I’m excited to announce that I’m going to be self-publishing my first art book this May. I’ll post again soon with details on where it can be purchased. The title of the book is “Mytholalia,” meaning “Speaking in Myth”. In the five years I’ve been at art school, I realized my work (and most of my life!) is centered around mythopoeia, creating myths. Stories and legends have always been very important to me and my artwork is focused almost entirely around a complex self-created mythology. The book’s title hopefully shows how important both language and myths are to my artwork. (”Mythellany” was another title I considered, but it appears to have been in use before, and I wanted something with no Google results yet!)

I have some new work up in my illustration gallery! Firstly, the following pieces are small character illustrations I did for my Nodr project. The project is coming along quite well. I have a good amount of stuff finalized with plenty of illustrations for the wiki, and it’s been so much fun painting objects, environments and designs as well as people!

This next piece is part of an ongoing project of mine; I’m tailoring my portfolio more towards Wizards of the Coast-style artwork, because it’s my dream to one day work for them. I have several other images in the works for this project, including a mock cover, a “magic card” style illustration of a Displacer beast, and a square-format illustration of a tiny fellow going up against a big, mean dragon.

Lastly, this is a personal illustration that I finished last night, painting live on my Ustream account. It was fun to paint and it’s very meaningful to me, because it deals with temptation. It was interesting to hear the comments, because they were so different from my own interpretation of the piece. The ghostly figure appears kind and sympathetic, while the more aggressive figure in red has a look of contempt and resentment. The former appears to be a benevolent force while the latter seems to be the antagonist, but in reality it’s the other way around, at least in my mind.

That’s all I have to show for now. Look forward to more D&D illustrations soon, as well as further info on my artbook.

This is a primary species from my Nodr project (there are two). The important thing to know about the Amae is that 99% of them die at age 20 or so from a genetic disease, and only a few are resistant to it; these individuals can live to be 100 years old or more. Their entire culture has adapted to this disease, working as a tribe to raise families and learning to deal with death. The Amae are nomadic pastoralists who herd livestock across the tundra throughout the summer, staying in the taiga during the cold winter months. Their culture is based on storytelling and memory; they also have a bizarre cultural fondness for seals.

Amae genders:

A little Amae kid, with toy otter:

(I’ve made a new logo! One of the assignments for my last art class is to create a new logo for myself, and I liked it so much I decided to keep it.)

It’s 2010, and I’m getting ready to change my life forever!

My plan right now is to work my hardest to find employment. I have a promising lead, but just in case I’m going to spend this month applying at various companies for illustration work. Once I know where I can find work, I’ll know where I’ll be moving! It’s probably going to be the west coast. It will be a strange and confusing change, but I’m ready to get out of this state (no offense, Virginia) and make a fresh start. I’m feeling very confident right now.

I have not been producing as much illustration lately because I’ve been swamped with work, and all my free time is going to my new worldbuilding project. This is the only place I will be talking much about Nodr. Today I’m working on some concept art, and hopefully I will be able to find time to do more soon and upload it to its own section of this site’s gallery. It’s basically the nerdiest hobby of all time, but it’s something I am really, really passionate about; I love designing whole cultures, languages and species, and I especially love map-making. When I have some more concrete things to show, I’ll be sure to make an entry about it.

For now, here are some portraits commissioned by the lovely Kate Tonkin. They’re characters from her Victorian novel, which sounds fantastic. Believe it or not, the hardest part of this commission was getting the backgrounds to look distinct from each other. I thought there were more colors in the rainbow…apparently not!
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A while ago I found myself asking, why is it that some writers still write with pen and ink, or a typewriter, instead of a computer?

I don’t think it’s because the paper “feels more real” or has some sort of undefinable quality. In reality it’s because the limitation of not being able to undo your mistakes forces the brain to think carefully about each sentence, work around problems, see the whole picture before one line is finished. It’s more than a mental exercise; it changes your perception. There’s a reason the haiku has such a strict structure and why Shakespeare didn’t write in free verse.

I find the same is generally true for unforgiving traditional media like ink. Sometimes when I feel very uncreative I toss away my pencils and go at a drawing with pure ink, knowing if I make a mistake I’ll have to redo it or draw something else.

I’ve often mentioned that digital art lacks most physical limits. You can make the canvas any size, you can use any amount of paint. You aren’t limited by color and paint texture and the chemical properties of the medium, and yes, this can allow for theoretically unlimited creativity. But that’s where a lot of digital artists find they’re missing out. The challenges wrought by a physical medium are also helpful, if not integral, to the creative process.

To get this same effect in digital medium, I have had the interesting mental challenge of creating limits for myself. “One layer” is a common one. “No eraser”. “No undo.” “No guidelines”. “No color picking.” “Mix all colors from 3 basic ones.” “One brush.” “No blend modes.” I go outside of these guidelines when the job is on the line, but for my personal artwork I try to impose them on myself whenever possible. My brain has to stretch and leap and jump to get around these challenges and solve the problems of the work at the same time.

Anyway, if you’re a digital artist struggling to stay creative, my advice is to set similar limits for yourself. There’s no real difference between artificial and physical limits if you have a lot of willpower and self-discipline.

This sounds pretty egotistical but as part of the “internet generation” and someone who’s grown up using digital media to create art, I feel a bit like one of the pioneers of this new form of creation. We’re still discovering all the new ways to use this technology and one way is not any less valid than another. It might seem silly to some to impose limits on technology that has almost limitless potential, but I can think of a dozen ways they’ve helped me out.

Not much has been going on lately. I haven’t had much time for personal artwork, so I’ve just been doing little lazy pictures when I get a spare moment.

Like these!

Wenches!

Over-saturated elves!

Julia Nunes!