermutation. This came from a set of images that I sub-titled "Assemblages". The top row of athropods are all created from a set of insectoid parts, then thrown together and mirrored in illustrator to give me some basic creatures to work with. The second row is taking the initial creatures and splicing top and bottom halves together. The third row is the same, only splicing left and right halves together. The fourth and fifth row are then taking the second and third rows, and splicing them either horizontally or vertically (depending on which way they had not yet been spliced). It's one of a few different pieces I'm doing, based around exploring digital media and it's implications in drawing. I'm pretty happy with the result. This piece was printed on rice paper, and will be chin colléd onto stone-henge individually.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqv_kYO4O0XWqq3etm1ba02zOqOoytYZCysHtliJbeipV-l5RUawncRk4Rn-3tV1nRp9nNLTdL6prJ4dKWHih9IpDw6P82a2t1ZUo-zBnIWqwCoJYqxXi7_7S57nIvnphE9aHiWV8tFiVG/s1600/DisplayAssemblage1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 182px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqv_kYO4O0XWqq3etm1ba02zOqOoytYZCysHtliJbeipV-l5RUawncRk4Rn-3tV1nRp9nNLTdL6prJ4dKWHih9IpDw6P82a2t1ZUo-zBnIWqwCoJYqxXi7_7S57nIvnphE9aHiWV8tFiVG/s320/DisplayAssemblage1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729101558205196530" /></a><br /><br />Finally. I submitted a couple of designs to Threadless' shirt design competition-whatever-thing. It was a way for me to explore doing a little more graphic, line-based pieces, while giving me the potential to make a little money on the side. Neither of these designs ended up getting made, but I had fun enough with them, so hey, I guess that's alright. Here they are both as they were advertised on the site, and just the images alone.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT-x_UA2ac8xWE_RIOSy8JcZRThVgr_KtJTQ8MPqs9o9pRnxx7qILp3hwdofTpuv-RUaRYHIaHnyuY64KTcchHFGq9TBAHYyhrCOKEsDdtcS_6ezxKjjkzFBksgATTaDbZO07YiI0Bd79G/s1600/I%2527ll-Protect-You-Buddy_Template.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 256px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT-x_UA2ac8xWE_RIOSy8JcZRThVgr_KtJTQ8MPqs9o9pRnxx7qILp3hwdofTpuv-RUaRYHIaHnyuY64KTcchHFGq9TBAHYyhrCOKEsDdtcS_6ezxKjjkzFBksgATTaDbZO07YiI0Bd79G/s320/I%2527ll-Protect-You-Buddy_Template.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729101573617260994" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3zneDwUuvpC_i8lyw1gHE0eIpU-F2YS-8sc-cqkl22_OVON2eMD0jFXrBeIlrToV_jWQOzsCsGgHZCptigBBwyzViy6nfYkGmDhlcDD0fT8vuVpLqDH6bUmspt9aHOtRl5w4ZA-RYvlqz/s1600/I%2527ll-Protect-You-Buddy_LowRes.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 308px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3zneDwUuvpC_i8lyw1gHE0eIpU-F2YS-8sc-cqkl22_OVON2eMD0jFXrBeIlrToV_jWQOzsCsGgHZCptigBBwyzViy6nfYkGmDhlcDD0fT8vuVpLqDH6bUmspt9aHOtRl5w4ZA-RYvlqz/s320/I%2527ll-Protect-You-Buddy_LowRes.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729104410562139538" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCmUQrocDSfQa3fr93bNqBahPSmbFFU5Ao5qDeIdYrF8qtx5Z8_QOFjxilqjLk8oxWGwvkPITbb6Fa73ZnJ97ypM-ONl7SNRAs1D1UhD8WbKMyzc66gGkQdpYjzdkUmCwsCylASwIBp-Uj/s1600/A-Steamy-Encounter_Template.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 256px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCmUQrocDSfQa3fr93bNqBahPSmbFFU5Ao5qDeIdYrF8qtx5Z8_QOFjxilqjLk8oxWGwvkPITbb6Fa73ZnJ97ypM-ONl7SNRAs1D1UhD8WbKMyzc66gGkQdpYjzdkUmCwsCylASwIBp-Uj/s320/A-Steamy-Encounter_Template.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729101562625441058" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs4wJg9VB4f5ILTcFEQHvF-iMxaZ_BMg7SHSzIcLq62ScQZeVexOcolvzQWGmcZ8N25rC0Pj2OqBRwAqf6KHpx0WkwPujDKtmpd7gh3S3NYbzSmVMDjD6pv_03-7w2cxJTmaOOM2e-Pw6j/s1600/ASteamyEncounterLowRes.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 238px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs4wJg9VB4f5ILTcFEQHvF-iMxaZ_BMg7SHSzIcLq62ScQZeVexOcolvzQWGmcZ8N25rC0Pj2OqBRwAqf6KHpx0WkwPujDKtmpd7gh3S3NYbzSmVMDjD6pv_03-7w2cxJTmaOOM2e-Pw6j/s320/ASteamyEncounterLowRes.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729104403802835474" /></a>S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-29824922913575639712012-02-29T21:09:00.003-08:002012-03-01T19:31:43.445-08:00I'll Protect You, BuddyHey guys. I just submitted a design to Threadless. It looks like <a href="http://www.threadless.com/sharedesign/406216/I_ll_Protect_You_Buddy">This</a>. It's still pending approval, but if it gets accepted, I'll let you guys know. If it does, though, help me get it voted in! In the meantime, would you wear a shirt like that? Let me know...<br /><br />EDIT: Shirt design now up for scoring! Please vote, if you can.S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-46703489395691589462012-02-23T10:21:00.008-08:002012-02-23T10:26:25.360-08:00Fungus BeastHey all. Here's my latest piece, the mycocanth. I'm pretty happy with the turnout, but I've been told the image comes off as kind of flat. Ah well. Anyway, it was for Creature of the Week, round 249: fungal beast. The creature cultivates the large fungi on it's back and legs which allow it to grow its other fungi types (the small blue clusters and the protruding phallic mushrooms), which function as it's reproductive organs. I still have to work on my enviros quite a bit. I'm going to try and tackle some characters and enviros in the next little while, if I can find time in between that, my print classes, my paintings, my work-intensive cybermutation project, and any free time I have... Oh, and Mass Effect 3 is coming out soon? Oh good, I'll have no time to do any of that.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO3WknFPfXyD5Zd1bwTqFUhCqLKrKF0h_xzwl9whthf29ZVwMPCuemaxQs6WgcleoSeZ_38KQ0JK2LLJj0MTH_OPWbNcIyvUPUk-olR9YIYZPGA2lU4fX6jrbrWJOO98V3RNKTa1JotZcY/s1600/COW249_FungalBeast.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 310px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO3WknFPfXyD5Zd1bwTqFUhCqLKrKF0h_xzwl9whthf29ZVwMPCuemaxQs6WgcleoSeZ_38KQ0JK2LLJj0MTH_OPWbNcIyvUPUk-olR9YIYZPGA2lU4fX6jrbrWJOO98V3RNKTa1JotZcY/s320/COW249_FungalBeast.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5712399137004042690" /></a>S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-26548543953774206072012-02-15T21:38:00.000-08:002012-02-15T21:50:42.355-08:00Yes, I am still alive and doing things...Hello world.<br />God it's been a long time since I've updated this thing. Here's the deal:<br />I've been super busy with my studio classes. It's left me very little time and even less motivation to get a whole lot of digital painting done. I had a creature design project on the go for a while, called The Ashlands, which was based around creating a pseudo-museological exhibit based around a set of invented flora and fauna (in a similar vein to Brynn Metheney's <a href="http://www.themoraeriver.com/">Morae River</a> and current project, <a href="http://www.theredvalley.com/">The Red Valley</a>). Now, being in a highly concept-heavy art school, illustration-type work is very hard to get away with, and like many of my projects for which I set out with noble intentions of blending creature design and "high art", I ended up changing directions. I <span style="font-style:italic;">am</span> still doing something in the vein of creature design, but it has taken an unexpected turn into the direction of cyber-mutation. The Ashlands may be picked up again at another time, but for now I'm abandoning it for a more conceptual-based commentary on my evolution from traditional to digital media.<br /><br />In other news, I'm going to try and get a new website up in the near future. It should have my digital and traditional work documented on it, so I'll keep you posted on that. The creation of that site will likely mean the death of May Contain Dragons as you know it, so enjoy this blog while it's around, it won't be for much longer...<br /><br />In the mean time, here are two pieces that are both quite old. These were originally intended for The Ashlands project, one for the Ashlands' harsh ash deserts, the other for the silt swamps that pock-mark the southern regions of the ash deserts. I'll post some more of my sketches from that project in the future. The Fithe (the phallic one) was done for the Freestyle Creature of the <br />Week round which happened in December, but was adapted for the project.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYOmD5wsUkXIfL0PbrR1Mr74vUl-OoAO1HXBiVpI5M4oUm9dgsFSmaFJc7SjeIIvDEiNiuGkmOwCEwInc5F0z2rpS4rIWX_q_Ub_QwSpYft5-C5VbazsqoBzt5D4HAI-hSji9YE-KJcU_h/s1600/GiantFitheAlone.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 220px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYOmD5wsUkXIfL0PbrR1Mr74vUl-OoAO1HXBiVpI5M4oUm9dgsFSmaFJc7SjeIIvDEiNiuGkmOwCEwInc5F0z2rpS4rIWX_q_Ub_QwSpYft5-C5VbazsqoBzt5D4HAI-hSji9YE-KJcU_h/s320/GiantFitheAlone.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709606651909691474" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJPYVDy7kb0XHWR23gkH2o68xKWbEx0113uBt6IhfGKWgvM7_1Swr_7y4i3C1YPaWcI65gs6Traqbx_WhNVh6CpfYw-5EK-2anBerSvAvZCK1L2CLPr8QoN-cVZaEz9mBOv_zz2-ZqFjHA/s1600/SiltWader%2528Full%2529.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 192px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJPYVDy7kb0XHWR23gkH2o68xKWbEx0113uBt6IhfGKWgvM7_1Swr_7y4i3C1YPaWcI65gs6Traqbx_WhNVh6CpfYw-5EK-2anBerSvAvZCK1L2CLPr8QoN-cVZaEz9mBOv_zz2-ZqFjHA/s320/SiltWader%2528Full%2529.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709606644855805170" /></a>S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-68228535594035712862011-11-30T18:04:00.000-08:002011-11-30T18:22:45.930-08:00Turkey-Bacon anyone?This week's COW was Clark's round for Thanksgiving (you weird Americans with your Thursday Thanksgiving in November), Turpiggen. The idea was that scientists spliced turkeys and pigs together to create some kind of ultimate thanksgiving meat-stravaganza.<br /><br />I have to admit that when it comes to moderating Creature of the Week, I feel like I have a responsibility to make sure that the activity's quality does not deteriorate in any way. Now, I feel Clark and I have done a pretty good job with COW lately. We've recently experienced a spike in participation that's been quite nice. But, I always like to ensure that the level of quality of the winning entry is up to snuff. I'm a little ashamed to admit but I become kind of nervous when it's wednesday morning and I don't see any entries that I consider to be of my arbitrarily assigned "winner's quality". When I'm afraid right off the bat that this might happen, or if I feel there might not be few entries, I always make sure to try and get one in. It sounds weird or even like I'm a dick, but I kind of put myself in there as a fail-safe, at least for myself. I'm attempting to ensure that each round has at least one entry of decent quality. It sounds arrogant, but I know I'm not <span style="font-style:italic;">bad</span>, and in some cases I know I can do much better than what is being entered. It actually happened one time that doing this was the only thing preventing there being no entries of a "winning" level in the poll, that round was (maybe you can guess) round #207: The Healer... and you may be able to guess (or remember) what happened: I won that round. It may be a stupid goal, or unfair to less experienced artists, but I do care that very high quality art is being pulled out in Creature of the Week, it encourages other higher level artists to compete which is nice. Not because I like higher level artists and don't like lower level artists, but because COW is a learning experience, and the new artists have a much harder time learning how to do it right, it they don't have good examples of how to do it right, and if they aren't getting pointers from people who can do it right.<br /><br />...So in conclusion, this round I was afraid that there might not be a lot of work going into the poll, and I was worried that there may not be work of (what I consider to be) sufficient quality to shamelessly waltz into the Winners' Thread. So I busted out a sketch this weekend and threw this together in 2 hours this evening. For a piece that took a total of maybe 2 and a half hours, I think it turned out alright. Let me know what ya' think.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPpGAxvVN0F0xQklxUZgL8ha0S9Ieyn-bfm8xIinaFT4sr1mB1j76Z_f41LzZWoj0m1s1zwUCVwMqt_At_GSisrgA1RqGTco6cKNak7eHnVcDnsJPyuaO8c-re68E6aahxc4SZui2mZ9_u/s1600/COW238_Turpiggen.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 247px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPpGAxvVN0F0xQklxUZgL8ha0S9Ieyn-bfm8xIinaFT4sr1mB1j76Z_f41LzZWoj0m1s1zwUCVwMqt_At_GSisrgA1RqGTco6cKNak7eHnVcDnsJPyuaO8c-re68E6aahxc4SZui2mZ9_u/s320/COW238_Turpiggen.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5680979663968020354" /></a>S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-21058623576475149712011-11-19T21:29:00.000-08:002011-11-19T21:32:59.067-08:00Another Name Game PieceHey guys. I'm a little busy watching the charity event <a href="http://desertbus.org/">Desert Bus</a> at the moment, but I'm busy drawing at the same time. In a few days you guys will get a couple of updates on a few of my new projects. In the mean time here's a little fan art piece I did of The Escapist Magazine's <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/namegame">Name Game</a> webcomic. It was about a 2 hour study on this one.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisNrcfMfAX2a-5O_Nrh28oo7s946xzcgmYf_jL7jSYE_PlP4wlzsr-3k_hqstUEi3jNsCg_tFNnKzCYk4Ct4iQgeDnuFi06cVQnyTNzsA-vEArV857RXL117cUMzi0xG3MaWnwexWGnRMN/s1600/NameGameJack.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 315px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisNrcfMfAX2a-5O_Nrh28oo7s946xzcgmYf_jL7jSYE_PlP4wlzsr-3k_hqstUEi3jNsCg_tFNnKzCYk4Ct4iQgeDnuFi06cVQnyTNzsA-vEArV857RXL117cUMzi0xG3MaWnwexWGnRMN/s320/NameGameJack.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5676946696158201090" /></a>S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7823847382972133672.post-82499026538771432152011-11-04T16:59:00.000-07:002011-11-04T17:05:40.233-07:00Dragon of the WastesHey guys. I've been busy with some art projects and with Dark Souls, lately. But I HAVE been working, dammit. I've scrapped a couple of awful sketches since my last piece, but I have something new for you today. Before I get to that, I'm proud to announce that my current project for drawing which will span the whole year will be based almost entirely in digital media. Once the project is complete I hope to have at least a small show for it, so I'll keep you posted on that. I will likely be starting up a sketchbook on ConceptArt.org to keep track of the work in that project as well as my personal work. I'll post a link when that's all ready.<br /><br />Here's my latest piece. Yay, dragons! This piece is a character from my ongoing (about 3 years now, holy shit) campaign I've been running with my weekly group. In that world there are a mere 8 dragons, but each is powerful, vain and sadistic in their own way. This is Affel (nicknamed "The Storm"), who rules over the Grey Wastes. Originally I had intended her to be a little darker and a little colder in palette, but I think this works anyways. The little guys with her are her drake minions.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN06UtQrK7j4hHSsRATRIBOtVR1EYQV-J7l5dsIEdIqdVtsTfmnIBKI5niVoB0YMnou_qd-eQFcCMFrYUecOAyyhcQiD0ndsIixAx9w7PJ88chY1zwvbjm-fs_Uad5yeb3LT3KDav3uJhF/s1600/Affel.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 279px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN06UtQrK7j4hHSsRATRIBOtVR1EYQV-J7l5dsIEdIqdVtsTfmnIBKI5niVoB0YMnou_qd-eQFcCMFrYUecOAyyhcQiD0ndsIixAx9w7PJ88chY1zwvbjm-fs_Uad5yeb3LT3KDav3uJhF/s320/Affel.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5671296132537615346" /></a>S Sweetmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08666745096063507219noreply@blogger.com0