Game of Thrones – Time of Plenty

Time of Plenty is the second illustration I made for Game of Thrones’ Lions of Casterly Rock.
If you want to have a look at the first one I posted, it’s right here.

The brief read: In a blood orange grove in Dorne, a pair of Dornish peasants (one male, one female) pick oranges from the trees. Each of the peasants carries a large basket full of oranges, and the trees in the grove are bursting with fruit.

So this is what I came up with:

I remember that when I read Game of Thrones, Dorne left me with images of Andalucia, or Southern Italy, maybe Sicily.
So that’s pretty much where I got my reference from.

I meant to add some Dornish city in the distance (as you can see from the sketch), but in the end it looked too cluttered so I decided against it.

Again, this was one of the first actual drawing I made with Krita, so I did struggle a bit to get the foliage right.
In fact, I had to make a whole new set of brushes specifically for this drawing.
As soon as I have some time I’ll make them all available for download, likely next week.

by Paolo Puggioni

Black Angel

During the past few weeks I’ve been hugely, frantically busy.
That must be why I haven’t posted anything in a while.
There are indeed quite a few projects I’m working on, some of which I’ll be sharing over the next days.
All in all I am *this close* (rises his hand to show his thumb and point finger getting close) to actually having too much on my plate.

Because of that, the other day I fell victim to a case of Spring Cleaning Disease.
That’s when you start throwing away a bunch of crumpled paper because you want to tidy up just a little bit, and before you know it you are crouched under your desk scraping dirt off skirting boards with an old tooth brush.

And it’s not even Spring.

It might be because when I’m so swamped I need order, and a schedule, and a list of things neatly arranged one after the other, else I go crazy.
Whatever the reason, I started by removing some clutter from my second desk (the one where I dump the pointless crap, the unread post, pencil shavings, dirty mugs and so on. Oh and my easel).

Then I finally ordered the art books in my shelf by size and topic. I’ve been wanting to do that for months.

Then I assembled the dashcam I bought like 6 months ago and never got the time to get into my car.

After that I started to archive and back up the finished work (I do redundant backups because better safe than sorry), and since everything was safe I thought “fuck it, let’s do it now”, and installed the new Opensuse Leap 42.2.

Which is awesome, by the way.

Getting Krita and all of my documents back on my fresh install, I came across an old anatomy exercise that had been knocking around my hard drive for several months, and sice it added to my list of uncompleted tasks (and thus to my mental chaos), I decided to finish it before I committed to anything else.

So there she is, my Black Angel.
As many times before, it had started as a lazy evening practice and it became something else.

Once this was done, I finally put together my nice list of tasks, and on an empty, zen-like white desk I was finally ready to go ahead.

I’ll post some more stuff later this week.

by Paolo Puggioni

Beowulf and Grendel’s Mother

Ok, I will admit that “Beowulf and Grendel’s Mother” is not that catchy as a title.

It is, however, the official name by which this specific event in Beowulf’s saga goes by, so I’ll stick with it.
As a matter of fact, her name isn’t mentioned in the poem, and I did check:)
She’s just Grendel’s Mother, so there you go.

So, this is the second of the three illustrations I made for Legend’s Myths and Whiskey’s upcoming album.

In the story, after having defeated Grendel, Beowulf and his party of warriors pursuit the monster’s mother, who had come out of her lair to avenge the death of her son, and already wreaked havoc around the countryside.

Grendel’s mother also makes the mistake of killing one of Beowulf’s friends and chopping his head off, which gets Beowulf REALLY pissed off.

Following her to her lair under a murky lake, Beowulf and Grendel’s mother finally engage in a mighty battle. She, however, can’t pierce Beowulf’s armor with her claws, while it appears that Beowulf’s weapons have no effect on her though skin.

Luckily, Beowulf will find a magic short sword in the monster’s hoard, and wielding the relic he will eventually cut her head off.

’MID the battle-gear saw he a blade triumphant,
old-sword of Eotens, with edge of proof,
warriors’ heirloom, weapon unmatched,
— save only ’twas more than other men
to bandy-of-battle could bear at all —
as the giants had wrought it, ready and keen.
Seized then its chain-hilt the Scyldings’ chieftain,
bold and battle-grim, brandished the sword,
reckless of life, and so wrathfully smote
that it gripped her neck and grasped her hard,
her bone-rings breaking: the blade pierced through
that fated-one’s flesh: to floor she sank.

The bit I depicted is right after he has grabbed the magic sword and leaps to finish off the monster.
There’s also a passage that tells how the floor had caught fire during the battle, which gave me the chance to add some red glow from below.

Thanks, viking storytellers, that was a nice touch.

Anyway, Beowulf and Grendel’s Mother was the last epic battle of the hero’s prime.
For the rest of his life he will reign on his people as a powerful and wise king.
Until, as an old man, he will pick up his weapons again for a last battle with a giant dragon, which I’ll post about next week.

by paolo Puggioni

Storming of the Dragonpit

Storming of the Dragonpit was the second Illustration I made for the World of Ice and Fire.

Following the principle according to which the most difficult things have to be made first, I started to work at the sketches for Storming of the Dragonpit pretty much at the same time I made those for the Tourney at Harrenhal.

Because of the large amount of human figures involved, both of them kind of gave me nightmares.
In a good way though.

The illustration depicts the events that led to the disappearance of the last dragons from Westeros.
During the unrest of the civil war, a mob of smallfolk stormed the Dragonpit, torched the monumental building and rid the land of their kind.

Despite the many visual elements involved, storming of the Dragonpit was slightly easier for me than the Tourney, at least under a certain point of view.

Yes, there was a whole mob of peasants to be drawn, but that wasn’t the hard thing, I had plenty of time after all.
Also, none of them was a relevant character of the saga, so I could be more relaxed with it.

My real concern was with the dragons.
I happened to work for another Game of Thrones product in the past, and the first dragon I made back then, Balerion, was completely wrong.

As George R.R. Martin pointed out back then, dragons in A Song of Ice and Fire have four limbs. Not 6 like dragons of other settings.
Too bad that information came after I had finished colouring it:)

Anyway, since I never make the same mistake only once, I messed up this first sketch too.

In this case, the issue was with the lore. The dragons were never so close to each other. The structure had to be MASSIVE, the dragons had to be locked in their own “kennels”, the building was domed.

Because of that, the first round of revisions for Storming of the Dragonpit had to do with the scale.

Again, it took a while to get it right. In some of them, as you can see, the dragons are simply ridiculously gigantic, in others are too small.

Eventually, this is the one that got approved.

I still tweaked the composition a bit while rendering, but all in all, after the sketch was greenlit, everything went smoothly, and a couple of weeks later I delivered the image you see at the top of the page.

Next week I’ll post other illustrations for the World of Ice and Fire, posibly in the same order I made them.

by Paolo Puggioni

The Grumpy General

What’s now unmistakably a grumpy general, started as a simple copy-a-random-face-from-the-internet exercise.

I believe the reference was a particularly unloved Brazilian politician, but I can’t find it anymore so you’ll have to trust me on this.

Anyway, as it always happens when I start without a plan, the illustration evolved a lot from how it looked liked at the beginning.

After I realized that “random grumpy Internet face” could have been a grumpy general, I obviously drew an armour under his neck.
Then I thought it would have been cool if he were leading his army to battle under a crisp, blue sky.
That implied that the general would have had lots of blues on his face and armour, which forced me to paint over the original drawing a first time.

After that, the scene didn’t exactly show much. It was still little more than a Grumpy General’s portrait, not exactly a ride into battle.
So I gave the general a horse, and red banners on the background to contrast with the blue sky.

The red banners meant lots of red bounce light, however, which of course led to paint-over number two.

At last it came the army.

Then (and only then!) I realized that the composition wasn’t exacty something to write home about, so I had to move things around quite a lot before I was actually happy about it.

Long story short: I did everything the wrong way, next time I need more planning.
In my defence, I hadn’t even planned not to plan!

However, in the end I think the result is not too shabby anyway, so there you go.

Oh, I might have some colour profile issues with my Citinq.
The reds seem fine on Photoshop and on my iMac’s monitor, but they get very loud and garish when the image is rendered through Chrome. But only on the Cintiq. Go figure.

I don’t have time to investigate further right now, so if you happen to think EEEW! when you look at the banners please let me know.

by Paolo Puggioni

Wardens of the Reborn Forge

I didn’t do much stuff for Wardens of the Reborn Forge, but for what it’s worth, here it is.

Wardens of the Reborn Forge is a deluxe super-adventure for 12th-level characters, and includes 64 action-packed pages of adventure filled with mechanical machinations, new monsters, a beautiful double-sided and full-color poster map of Alkenstar, and an important miniatures-scale battleground!

Alkenstar, City of Smog, is a bastion of civilization in the magic-warped region known as the Mana Wastes. Its ingenious citizens survive in the treacherous Spellscar Desert with the help of canny inventions like guns and clockwork automatons, but now their construct protectors have begun to run amok within the city. It falls to the PCs to venture beyond the city walls to find the source of their strange behavior. Will they uncover the mastermind behind the plot and put an end to this madness, or will they instead fall victim to the primal magic and savage tribes of Mana Wastes mutants that beleaguer the city?

The module can be purchased here.

Lord Armorer Narda-Hufftwood

Once again, a guy with dark skin.
Since, apparently, practice makes you better, this time it didn’t take as long as usual to get the colours right:)

According to the brief he was supposed to look noble, and also one who could clearly manufacture stuff with his hands.
The solution: gloves. And a tool belt.

Evidence of Treason

Not much to say here. A folder with documents on a desk. Nailed it.

The Alchemist’s Addiction

I didn’t know much about this card a part from the objects described (a vial and a knife).
In an effort to make it visually interesting, I took as a reference two photos of an ancient vial and an ancient sacrificial knife I took myself at a museum.

Since I’m normally too lazy to tag my own images, I’m afraid we’ll never know what museum in particular they come from. Oh well.

This is all from Wardens of the Reborn Forge. And from the bunch of Pathfinder cards I’m allowed to publish, sadly.

Legacy of Pharaohs part II

This is the second (and last) bunch of illustrations I made for Pathfinder’s Campaign Setting Legacy of Pharaohs.

As I said before, the assignment was pretty much all about characters, so here they are.

Nixinox

Nixinox is part of a race called Girtablilu, and according to the brief she is an oracle, hence her milky white eyes.

Too bad the characters in Legacy of Pharaohs required only the upper torso to be drawn.
Nixinox – like all her people – is half scorpion and half human, and despite this being a super well-known combination, I never happened to draw any of the like.

Asuulek

Asuulek is a dragon. Not much to say here, it has wings, and teeth, and he breathes fire. The usual dragon package.

Commander Sefir Etis

Right, this is my least favourite character from Legacy of Pharaohs.
Well, he did nothing wrong, I did.

He’s supposed to have an armour made out of giant scarab carapace. And to a degree I got there.

For some reason though, in hindsight, his face is all wrong, he has barely any neck, and every time I look at him I’d like to delete it and start from scratch.
The art director was happy with it, so I guess he was god enough.
However, I decided to post it as a reminder of what I wouldn’t do next time.

Azghaad

Azghaad is one of the first characters I made for the set, and I think at that point I hadn’t knocked out the North African skin tone yet.
He’s not supposed to be dark skinned, but not white either.
I got maybe pretty close, but I would go back and tweak him a bit, if I could.

Oh well.

So, this is it for Legacy for Pharaohs.
I still have another small folder with Pathfinder artwork I’m allowed to publish, so I’ll get back to it next time.

Legacy of Pharaohs

Osirion, Legacy of Pharaohs, is another Pathfinder Campaign Setting I’ve worked on in 2013.
Since these projects are released several months after they’re actually finished, I’ve had it sitting on my hard drive for quite some time, before I realized I could actually publish it.

In the heart of the Inner Sea region stretches one of the oldest human empires still standing today: the mighty and mysterious land of pharaohs and pyramids known as Osirion. Hosting as many accursed tombs and treasure-filled ruins beneath its shifting sands as above, Osirion offers no shortage of adventure for characters of all sorts. From the cosmopolitan capital city of Sothis, seat of the Ruby Prince, to the desolate wastelands of the Osirian Desert, discover the might and majesty that lifted humanity out of the Age of Darkness and could potentially usher in a new golden age if unearthed from the past.

As the name suggests, (and well, the description above), Legacy of Pharaohs has a strong Egyptian flavour. Pyramids, lots of sand, and North-African looking characters.

Like many of the assignments I had from Paizo, this one was mostly focused on characters and I enjoyed it quite a lot.
All characters had to look either North-African or Middle Eastern, both of which have in general a dark skin tone I rarely have the chance to practice with.
A part from rare occurrences.

The Lady of the Canal, right below, is my favourite one from Legacy of Pharaohs.
She’s the first one I made (always the most difficult first!).
Thanks to her I remembered that, when painting black skin, some blue strokes on the up-facing surfaces are kind of “the secret”.

 

 

Wali Sarita Senbi and Jira Odan below, had to look Persian instead, and since I’m not too familiar with those particular facial traits I had to make quite some research before I committed to a design.

 

 

 

The only two non-characters I made for the set are an environment and a small object, both below.

Hor Aha

Osirian Scarab Symbol

There are still a few pieces left from Legacy of Pharaohs, which I will post next time!

Towns of The Inners Sea part II

Here’s the rest of the illustrations I made for Paizo’s Towns of The Inners Sea.
As I said in my previous post, they were mostly portraits, which was both good fun and good practice.

 

 

This is the one I’m maybe the happiest with. Her name is Uzmilla and she’s obviously a witch. She was supposed to have wrinkly skin that looks like leather – check; one green eye and one red eye – check; a nasty look but not too evil – check?

I’m particularly satisfied of her hand. Practicing on greys really paid off, the way they make her skin sickly and thin on her bones really works there, I think.
Looking back at it, her neck could do with some more work, and the edges of her silhouette are way too sharp, but hey.

 

 

This, on the other hand, is the one I like the least.
It came out a lot more “oh look I’m such a good chap” than I meant to. For some reason I feel like I should do something mean to him, just to spoil his day:(

 

 

This one, her name is Salodri, is intriguing. The brief didn’t explain why she is wearing an elaborate eye patch.
I like to think she has a perfectly good eye underneath, she only does that because it’s her way to be a hipster.

 

 

And this is Zundrunga. He was supposed to look strong (check) and trustworthy (check).
Fun fact, after I finished working on Towns of The Inner Sea, I realised that I made him exactly like an old friend of mine at school.
He was strong as a bull, but with a kind and gentle heart. For some reason, the moment we met he decided we had to be friends, and that his mission in life from then on was to beat the crap out of everyone who even thought about bullying me.

High school was a walk in the park for me. I hope you’re doing fine buddy.

 

 

Lord Hazic Kel Kalaar here, is the one who gave me more problems. I struggled to fit his banner in the frame, his face really wouldn’t work and I made like five versions before I decided this was was good enough.

Either way, this is it for Towns of the Inner Sea.
They are printed at a fairly small size, so the large areas with relatively flat colours should work fine (I haven’t see the prints yet).

More stuff to come shortly!

by Paolo Puggioni

More Pathfinder Artwork

This is another illustration I made for Pathfinder, again for the Player Companion: Dragonslayer’s Handbook.

Just like the last illustration I posted, the canvas aspect ratio was quite awkward, and I had a hard time figuring out how to pose the characters.

For some time I fiddled a bit with the idea of drawing the Angel further away in the distance, to show more of his wings. Then I thought “why the hell do you want to show ALL of his wings in a vertical canvas?”.
So I ended up stacking the figures on top of each other, which worked nicely in the end.

As far as the composition goes, I OBVIOUSLY strived to lead the viewer’s eye in a circular movement.
Hell, the next step would have been carving actual arrows on the Magus’ blade and maybe tattooed along his arm.
The thing is, the canvas is shaped in such a way that it’s easy to “get lost” and not know exactly where to look at. Which, in turn, would result in an uninteresting and ultimately unenjoyable image.

By the way, since I kept the sketch, here it is, because why not.

Now, as far as the colours go, I have to confess I had to cheat a bit.
The ambient lighting is obviously the directional light that comes from the setting sun, which should have resulted in high contrast surfaces with a very warm and a very cold side.

However, there was also the strong cold light created by the bolt of energy cast by the Magus, which in turn would have cooled down the lit surfaces and warmed up the shaded ones.

What to do? Simple, stop giving a crap! I used a just slightly warm diffuse light for both figures, and proceeded to scatter around almost unjustified highlights and rim lights as if they were ten a penny.

Not something I would bring to a convention about Science of Colour And Light Applied To Digital Painting. However, I’m under the impression that had I used a more scientific approach the result would have been messier, so in the end I don’t feel that guilty.

So there, this was another piece of artwork fished from my Pathfinder folder. More to come in the next few days.

by Paolo Puggioni