Leonidas

My brother, who poses for reference in many of my paintings, wanted me to paint him in a style that was similar to the movie '300'. Painting him in Spartan gear was a lot of fun, and a bit challenging as well. A lot of thought went into this piece, from the composition to the setting, and I feel I have a stronger piece of work because of that. I learned a lot about how colors work as well working on this piece. Overall I'm very satisfied with this one.

Asher

I promised a friend I'd paint something for her quite some time ago, but I never had the chance to until recently. The concept of this piece is her idea, so it looks quite different than my other works, but I was determined to paint it as close to her vision as possible, and I think I succeeded in that regard. The hardest part about this image was the hair - I generally dislike painting hair and view it as a challenge itself, but overall, I'm quite satisfied with how that aspect turned out.

Apollo and Daphne

The Greek Mythological tale of Apollo and Daphne was something I tried many times before to paint without much success... until recently. I felt like this story could make for some very interesting imagery, so I was very determined to get it finished. I put a lot of thought and work into the background in this one. In general I feel like I spend too much time concentrating on the figures during the painting process, so I tried to break that flow with this image, spending lots and lots of hours on the background alone. I created quite a few custom brushes for this one, specifically for the leaves on the background and grass in the foreground to help speed up the process, as well as obtain some very realistic textural effects as well. The tree's textures were a lot of fun to work on as well... and very, very time consuming, but I feel like I have a much more stronger and believable image because of it. Overall I'm quite satisfied with how this image turned out, and I hope you enjoy it as well.

Zombies - Leave the Kids Alone

This is my first comic book cover illustration, the first of many I'm doing for Malaka Studios, and I have to admit I'm very proud of this one. The lightning was a bit tricky, but I think I managed to pull through. I wanted to keep the figures as the focus, so I purposely kept the background loose. Thanks for looking :)

Phoenix

I've been studying the works of Boris Vallejo for quite some time, and I wanted to paint something in that style for a while now. I learned much about how to go about color and skin tones studying his work, and I think this image greatly benefited from that. For once I'm actually quite satisfied with how this image turned out; Easily my best work in terms of colors and composition IMO. The figure was referenced from Mjranum-Stock, and was very much inspired by the character from the 'X-Men' comic books/movies as well.

Lost

I had this theme in my head for quite some time, and finally found some time to paint it. I wanted to paint something that was surreal in style, while leaving it open for interpretation. I learned a lot about conveying mood in this one as well.

The Ressurrectionist

A collaboration between myself and Abbas Saleem Khan (bakatron.com). The underwater theme tend to be a bit challenging for me, but I'm very happy with how this one turned out. Thanks for looking :)

Speedpainting - Devil's Eyes

I started working on this one earlier today, but couldn't quite finish it, so I decided to scrap it altogether. The lightning was very difficult in this one and was easily the most challenging aspect of this image. I decided to drop it because I found the figure's expression bland, and didn't enjoy the composition as well. Not sure if I'll continue to work on it more in the future, so for now, it's just an unfinished painting.

Los Mafiosos

Painting done for a friend. This piece was fairly challenging, especially in regards to the skin tones, but I learned a lot from it in the end. This is also much different from my usual works, which is a welcome change I have to admit. Thanks for looking!

Wrath of Medusa

I wanted to paint Medusa for quite some time, but haven't had a chance to until recently. This image was a lot of fun to paint, but also extremely challenging; The statue's 'folds' and texture in particular were very time consuming, as was the strands of grass on the foreground. For those interested, a tutorial on how I painted this image will be available soon on Photoshop Digital Painting Magazine as well.

Stoned

This image was created for Digital Arts Magazine, as a tutorial on how to create a portrait of a statue. I had a lot of fun creating this one, especially in regards to the lightning as well as the texture work. The tutorial deals with applying both photo textures as well as hand painted textures to create a believable result. Be sure to check out the complete tutorial next month on Digital Arts Magazine!

Persephone

I created this image in order to practice painting drapery, which I view as a challenge. Greek Mythology inspires me heavily as well, so I wanted to show that with this image. Persephone's story mainly evolves her abduction from the Earth realm, to the Underworld, courtesy of Hades. This image deals with that concept (albeit a bit subtly). The figure's pose was referenced from Lockstock as well, who has some great fantasy themed stock photography.

A very lengthy tutorial on how this image was created will be available in June of next month's Advanced Photoshop Magazine as well, so be sure to check that out.

Self Portrait

I wanted to do a fantasy-themed self portrait for quite some time, but haven’t had the chance to until recently. I opted for a fantasy theme with this one mainly because I felt it would make for some interesting imagery. I wanted to emulate the look of those early classical paintings, so I applied what I have learned from doing the Master Copy studies a while back into this painting. I feel like a have a stronger piece of work as a result of those studies.

Digital Artists - Available For Pre Order!

I'm proud to announce that my work will be included in 'Digital Artists'. 'Digital Artists' is a book from ArtSquared.co.uk that will follow 70 of the worlds best digital artists showcasing more than 250 images spread over 172 diverse pages of artwork, including 10 workshops written by some of the best artists in the business.

Click here to find out more >>>

Lost From Sea

This image started off very... unplanned. At first, I initially wanted to paint an underwater scene, but I got bored halfway through and decided to do something a bit different. I'm glad I did at the end of the day, as an underwater scene would have probably been too cliche.

Pose referenced from: [link]

EDIT: I altered the lightning a bit to make the second light source more evident.

Joker Was Here

I recently saw The Dark Knight on Blu Ray, and immediately after decided I had to paint the Joker. I wanted to do something a bit more original, however, so I tried to depict the Joker more as a vampire than anything else (hence the black attire as opposed to the classic purple).

This was painted in a period of 3 days, and I did my best to avoid overworking this piece, so I stopped much earlier than I usually do.

Dancing With The Devil

This piece was commissioned over a year ago, and I had much fun, and frustration, in creating it. I don't usually experiment much with a dark theme, so this was a fun change from the norm. I was asked to do something very Tim Burton-ish, whom I'm a huge fan of, and what you see here is the result.

I wanted the composition to be simple, concentrating on atmosphere above all else, so I decided to keep everything pretty much empty. The more elements I tried to add, the more the atmosphere suffered. I learned with this piece, specifically how to create rainy effects and enhancing atmosphere. I kept the color theme simple and generally cool to add to the atmosphere as well.

The Clockwork Man - Available for Pre-Order!

The Clockwork Man, a project I've been working on along with fellow artists for the past year, is finally available for pre-order! I'm very proud with the work I've done for the project, and how the game turned out as well.

At the turn of the century, in an alternate timeline where steam-powered technology has become dominant in almost all walks of life, this Hidden Object Adventure will take you to exotic locales, while you attempt to compile the parts to the world’s greatest invention!

• Explore unique Scrolling & Zoomable multi-layered scenes.
• Find hundreds of hand-painted Victorian items.
• Solve many adventure & logic puzzles.
• Get spoiled only as much as you need thanks to an innovative hint system.
• Enjoy high replay value as hidden items appear in alternate locations on consecutive play sessions.

To learn more about the game, visit the official "The Clockwork Man" website. For a limited time, you can save 50% on the title now should you choose to pre-order it :)

Wonder Woman

Portrait of Woman Woman. I approached this image in a similar way Alex Ross approaches his paintings; Using a photo reference to obtain dynamic lightning information, but not being a complete slave to it. I really wanted to push colors with this one, so I spent a lot of time working on the colors as well as studying color theory in general. A tutorial on how I created this image will be featured in GoMotion magazine soon, so keep an eye out for that :) Figure referenced from: [link]

*Special thanks to Henning, Baka, and CGDude for their input :)

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'Wonder Woman' is property of DC Comics.

Blade of Fire

This piece was a commission at first, but due to problems with the client, it fell through so I decided to make it my own. I put a lot of thought into this one, from the color scheme to the composition, and I think it really paid off. I consider this my best work to date, by far. Thanks for looking, and here's to a great 2009!