Speedfighter

I named this sketch “Speedfighter” (I know, duh, it’s in the title. Anyway).
I hadn’t really planned this ahead. As it often happens when I draw for fun at home, I draw things first and I find out what they are only when I’m close to the end.
In this particular case I was trying a technique the usual friend of mine uses sometimes to sketch environments and props.

The technique is about painting the main shapes in black with a big flat brush, and then detailing the rest in white.

Almost like a notan, but with more details in it.

So, nothing really new to be honest, we’ve been experimenting with notans for quite a while, and this is quite similar. However, it’s the first time I used it this way.
The result is a very nice comic-looking sketch and offers a lot of other advantages.

The big brush prevents you from going into details too early, and forces you to come up with interesting shapes early on rather than changing your mind further into the process. Also, since you only use one other colour to give more detail, you’re bound to use it sparingly and focus only on what is important.

Here’s a bunch of sketches I drew in under ten minutes. OMG ten minutes!

Now, since I have a key conveniently set up as “eraser” on my Cintiq (whereas  constantly reaching for the x key on the small keyboard on video to swap between black and white was quite awkward), I decided to erase the black instead of painting over it, which resulted in an interesting pipeline:
Having “holes” carved into the main shape allowed me to paint the layer beneath the main shape with a secondary colour. This meant that in just a few minutes I was able to complete the main sketch and knock out the colours, which means that 70% of the whole drawing was already pretty much finished.
The entire thing took me less than 30 minutes, which is surprising considering I don’t practice on hard surfaces that often.

So here’s the one I decided to develop further, our Speedfighter.

Since it looks fast and aggressive (there are guns on it after all), it was obviously a Speedfighter to me, but feel free to remember it as “the usual spaceship”.

I’m also posting a video of the process because I’m really loving this technique.
Enjoy some Bach in the meantime.

by Paolo Puggioni

A Spaceship

Someone recently pointed out a disturbing absence of spaceships in my portfolio, so there you go, here’s a spaceship.
Now, spaceships are a quite tricky subject.
The thing about them is there’s a LOAD of them on the Internet, so it doesn’t matter what you do, more often than not someone has done something slightly similar to yours, only slightly better.

Well, this applies to pretty much everything you do and post on the internet, so it’s no big deal.
Then there’s the matter of how you approach your spaceship.

Should it be something completely void of any technological coherence? After all, it could be built like a million years into the future, and you can’t possibly fathom what kind of magic our descendants would be capable of. Therefore you can just go nuts, put a bunch of shapes together, chuck it on a starlit background and there you go.
Or should it be something more plausible, which could be set a hundred years in the future? In that case the design could be pretty close to today’s taste, materials would be pretty much the same and all the elements (windows, thrusters, communication arrays) would be just an upgraded version of those we already use.

I knocked out this one in a fairly short time, and to be honest (being as it is my first break from Fantasy in months) I went for the safety of a well-established look. If I were to do it for an actual game (or had I given myself some more time), I would have developed something a bit more imaginative.

For the time being, here’s just a spaceship.

As a matter of fact, I’ve recently been complaining to a friend about some repetitiveness in the designs you see around lately.

In fantasy, as well as in sci-fi, some visual languages have become excessively archetypical, and most artists I see around seem to mix up ideas that are a bit overused at the moment, without giving it too much thought.

Aliens have spikes and fangs, villains wear black, wizards have a beard, elves dress fabulous and so on.

Hell, I’m one of the worst offenders, sometimes you can’t really do whatever you want, especially when you are paid for it, and your audience expects a certain kind of image.

Anyway, my complaining sessions resulted in the outlining of a project that I’ll be working on in the next few months during my spare time.

I’ve got nothing at the moment, so don’t hold your breath.

It will be a sci-fi setting, deliberately designed to avoid well established clichés.

So well, hopefully I’ll be drawing more imaginative spaceships.

In the meantime, remember that spaceships are like pizza, or sex. Even when they’re bad, they’re still pretty good.

by Paolo Puggioni

Game of Thrones – Oath of the Nightwatch

There’s still some Game of Thrones artwork I have to post.
Actually with this one I should be pretty much finished.

I haven’t been drawing much lately. Which could be a bit depressing if it wasn’t for this post on Muddy Colors by Petar Meseldzija, which cheered me up a little. Apparently even world-class artists regularly go though periods of low productivity, and it’s not always a bad sign.

As a matter of fact, there’s a whole bunch of things I would like to start working on, and a quite ambitious project for which I might have to involve the friend who made this website for me.
(He doesn’t know it yet. So yes, if you’re reading this, there might be work heading your way at some point:)).

In the meantime, alas, I’m actually going through a period of mental laziness. Even at work it’s more Excel spreadsheets than anything else, which usually sucks the creativity out of anyone.
But things are changing fast around me, so we’ll see what happens in the next future.

Anyway. This is one of the last pieces I made for Green Ronin’s Game of Thrones RPG.
They both depict Men of the Night Watch taking their oath.
The recruits on the left hand side are swearing before a Septon, a priest of the Seven Gods.
The Brothers on the right hand side, faithful to the Old Gods, are instead taking their oath before a Heart-Tree.
That’s how Jon Snow took the Blacks, as any Game of Thrones nerd would know.

Both scenes take place at the end of the day, the sun setting and the night approaching, which is obviously a symbol of the kind of life ahead of them.

As I said before, the chapters about the Night Watch were hands down my favourite in the Game of Thrones books.
The constant threat of the cold, and the evil things creeping inside it, the peculiar, unforgiving code of honour of the Wall. And the grudging dedication of the brothers, for whom the Watch was the only meaningful thing left in life.

Also, their Oath always gives me the chills.

Night gathers, and now my watch begins.
It shall not end until my death.
I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children.
I shall wear no crowns and win no glory.
I shall live and die at my post.
I am the sword in the darkness.
I am the watcher on the walls.
I am the shield that guards the realms of men.
I pledge my life and honor to the Night’s Watch, for this night and all the nights to come.

by Paolo Puggioni

Nymphs Again

I eventually managed to finish the Nymphs I sketched a while ago, just in time for the deadline.
As usual, I was caught into something completely different in the meantime, and I managed to complete only one of the three drawings I had planned.
Plus, I’m an idiot, and I forgot to take home from work the only drawing I finished, which was the result of a few lunch breaks.
So, no time for the several tweaks I had in mind and other changes, I just submitted it as it is.
Oh well, that should do I guess.

At least I’m quite happy about this one, the nymphs are as pretty as the lore requires (I hope), but odd enough to come across as non-human.
As I said before, I think nymphs should be at least a little unsettling. I mean, they live on the shore of small rivers, and possibly catch their own fish and eat it raw. So I figure they must be skilled predators, with agile fingers and sharp teeth.
And of course gills.

I had started (and almost finished) a whole illustration. Unfortunately the result was so poor that I just deleted it. The badness was so wide spread that it wasn’t even possible to point my finger on something to fix. Just easier to throw it in the bin and move on to something else.
Sometimes it happens. Not a good feeling when you waste time this way, but it happens.

Too bad the sketch was pretty good I think, I had great hopes:(

Anyway.
Nymphs are done, now my new endeavour will be drawing a card for my sister.
My little sister gets married, and she wants me to draw her cards, how cool is that?

I doubt I’ll be allowed to post them though, (also, I doubt anyone but few selected people would care) so in the next few days I’ll keep posting images from Game of Thrones, for a change.

by Paolo Puggioni

My Game of Thrones Stuff Has Arrived!

When I got home I had the surprise of finding the Game of Thrones Rulebook I worked on waiting for me by the door.
Together with a hungry dog and two ravenous cats of course, but they were no surprise.

To be precise, I got THREE copies (thanks Green Ronin!), which lined up on my shelf, next to the two Campaign Settings, making me look more like a seasoned illustrator rather than an occasional freelancer.
This expansion set is all focused on the Night’s Watch, and the Free Folk who live beyond the Wall. Which is especially cool for me since the parts about the Wall are my favourite in the Game of Thrones series.

There isn’t a single line in the chapters dedicated to the Night Watch that I found less than amazing. I loved the mood, the lingering menace of the Others, the constant struggle against the cold, the hunger and the elements. I loved the fact that there is still ancient magic out there, imbued in the ice of the wall, and just hinted at instead of being waved in your face as it usually happens in other fantasy books.
I loved the entire story developed around Jon Snow, who remained possibly the best character of the entire Game of Thrones series.
And I also loved the Wildlings, which in this Rulebook are developed a lot more than they are in the actual books.

This time there weren’t many “wow factor” illustrations on my schedule, like dragons killing people or the like.
Apart from maybe this one, which this time came up a lot better on print than on screen.

On the other hand, I enjoyed working on a whole lot of characters, which I’ll be posting in the next few days.
The most interesting were without doubt the Wildlings, which seem to have a whole array of different personalities, superstitions and beliefs.
Reading this handbook would be worth it even just to expand what is just suggested in Game of Thrones.

If I can be just a little bit picky, the prints were a bit too dark compared to the original. Next time I’ll remember to avoid dark shadows (I know, tricky when you’re drawing a bunch of people clad in black).
In any case, digital images don’t smell that awesome.

by Paolo Puggioni

Game of Thrones Artwork from The Night Watch

Last year I made a bunch of illustrations for another Game of Thrones RPG rulebook, Green Ronin’s Night’s Watch expansion set.
It’s always a big fat pleasure to be part of something as massively cool as Game of Thrones.
Plus, this time it’s a double pleasure since George R.R. Martin himself mentioned the release on his blog

I know, I’m supposed to act as a professional and consider this as part of the job, nonetheless I couldn’t help giggling like an adolescent when I read that.
I mean, George R.R. Martin put his seal of approval on my stuff:)

Anyway, the drawings.
I’ll post them all in the next few days.
This is a half-page with men of the Night Watch fleeing from a horde of Wildlings descending from the mountains.
I know, I’m being redundant by saying this since the image portrays precisely men of the Night Watch fleeing from a horde of Wildlings descending from the mountains. But in case you were in doubt, that’s exactly what’s happening here.

Now, I was pretty happy about the result when I finished this.
However, looking back at it after all those months there are lots of things I would fix, like the guy’s anatomy (god his posture is awkward), his face and another few things here and there.
The dark side of the hill the chief is standing on could have been lighter, and pushed back in the distance a bit.
Also, the Wildlings are all the same value, with little atmospheric perspective.
Oh well.

While going through George R.R. Martin’s blog posts I also noticed HBO released the teaser for the next season of Game of Thrones.

Nothing much to see, but it does remind me that it’s almost behind the corner.
Damn I can’t wait.
Nonetheless, Mr. Martin, please go back to writing Winds of Winter. That’s the stuff we want!

by Paolo Puggioni

A Dragon Slayer

I made this dragon slayer over a couple of lunch breaks.
I think that all in all it took slightly more than an hour.

Now, I don’t time myself, and I normally find those who boast “hey look what I did in just twenty minutes” quite silly.
I mean, good for you dude, your pipeline is very efficient!
But my friend Dave (who occasionally lurked behind my shoulder while I was doing this) and I were noticing that a while ago I wouldn’t have been able to finish a piece in such a short time. Which means that if not skills, at least experience started kicking in at some point.
Who-hoo! One more reason to think that turning forty doesn’t suck!

I have been trying to draw things under slightly unusual light conditions lately.
This scene is taking place late in the afternoon on an overcast day.
The light is mostly grey, with the occasional bright beam making its way from little specks of blue sky peeking out of the clouds.

To be honest I added some blue sky as an afterthought to justify the bright blue reflections on the Dragon Slayer’s armour and the dragon’s scales.
They shouldn’t be there under those light conditions. Planes in shadows turn blue when facing up, but only under clear sky.
One thing I’m particularly happy with are the wings of the dragon.
I had already tried to recreate that lovely thin, transparent lit from beyond skin effect in the past. Unsuccessfully, alas.

There was a guy at school with ears pretty much perpendicular to his skull. They shone as red as a traffic light when the sun was behind him. The other kids picked on him all the time. I thought his ears were cool, and they would have been challenging to draw convincingly.
This effort is for you, big-eared kid from my past whose name I can’t remember.

Anyway.

I know, I always end up drawing dragons and the like. What can I say? They are fun. Which is exactly what the dragon slayer in this illustration might be thinking.
So here he is, at the end of a long working day, tracking a dragon to his nest in a bog.
Would he notice how the delicate skin of its wing catches the low Autumn sun?
I like to think he would.

By Paolo Puggioni

A Battle Mage

I started drawing something random a few days ago and it turned out to be a battle mage.
Or in any case a guy with an aggressive posture wielding a tool that might come across as magical. Call him a battle mage if you please.

I’m not a fan of night scenes, or anyway drawings set in poor light conditions.
There’s nothing wrong with them in general, it’s just that they’re the favourite pick of beginner illustrators and any art website is full of them.
Anyway, that’s pretty much the set of colours I started my Battle Mage with, and I stuck with it.

(Completely unrelated: while I was drawing I watched Apocalypse Now for the first time. My god what a movie. If you haven’t seen it I would recommend NOT to watch the Redux version. The bit with the French plantation people is just pointless. Anyway).

Fun things happen to our eyes under poor light conditions.
First, if the light is below a certain threshold, our cones just shut down. We can’t see colours anymore, full stop. That’s when rods are more active. As they are particularly sensitive to light, when it’s dark it’s their moment to shine (ha ha). Rods are colour blind, but they are good friends when you are trying to get to the bathroom at night. Just give the time to wake up and they’ll sort you out.

Another thing that happens under poor light conditions is a whole plethora of colour illusions appear.
First, rods are more sensitive to the frequency of green light. This means that if you place a dark green object next to a bright red object at night, the green one will seem brighter. In my battle mage all the greens are bright. Check.

Second, we tend to unconsciously associate colour with familiar objects. So we’d probably still read a pink painted lemon in dim light as a yellow one.

Then there’s the thing about blues. We tend to see moonlight as blue, where in fact it has a slightly redder component than white sunlight.
Apparently that’s due to a synaptic bridge between rods and cones, which accidentally touches the cones’ blue receptors and tricks our brain into believing we’re seeing blue when in fact cones are minding their own business, completely unaware. I mean, people who take the perfection of the human eye as proof of God’s existence don’t know what they’re talking about.

But I digress. To sum things up, colours are all messed up at night and you can get away with a lot. If I stuck with Science you wouldn’t be able to see the red robes of the battle mage. But are they red? Or do you see them as red just because the metal is green and you perceive the darker colour nearby as its opposite?
Who knows. And who cares! I was watching Brando kick ass while I did this, I just thought it looked ok, so there you go.

by Paolo Puggioni

Sketching Nymphs

Nymphs are one of those subjects I always try to avoid as much as possible.
‘thing is, pretty much any illustrator with a predilection for Fantasy has drawn nymphs at some point.
And has likely saved them in a “Things Everybody Does” folder together with elves and driads.

I am not saying there isn’t any nice artwork for them on the Internet. It’s just difficult to come up with something original with so many nymphs around.
However, there is an art challenge going on at the always awesome Art Order blog, and I thought I’d give it a go.
The challenge, if you haven’t guessed yet, is about nymphs.

Now, first of all the brief is pretty interesting, and it makes the old subject actually quite appealing.
Second – and this is the reason why I changed my mind about the poor nymphs – one of the judges is no less than Tony DiTerlizzi himself, and I thought that the chance of being rejected by one of my all-time heroes was priceless.

You see, back in the nineties I bought ALL the Planescape Box Sets just because of his artwork inside. I remember I started browsing a few pages in a comics shop I used to go in Genova, and was captivated, stunned and amazed by his beautiful drawings. I didn’t know, back then, that the game would have entertained me and sparked my imagination for years and years to come. Planescape became a beautiful journey, and DiTerlizzi one of my favourite illustrators since.
The idea of he himself looking at my artwork and thinking “gosh this is crap” is just too good.

So, I don’t know yet whether I’ll have the time to finish everything in time, but here are the first sketches I made.

In lore, nymphs are always quite attractive. However, I tried to imagine what I would think if I met a group of them while walking (for reasons unknown to me) in a swamp.
You are making your way though quicksand and mosquitoes, you part a bunch of tall grass leaves and suddenly there they are, half naked girls just hanging out, looking at you in surprise.
Wouldn’t a certain feeling of, umm, uneasiness, mix with the welcome discovery of various naked girls in a swamp?

I thought nymphs should be at least a bit disturbing. I drew them with eyes slightly apart, and with an unusual shape. Their fingers would be long and dangerous, developed to catch fish (what else would a water-dweller eat?).
The fact that one of them is chewing on a raw fish should add to the slight unpleasantness.

I don’t think my wife would appreciate my hiring three models to pose nude in my study. Also, my floor is a Lego bricks minefield and I would need to pay for health insurance cover if they were to walk barefoot anywhere in my house. So I grabbed some images from this awesome website, which is stuffed with reference.
Anyway, I’ll try to colour these sketches in during this weekend. We’ll see.

by Paolo Puggioni

A Paladin Outfit for Runescape

This is a Paladin Outfit I made for Runescape.
Not much to say about it, it’s just a paladin armour.

Paladins are quite straightforward characters. They’re self righteous people with a thing against evil. As a matter of fact, I never could stand paladins in games or literature.
Self important, rigid blokes you can’t really argue with, and not particularly entertaining at the pub unless you fancy making fun of their bigotry (and possibly risk being cut in two by their holy sword during the process).

Ok, in games and books paladins usually speak directly to their deities, so there isn’t that “hey, who told you you’re good and I’m not” element that makes bigots so unpleasant in real life. Their answer would always be “my god did, really, now die”.

On the other hand, they tend to make game-play quite relaxing. Like “hey, there’s a guy dressed in black. And his armour has spikes and skulls, let’s kill him”. You don’t have to put too much thought into playing a paladin. If it’s evil it has to die, full stop.
Thieves and mercenaries are more fun, I’ve always thought.

This was an outfit destined for the shop, so the requirements were about a classic, quite iconic paladin armour.

The only slightly more unusual element I managed to slip in is its colour. Instead of the canonical, high reflective  steel armour I went for a white enamelled metal.
Which is, by the way, the kind of armour you would spend the most time cleaning.
Can you imagine how easily it would get dirty? If I lived in a Fantasy world I’d totally be a villain. You wear black and you don’t have to worry about stains.

Anyway, if I were to design an actual in-game paladin I’d try and convey the concept of a religious fanatic  a lot more.

To me a paladin is closer to an agent of the Spanish Inquisition than a good guy who learnt how to fight despite his distaste for violence.
I’d see Paladins as strict, close-minded people well determined to crush any opposition to their faith.
They would wear the sort of attire meant to scare infidels away, and possibly a hood, and cruel weapons.
They would carry symbols of their power, and be vocal in their convictions. And they would roam the land and mindlessly destroy anything they consider wrong, and maybe hang trophies of slain enemies on their armour, just to be sure their intentions are clear.

That would be a paladin I would play in a game. If I weren’t so fond of stealth and deception. And the occasional collateral damage.

by Paolo Puggioni