ArtOrder Feature

ArtOrder is a great site hosted by Jon Schindehette Art Director for D&D. On his latest post he was nice enough to feature one of my images. I was very flattered to say the least. If you do not know the site please check it out it is well worth the visit.

ArtOrder Priorities: Making TIme

ArtOrder

Mother of Grendel Grief-Wracked and Ravenous (Beowulf Series image 2 of 3)

Part two of my Beowulf series. This is the second battle Beowulf has in the epic, where he faces off against the mother of Grendel. Unlike the first piece, I wanted this one to depict the heat of the battle. I wanted Beowulf struggling to fight to show that even he can not handle the wrath of Grendel's mother.

I also really wanted to get that fierce emotion across of Grendel's mother. To show how much she loved her son as her love was turned into unmitigated rage against his killer.

Unlike Grendel I wanted to depict his mother with a slightly more humanistic appearance to make her a bit more sympathetic. For even Beowulf says that unlike the beast Grendel he can understand that Grendel's mother had to do what she did to avenge her kinsman.

Since Grendel's mother is said to look like that of a water demon I thought what if I combined a naga or serpent creature with that of a merrow and have a serpentine tail but with a fish fin. I figured this would work for how she travels on land and sea. The text also describes her as a sea-wolf and I wanted to play up that fusion. So I gave her aquatic features such as; fins, hand-webbing, and gills. I then also gave her the wolf-like features of her wolfen eyes, fur covered hands, and large mane.

This was really fun to create, I really enjoyed playing with the design Grendel's mother.

As always this was created in Corel Painter.

The Son of Cain Hunts in Heorot (Beowulf Series image 1 of 3 )

This is the first piece in my Beowulf series entitled "The Son of Cain Hunts in Heorot". I wanted each of the three pieces in the series to depict a battle with the three monsters Beowulf faces. This one shows Beowulf as he begins his epic fight with the beast Grendel.

I wanted this piece to depict the beginning of the battle as the first punches are thrown. Where Beowulf shows great confidence before this supposed threat, as his loyal men cheer him on against the demonic descendant of Cain.

The design of Grendel comes from specific parts of the original text. I show Grendel as this ominous shadowy figure that is almost completely silhouetted. I got this idea from a really interesting part of the book where Grendel is described as a dark shadow that lurks beneath the clouds.

Besides being a giant, Grendel is also said to have been disturbed by the noise of the great hall, thus why I designed him with the large ears. The rest of his physical appearance actually comes from descriptions of his mother. She is said to be a demonic sea creature who is refereed to as a sea-wolf. When I read that I wanted to play up that idea of fusing mammalian and aquatic creature aspects. So Grendel's ears were based upon a wolf but then enlarged to gain a more bat like quality. To incorporate the aquatic aspects I gave Grendel webbing that can be seen in between his fingers.

The piece was drawn out on paper and then painted in Corel Painter. I enjoyed painting it and hope you all like it as well.

We Now Return You to Your Regular Broadcast

Hey everyone I am back. Computer is back and operational and as you can see the blog got a bit of a make-over. I have lots of artwork to post so make sure you stay tuned. I also have some exciting new gigs coming up, once I can give you the specifics I will. I hope you're as excited as me.