30 YEAR ANNIVERSARY ILLO!! The Patriarch is Back!!

To celebrate the shared 30th anniversary of Warhammer 40, 000 and Tony Hough Illustration I've done a painted version of my most iconic and well-known 40K illo, The Genestealer Patriarch on his throne.

 

This digital painting was created using Photoshop CS6 mostly using a Microsoft Surface Pro4 tablet, which is a delight to paint on!!

(Sorry to disappoint, but due to IP considerations, no prints will be available.....this is just for nostalgic fun!!)

THE FORGOTTEN SPELL AND GATEKEEPER'S OATH POSTERS AND PRINTS

With the blessing of the author I am now releasing some of the illustrations I did for "The Forgotten Spell"  and "The Gatekeeper's Oath" as posters, prints, and on various goods!! Would make lovely Xmas presents!! 

  

                    You can find them here!

WESTWARD DYSTOPIA KICKSTARTER!!

Incredibly talented indie writer/developer Greek Winter Media have a Kickstarter in progress to fund a print version and E-book version of the marvellous Westward Dystopia interactive gamebook (as previously seen on the Android platform), for which I had the pleasure of doing the cover art.



 I wish Greek Winter Media every success with this project and with future releases. There are two more Road Less Travelled Gamebooks in the pipeline with covers by myself so stay tuned for more information!!

WESTWARD DYSTOPIA

Out Now! Westward Dystopia, from Greek Winter Media, which features cover artwork by me is now available as both an App and a book.
Westward Dystopia is a novel-length gamebook written by Jeffrey Dean and set in the wasteland of tomorrow . It is written at an adult or older teen level with post-apocalyptic western, horror, and science fiction themes.
"In this post-apocalyptic RPG adventure, the player fills the shoes of a restless wanderer in search of great mechanical relics from the past. Strange Wasteland dwellers, mutant hordes, mechanical monstrosities, and more await you as factions vie for power and loyalties are torn asunder! Nothing will ever be the same again in the Wasteland!"

This is the first of a series of "Road Less Travelled" gamebooks. The second, SPIRE ABLAZE is in production right now, also featuring cover art by myself: Here's a sneak peek!

This series is already getting great reviews, a must for Gamebook lovers everywhere!!

GATEKEEPER'S OATH Illustrations completed!

The Illustrations for book 2 of the Spellcaster Gamebooks, The Gatekeeper's Oath have been completed. Like The Forgotten Spell this part of the fantasy adventure will be released as both a printed book and as an App for iPad, Android etc from Tin Man Games.
If you liked the first book you can be very excited about TGO, a frenetic search through the weird Elder Fey City of Suidemor to gain access to the castle where your father is being held captive; a journey full of tricks and traps and a bizarre cast of characters to help or to hinder you. Once again I have had great fun bringing Louisa Dent Pearce's creations to life using the same combination of traditional drawing and Photoshop that I used on the last book. The art of the Forgotten Spell has recieved a lot of praise so I hope that the new illustrations will compare well to them!

The Forgotten Spell - App version available now!!

 The App version of Spellcaster: The Forgotten Spell which I Illustrated this year is out now from Tin Man Games for the iphone, ipad and android and has been garnering great reviews. The paper book version will be available very soon.
I really enjoyed visualising the dark world of the Elder Fey with its twisty streets, bizarre architecture and weird inhabitants. I really felt this project was right up my alley, playing to my own artistic strengths with the same combination of humour and darkness that I tried to bring to my old WH40K and FF illos

I was able to draw together elements from traditional fantasy, steampunk and anime.
Many of the illos were visual puzzles in themselves full of hidden little details. Hopefully the viewer will keep spotting new things in them for quite some time.
The artwork was created by first preparing highly detailed pencil renderings which were then worked on further using Photoshop and a Wacom Graphire Tablet. At this stage the illustrations were refined with extra tone and coloured, composition and characters .tweaked, text added..

During this process I tried to avoid losing the texture and quirk of the underlying pencil work which to me was a vital part of the overall style. We will begin work on Book 2 very soon. Meanwhile I have another Gamebook project on the go for Tin Man Games which I may share with you in due course...

The Forgotten Spell: Latest Illustration Project!!

Right now I'm very busy with an exciting illustration project, The Forgotten Spell - the first of a trilogy of  evocative fantasy gamebooks for Louisa Dent Pearce of Spellcaster Games.

In this first book, You (the reader) are snatched from the mundane world and thrust into the terrifying city of Suidemor, a vast, fantastic and twisted metropolis built by the Elder Fey in a hidden realm beyond the mortal world. Hunted by the malevolent Olcrada you must solve puzzles and use spells find your way, survive and find the Forgotten Spell.

I'm especially enthused by this project because it plays right to my strengths as an illustrator. The backdrop of the bizarre city of Suidemort with its crumbling ragtag maze of twisted streets and alleyways is like an exaggerated steampunk Victorian London built by spell-wielding malevolent faeries, full of atmosphere. The population are a myriad of fey creatures: Elves, trolls, goblins, fey of all kinds, no two alike...I have been free to let my imagination run riot here!!  Best thing is that for the first time in many years I have been able to plunge myself into this project as a full-time freelance illustrator, which means I can give these illos the time and care they richly deserve and show my full mettle as an illustrator. I'm pretty proud of the work I've done so far and this is only the first book!!

I had such great fun creating all these wierd creatures...here's a closeup:

  The illos have been created mostly in pencil, then scanned, modified and coloured using Photoshop. In each I've tried to achieve a depth of field. I want them to be images you can spend time to explore and spot new things.

Bloodbones Prints

My internal illustrations from the Fighting Fantasy Gamebook Bloodbones by Jonathan Green (Wizard Books 2006) are now available to buy as prints from RedBubble


This collection includes all the page illos and vignettes and they are available in various sizes, framed and unframed

Fighting Fantasy pics in colour!

In my spare time I've been creating full colour versions of some of my old Fighting Fantasy Gamebook illustrations. The paragraphs I illustrated for the books had to be done in a short time and under the constraints of a clear, easily printed black and white pen style. Why stop there? I wanted to have some fun and develop some of these images further, especially after I got my lovely Wacom tablet. Here's a couple of recent ones: The Conjurer and Felice is from Spectral Stalkers, by Peter Darvill-Evans, my first Gamebook, and the Giant Behemoth is from Bloodbones by Jon Green, my most recent one.