Filed under: Uncategorized — Alex @ 7:53 pm Tuesday, July 7, 2009 —
Had a great time there. Made a lot of connections- those of you who find this site from my business cards, welcome!
I need to take care of some updating of this site, because for the last month I’ve only been able to update dynamic elements like this blog. No uploading new files, which means I can’t upload new images or alter any HTML-only pages. This means I need to switch to a new host.
To aid this effort, I’m taking commissions! Anyone interested, just contact me at alex@redbladestudios.com, describe your image, and I can give you a price.
The guidelines on the commissions page are a good reference, but my skills have expanded in some areas, such as digital coloring (cel-shading in particular), making those formats much more worth the money, while others (like hand-inking on paper), I’ve decided that while I can manage them, it takes much more effort, so I’d be charging more.
So, contact me! Let me know! I’m always available!
I’m putting together a run of t-shirts! This is officially the first merchandise available for Nightmares in the Dark, created and produced by Red Blade Studios!
Front:
Back:
Each shirt costs $20.00, plus tax, regardless of size. For this pre-order sale, I’m offering free shipping! This is 100% cotton, available in sizes from mens small to mens 3X-Large!
Orders will be collected for the next month, after which, if we have not exceeded our goal for production costs, all orders will be refunded. (I’ll be doing everything I can to see that doesn’t happen.) The faster we exceed the pre-order minimum of 25 orders, however, the sooner the shirts will be printed and shipped. (Please note that free-shipping will extend for the whole month, so even if we’ve met out goal, you get shipping free anyway!)
Please check back with us for updates on the goal. I’ll post every so often on how far we’ve come.
Filed under: Uncategorized — Alex @ 5:36 am Sunday, May 17, 2009 —
As you might notice, the site is currently having some problems. Most of it should be viewable, forgiving missing formatting and navigation. We’re working on having it all fixed as soon as possible, please stay with us and check back in a few days.
So, T-shirt? Any suggestions? I’m thinking of either taking the original black&white w/shadows, or doing a greyscale version of this. (Alternately, a more expensive option would be to try and do this full-color, but that carries some risks in the alignment.) One other idea I had was, if anyone liked on particular character enough, I might do just him or her in full-color. I did design these guys stand-alone, so I can pull any one of them aside onto their own image.
The other debate is whether to add the additional two planned characters I didn’t get time to design. (a gargoyle, and a gnoll. Both also jaegers in-universe.) I would also re-draw the hobgoblin (little guy on the right), as originally he was jumping/dodging the claw of the gargoyle, who was chasing him.
Filed under: Gallery Additions — Alex @ 8:33 pm Monday, February 2, 2009 —
Finished version of my school painting assignment. (might still tweak from here, but calling it a day for now.)
Also submitted this to the Society of Illustrators, there’s a student competition everyone in my class was recommended to submit for.
Also considering releasing this as a fitted wallpaper. (the original is something like 3 or 4 times as large, 10×16 at 300dpi, so I can fit a wide variety of sizes). Check back in a few days.
Here’s the near-final version of the demon sketch from below. Each variation was loosely based on a color scheme from other art I’ve found. Once I finish the class-assignment portion of the project, I plan to take whichever version I like best, and finish it out, with more detail, better highlighting, and magical lettering or runes on the armor. (ran out of time with this one..)
(this version is reduced, hit the link below for larger version!) (more…)
Filed under: Uncategorized — Alex @ 2:08 pm Thursday, January 15, 2009 —
One of my classes this semester is Digital Imaging for Print. Effectively, it’s a digital painting class, with an eye towards sales and hardcopy. (The teacher is the same woman who taught my Professional Practices class last year, so there’s some bleed-over.) My project is this demon-figure, doing it out-in-full as a painting. The goal is to create the image, then create variations using different color schemes, using references for what’s considered historic, what’s modern, and what could be the future trend.
Because Fantasy is pretty much limitless in terms of what’s ‘current’, everything carries connotations and flavors, I decided to limit myself down to just a specific frame of reference. The colors used for Demons.
The first is from D&D’s 3.5E monster manual, the second two are World of WarCraft wallpapers.
At any rate, I’ll be posting up more as I finish it.
Drawn from a photo of the newly-cast 11th Doctor. I decided his features, as I sketched, warranted an elven ear. (I’m trying to do a digital painting of a half-elf druid-type for WotC consumption. After the end of last semester and an exhausting holiday, getting back into the groove of artwork hasn’t been easy.) At any rate, I’m figuring this as a half-elf because I don’t do them often enough, but a muscular, barbarian-esque figure. (Although not a Barbarian as such. I was aiming for druid, but maybe the 4e Warden is a good guidepost.)
I recently picked up a couple of art books, in addition to the ones on my christmas list. One of note is Bold Visions: The Digital Painting Bible, by Gary Tonge. VERY nice book. The techniques and examples all keep things fast and light, but combined with a recursive step-process, they provide VERY nice results. (I’m feeling a lot better about handling scenery if I need to, now.) The painting I’m working on is supposed to serve as an example of my rendering skills at this moment, before I jump into my next semester, which includes a digital-painting class.
Done entirely with a black solid brush, with some white solid touchup, much like a brush-pen.