Dragon Magazine Issue #399

Recent Dragon magazine publications with BONUS process sketches!

You can see them on the site here:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4art/20110531

African Warrior something or other

Well this is new. Enjoy. The ref was a bunch of African tribes. I may post a reference page later if people are interested.

I see you

Oh hello. Fancy meeting you here.

Well, I'm not gonna lie. 2011 has been a pretty shitty year so far. What you see below is an important piece for me. It's the first scrap of finished work (outside of my day job) that I've done since my dad passed away in January. I just... haven't wanted to do anything for the past couple months. Even though I felt completely lazy and unproductive I just didn't have any inspiration at all and thus couldn't bring myself to touch pen to tablet. Downer, I know. BUT THEN THIS ART ORDER CHALLENGE CAME ALONG! And it was right up my alley (and nothing gets me moving like a competition).
So here's the results of the contest.
3/4 judges put me as their first choice which was awesome. It was still deemed a tie which kinda sucks (I'll never win one of these!), but what matters is that I got a pretty nice portfolio piece.

So most of you have seen the piece already so I thought I'd make my blog post extra special by posting my process sketches. What fun.

Shout outs to all those who gave me encouragement and constructive feedback especially: Josh Engle, Izzy Medrano, Nick Escasany, Martin Lutz and Max Song.

Girlies

NEW SKETCH THEATER:

Sketch Theatre » Blog Archive » Kate Laird 02

And....

A recently released painting for Dungeon Magazine:

Lovecraft Book

Hey ya'll. Got another publication. Remember my Lovecraft creature? The little creepy rat man I did around halloween? Yeah well he's in a book now. On the back cover no less! And apparently in the top 5! So yay. Buy it now! Only for a limited time!

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1938730

Still waiting on my next sketch theater. Will post when it's up.

Gettin Faymiss

Oh hey. It's been a while. Take comfort in the fact that I've been busy. This will be a post full of links! First off, I did a Sketch Theater! So cool. Look:


watch:
http://www.sketchtheatre.com/?p=5843

Next, I've been published! They made a book out of the Discover a Muse Artorder challenge top entries. Buy it!
Czech it out:

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1780018

They're going to make one out of the Lovecraft challenge too so keep and eye out.

Finally, a press release! This is a link to an article about the game I'm currently working on (doing characters and such). There's a picture with a line up of some of my early concepts for the game. Cool!


article:
http://www.musicrow.com/2010/11/music-mastermind-intros-unique-online-recording-tool/


I recently got hired by Wizards of the Coast for freelance stuff. Looks like that Dungeons and Dragons pin up really payed off. I'll be having work in an upcoming Dungeon Magazine so I'll be posting work as soon as I have work to show.

Tis the season

Well I've done another Art Order challenge. It seems only competition gets me up and working outside of my day job these days. Speaking of my day job. I don't think I've mentioned it up in here. I'm working at a company called Music Mastermind doing character design. We're creating a multi-platform music making game (think garage band meets guitar hero). It should be pretty sweet.

So here's the challenge. We had to visually interpret a creature from a H.P Lovecraft story. I chose Brown Jenkin.

Brown Jenkin, Mason's familiar, is "a small white-fanged furry thing", "no larger than a good-sized rat", which for years haunts the witch house and Arkham in general, "nuzzl[ing] people curiously in the black hours before dawn". The creature is described:

Witnesses said it had long hair and the shape of a rat, but that its sharp-toothed, bearded face was evilly human while its paws were like tiny human hands. It took messages betwixt old Keziah and the devil, and was nursed on the witch's blood, which it sucked like a vampire. Its voice was a kind of loathsome titter, and it could speak all languages.

He's a bit rough because I didn't have a whole lot of time for him. I might get back to him before the month is out.

Happy Halloween!!