storn_cook

It's been awhile since I've posted anything. Been really busy with finishing up a ton of fantasy artwork for the upcoming Hero 6th ed. I got the fantasy section, so I was pretty damn stoked.

Starting to work on some painting for Warlord, the CCG, won't be able to show those until they get published. In the meantime, I'm starting to tackle the huge list of commissions I need to get to. Here is a famous moment in an alternate history of WWII with the inclusion of golden age superheroes. You might recognize these guys. They are earlier in the thread when I did each one as a separate pic.

Folks who've been waiting for theirs... I'm getting to them.



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I did this as a gift for a friend of Millie's. Watercolor. If you have never been to Ithaca, this is a beautiful gorge that one can walk up through from downtown Ithaca to Cornell/ College Town. Great walk, we do it about twice or three times a week.

As a kiddo, I used to walk it all the time in order to get to my grandparents. I always thought it had a bit of a Lord of the Rings vibe to it... used to think about Orcs coming down the stone stairs (not depicted in the pic), fights on that bridge.... sigh... no wonder I ended up a fantasy artist.

My private commission production is going to slow down quite a bit for the next few weeks due to my workload for Hero 6th Edition. But I will continue to try and get a few here and there out.

This was a different, fun commission, asking for a Red Dragon coming out of Fog/Mist



And this was from Death Tribble's "what should storn draw next" thread over on Hero games. I've always had a soft spot for Adam Strange (who is such an ode to Buck Rogers)... and a chance to do Captain Gorilla of the Star Patrol was waay too much fun to do. Judd, its a cross between our Spirit of the Century Characters, your Son of Gorilla Kahn and my Hadrian Helm!



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It is nice to do something kinda sweet instead of all the sturm and drang, blood and violence that is part and parcel of rpg adventure illustration. I got a chance to do a druid with red pandas. Not sure if they are her "familiars" or just something she has come across.

I used to live right next to the National zoo in DC. Red Pandas were about 10 minutes walking distance from my apartment. They are awfully cute and heck of a lot more interesting than their bigger holstein cousins.

Anyway, enuff blather from me. Here ya go:



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..but wait, there's more. Actually not, not yet.

Continuing on with my painting via stages, here is the underpainting. I scanned in the pencils and did the underpainting in Painter and Photoshop.

Now I will print it out and in my copious spare time start the oil painting process. I will seal it on a masonite board. Seal it with acrylic medium. Start painting. If I can find my digital camera, I'll take a few shots of interim steps.



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A real mixed bag of stuff this time around.

First up, a map I did in a quick and dirty method. It is for a Burning Wheel solo game that I'm in with Judd aka Paka. Scanned pencils for most of the geographical features. Lettering done in Photoshop with the Dragonbones font from Blambot. The coloring done in Painter, primarily with a "wet oil" brush... which gives it a bit of funky texture which I like, then the wet blender tool to mush stuff around a bit, like in the hills, mtns. Hope you like.



Here is a link to a higher resolution:
higher resolution for 13 Cities map

Here is the link to Blambot. Has wonderful fonts. I've even bought a couple.

Blambot fonts

Then, here is Judd's b-day present. Pencils that I'm giving to him, but I'm gonna work this up as a sample. This is from an incident in our Saturday D&D game, with Melech the Red there backstabbing a green dragon to great effect. I'm told. I wasn't there, darn it. ([i]Actually, I was having a wonderful time visiting Millie's daughter Anaiis in PA with Millie[/i])

I am going to try and keep track of the interim steps and post them as I get them done on this project. Although, since it is a for-me project, it is not a higher priority.



And lastly, another superhero, this time another character from RDU, The Silencer. A PC that I don't *think* I ever played with. The player Geoff was in a different group than mine at that time. RDU Neil ran multiple groups and we all kinda mixed and matched as needed for logistics, schedules and campaign compatibility. Now, I am in an online game with Geoff's Speedball as part of the Mavericks.



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And here are the next three that I promised.

We've got Doc Rocket!



Guardian Angel with his "divine wings"



And Justice



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I don't often do an entire team together... but lately, I got a chance to do a villain team. The upcoming characters are all heroes of a Golden Age superhero team. Not only do I get to do them as their individual character shots... I get to do them in a group shop with a very strong theme (which I will not talk about).

The single figure shots have been done for a few days, but was waiting for the patron to game with his group to show them off. That happened... now I can show them.

Sometimes, you just get in a groove. And I think I did get into a groove with this group. I'm going to show you three today. Three tomorrow.

Here they are, Raven (I think this is about the 5th guy I've drawn called the Raven. Popular moniker that!)



I really liked this concept, the Crimson Palm. Just so 30s-40s pulpy comic adventurer sounding...



And Tarot, we worked in a few Tarot elements for this one...



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And this is from my saturday night 4th ed d&d game, being C's new elf wild chylde ranger archer. I really like this doodle.




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Another eclectic post today. We've got a goth girl, a somewhat alien powersuit, a super team and my newest incarnation of my d&D 4th ed character, Kendric.

Kendric was kinda fun. New technique (started to use "wet" oil brushes in Painter on a ground, been using oils in Painter before, but the wet ones really work differently (and awesomely)). Kendric was a warrior/fighter, but a recent appearance of an ancient, unknown god (the god of secrets), Kendric swore feality and became an invoker. (I was bored being a fighter... this made sense in the in-game fiction as well as providing new toys for me to play with.)

I really like Kendric as an invoker, but kept a lot of the look from the original pic. Kendric was a cop in The City (never was named in our fiction) and then went on the run. See here:



And now, here is the "transformed by divine fires and a year long search for arcane knowledge" pic... Now, he is kinda cross of a noir private investigator, the Shadow, and your typical fantasy ranger look (I think it is the hat). Also my take on the Sunleaf Armor (hide). Off beat, but fits the character I think really well....



And onto the other folks commissions... nuff talk about my character... Alien-guvyer inspired power armor...



The goth girl is for Death Tribble, not really sure of her power/skill set. The info given to me was ambiguous in that sense.

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And havent done a super villain team in a long time. The fun thing was this was a team of folks I've drawn in the past, so I got to revisit them. I think some where actually heroes, but the patron liked them as his premiere villain team and ta-da, here we are!!!



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A new Catspaw page went up yesterday. Here be the link:

latest Catspaw page

Also, starting on this huge pile of commissions to get through, today, we've got two powersuits and a female mage. So, enjoy. If you have a commission in with me, be patient, I'm working my way through the queue.







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I've been on hiatus as I've been dealing with increased workload and some tough times on the home front. Which means Catspaw has just not been getting loaded up.

I just got back from LunaCon, which was a blast, learned a ton. So, I'm reinvigorated on getting back into the saddle on many of my projects.

So, here is the link to the new Catspaw page, uploaded this Weds. morning...

Latest Catspaw Page

and as an added bonus, here is private supervillain commission...



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Catspaw chapter 2, page 2 is up. I didn't update last week, but Chapter 2, page 1 went up. Talene dreams of the Philosopher Spike's warnings. Is it in time?

Catspaw webcomic

Meanwhile, a couple of commissions. We have a super-ized Joan of Arc and Winter Wolf from Death Tribble. I sorta went winter camo based off some russian camo that I looked up for Winter Wolf.





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Our first chapter comes to a close!!!! But more questions await than answers. Check out the latest page of Catspaw, the exciting sword and sorcery noir action webcomic:

Catspaw continues

Another exciting, action page is up on Catspaw! The fight with the sellswords ends abruptly.

Latest Catspaw page

Our martial arts fight continues with a new page today! Come check out Catspaw! Page 9 of Chapter One is up!

Catspaw, page 9, Chapter 1

I have another pitch for y'all.

I am 1/3 of the Sons of Kryos podcast show, a show about gaming and what happens at our gaming table. We are no longer doing the podcast. We've gone to video.

Our first video show is up. Our subject for this show is "pitch sessions", some pitfalls and advice for starting new campaigns. If that interests you (or you just wanted to see what I look like and if I am as goofy looking as I sound.... answer is yes, btw), come check it out here:

Sons of Kryos Video

Hi folks, some of you may or may not have followed Catspaw, my webcomic from awhile back. Well, Sword and Sorcery never really backed up their plans for it and eventually that website fell apart.

I've relaunched Catspaw on WebComics Nation. Here is a link to that:
Catspaw webcomic

I will be doing a new page every week. Unless it somehow starts to make me money, I cannot do more than that. But I do need hits, so eventually, I can get some advertisers and pay for the more advance site features, like advertising. So please, come and visit. Often! Please forgive the shill.

Let me also mention that John C. Hocking is the author of Catspaw, who wrote Conan and the Emerald Lotus, about the only pastiche I've ever liked... and is a damn good friend to boot. Note: I did read his book before our friendship was formed.

To whet y'all's appetite, here is the first and sixth pages.