Celestial Gift - Holiday Promo

Just finished a brand-new shiny holiday promo image. I give you:

Celestial Gift

Dandelion Sky

Done with this one! =)



I've also provided a high-res wallpaper (2560x1600) for download here: Dandelion Sky Wallpaper

Enjoy!

Moss Dragon - Final =)

After many many many hours more of work and re-envisioning... Two months "late" but who's counting? (I had my wedding in-between start and finish!)...I've arrived at a final painting of the Moss Dragon piece.

I love how closely it matches my original vision: warm morning sunlight, a cute little Irish gal, and dragon that looks so happy I can hear it purring. =) =) =)

Huge 'thank-yous' to my critique buddy illustrators, especially Mike Sass for his awesome paint-over toward the end!

Eternal Fire Map Final

And here we have the final map for Patrik's Magic of the Eternal Fire series. This was quite fun to work on and I am pleased with the way it turned out! Patrik was great to work with and I know his series will go far.

Now onward to my graphic novel! =)

Eternal Fire Map

Why are words always cooler in another language? Especially words on maps...these in particular are Swedish. To me they sound fantasy already ;) As you may have guessed, I'm now working on the map for Patrik Bergström's Magic of the Eternal Fire series. Shading and more refinement to come...

Magic of the Eternal Fire - Color!

I got to do one of my favorite illustration bits today: work out a color-scheme. =)

Much care was taken on the greens chosen for the magic, its intensity, warm-cool balance, and making the wizard recede. I love how this has come together over the past few hours!

Many many hours of work to go until finished, of course, but very much looking forward to painting this one.

Magic of the Eternal Fire - Sketches

I just started a new cover for Patrik Bergström in Sweden. This is for a children fantasy chapter book/series that translates roughly to: The Magic of the Eternal Fire: Tim and Corinthia.

I'm quite excited about how this is turning out so-far and can't wait to start playing with color and light!

Moss Dragon - WIP4

Haven't forgotten about this piece. Today it underwent a bit of revision. Namely, I changed the woman to a much younger girl. It had been bugging me that this didn't quite fit into my children's art portfolio, making the character younger was the obvious solution =P

Also looking at TONS of photos of mossy forests around Ireland as inspiration. My goal is to have this one done for St. Patrick's Day -but we shall see! ;)

The Princess and The Spaceman

In a little over two weeks I am marrying my wonderful fiancé Chris!!! =)

In honor of this: here is an image I created a couple months back (as a Christmas present) for him and our parents. It's a fantasy portrait of the two of us as kids! Me as a prairie princess wielding a golden paintbrush and him as a little boy wearing a tron-inspired suit...with a castle and rocket ship behind us respectively. The likenesses are referenced from old photos, and are pretty much spot-on =D






This is one of the 16"x24" canvas wrap prints from Costco. They turned out really nice!

Skymaids and Starfish

For the past few weeks I've been working on my entry for the Dreamscape CG Challenge. Partially inspired by movies such as Little Nemo and Bedknobs and Broomsticks, this piece has its beginnings in a few rough sketches of a bed, surrounded by fish, yet floating in the air...Because of the sheer amount of elements, I'd definitely consider it one of my most ambitious illustrations to date! Wish me luck! =)

Final:



Link to larger version...

Winter's Nest and New Year's

Wishing everyone a wonderful close to 2010 and light and laughter into 2011!

Winter's Nest is a personal piece that sprung from a vision of a nest high atop a tree overlooking a wintry landscape. But in the nest radiates a golden light, for a magical birth is taking place: a foretold golden owlet is hatching to snowy owl parents. To honor this occasion a wood fairy has come with a gift. =)

The Hare King!

New personal artwork! I've been working hard lately to rearrange my time and schedule so that I can put more energy toward personal pieces. This is the first piece to come out of such efforts.

The concept came from one of my mid-morning sketchbook brainstorms over jasmine-green tea. It was the glimpse of a young boy standing in a circle of snow hares, being crowned their king. Like many of my self-motivated pieces, the image did not need to arise from a full understanding of an entire story, but rather came from trying to fully envision and illustrate the scene I had snared in my mind's eye. I'm still having fun imagining the story behind the scene...

Golden Fish

Golden Fish is my first truly "personal" piece in ages... I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep one night and this would not leave my head. After fighting it a good hour, I decided to get up and sketch it out....only then did the glowing fish in my head go away! =)

Oh, I highly suspect that the glowing fish came from the respective episode of Big Bang Theory.





Some progress shots:

Mother Goose in Prose II

Just about done with the Mother Goose in Prose cover for Kalliope. Actually had a lot of fun painting the sheep and flowers =)

Mother Goose and Steph Portrait

First up. I just started another lovely book cover for Kalliope Audiobooks. This is for the audiobook version of The Mother Goose in Prose by L. Frank Baum. The story I chose for the cover is "Little Bo-Peep."







Also onto the next character portrait for Tom Tancin's Time Warriors series:

William and the Witch

So my little fingers have been flying around the ol' Wacom... Below are some recent projects: the first a WIP character portrait for author Tom Tancin (of Time Warrior fame).

The second is a quick black & white interior illustration for fantasy author Mark Milbrath. This is the first of a series of images for his upcoming book Pumpkin Tales (working title). The particular story I've illustrated is called "Matilda's Ingredients" -about a witch, three orphan girls, and a mysterious cat.

Patchwork Girl - Just About Done

Yup, just about done with the cover for The Patchwork Girl of Oz!

Princess and the Goblin - Color Sketch

I've been working on the color sketch for The Princess and the Goblin... =)

The Princess and the Goblin 1

Got a good start on the cover illustration of The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald. This is another one for Kalliope Audiobooks... Below is the tight sketch, rough sketch and thunbnail sketch.









Also, finished up the splash page illustration for theterrorofprismfading.com a few days back:

Prism and Daddy Long Legs

Been workin' hard since the last post...

First up, the beginning steps of a project for K.E. Stapylton, author of The Terror of Prism Fading, for which I did the cover art. This image is to be the splash page for www.theterrorofprismfading.com as well as the site layout on which all the pages can "hang."


















And a BIG update as well for the Kalliope Audioboooks Daddy Long Legs cover:



The next step for this one is textures and tweaks! =)