Brimstone and Hellfire in the making...

Hey guys so for a few months I have been working on my second Lord of the Rings piece. Now it should really not have taken me "a few months" to get this out, but with work and lack of artsy roommates it has been a bit hard to get into the art mood. My plan is to have a collection of maybe 4 to 5 pieces out of the Lord of the Rings world.

My first piece was on the battle between the Witch King and Eowyn. That was the first time i ever did a LOTR piece, but it was really fun and I definitely will be doing more. At first, I wanted to do certain events of the movies whether they were a battle scene or just a typical "Frodo and Sam moment". But then I thought, well what if I only do epic battle scenes in which good and evil were at their best. And so it was decided, these paintings will be "The Epic Battles Between Good & Evil of Middle Earth"...or something like that.

So this was my first piece for this series. I have half a mind to continue working on this piece by making some changes (like re-drawing Merry with a Nazgul blade in his hand)

This is a quick value study of my second piece, where Gandalf fights off the Balrog. This will be painted and finished the same way the first one was done, so even tho the Balrog looks a bit "rendered" it will not be a rendered painting.

But anyway, this is all for now. I will post progress as I work on the final image.

By: Luis Uzcategui

Today's weather report: Winter is coming.

By: Thomas Kirkeberg

Howdy! I'm Thomas Kirkeberg (click on the link to the right for more info) I thought Andrew's post looked so lonely, so I decided to give it another post to befriend. Anyway, here are a couple of illustrations I've cobbled together recently. Both are alternative book covers I made for school, for the bookseries "A Song of Ice and Fire" by George R.R. Martin. Some of you may be familiar with a show on HBO called "Game of Thrones". If you're not, then I'll sum it up for you: Kings have, in general, very short life expectancy and winter, appereantly, is coming.
Moving on, this is a cover for the first book "A Game of Thrones."

I did have a leftover idea that I wanted to do, so I did a cover for the third book as well, "A Storm of Swords."

Both of these are done digitally in Photoshop, based off of a line drawing (that often is quite different from the final art). I also use use my own, homebrewed brush for painting, as well as a standard soft brush. This is all I have to so for now. Hope you dig. Dig your self down into the snow that is promised to come.

Captain Andrew: The First Poster

Hey everyone,

Sorry, I couldn't resist the temptation when it came to the title...Here is a bit of an update on what I've been working on the last few days. I also felt like we needed to get something up here. On the left is one of my initial sketches and on the right is my in-progress line drawing for the final illustration.

Since seeing the Captain America: the winter soldier trailer, I've almost become obsessed with the idea of a hero who has such a strong sense of morality and who holds so true to their beliefs. It also shows how much the world has changed since his views and actions were considered normal or everyday and it tests his character. To me, each movie is a test of his character. There's a definite transition from "war hero", to "living legend", to "relic" and I find that super interesting and inspiring.

Anywho, what do you guys think so far? right now I'm still in the nice line drawing stage, but that should wrap up in the next day or so. It's a little rough right now, I know. I want it to have a similar look to this piece.

My only specific question is, "what do you guys think about where I moved his original shield from the sketch to the more final one?" composition wise, I think having it on the left instead of the right balances things out, but I like that the vertical stripes will go with the american flag when added later.

To all my fellow forgers, hope you have a Merry Christmas!