Sketch: Chaos Space Marines: Caligula Kaddon

Pencil on paper.

I’m quite enjoying drawing these Chaos Space Marines. As you can see this is just a sketch, I haven’t even finished giving weight to the lines. But I was really eager to show you what I’m doing at the moment – I’m really itching to start shading this artwork with my trusted ball-point pen. I might even take it to Photoshop and paint it.

I meant to do this drawing long time ago, it is inspired on a Warband created by Razhbad, one of the many talented fanfic writers at the Bolthole. I’ve however taken a lot of artistic license as I couldn’t help myself and got lost adding details to the drawing. Caligula Kaddon’s (the mean looking guy with the axe) gear supposed to be pretty standard Black Legion, there is no mention of him wielding an ancient relic… but hey

I want to start doing more complex pieces this year. More action, more people… more gothic space opera.

-Forjador.

Silver Skulls: Sgt. Gileas Ur’ten (colour)

Photoshop + Wacom Graphire3

If you want to see a bigger image please click on the pictures.

Over a year ago I did a sketch of Sgt. Gileas Ur’ten (which you can find by clicking here). Gileas Ur’ten is a character created by the talented Sarah Cawkwell (A.K.A Pyroriffic) for some short stories about the Silver Skulls. I promised Sarah I’d illustrate a colour version of Gileas some day… and here we are

From the Lexicanum:

“The Silver Skulls are a successor Chapter created during the Second Founding and are said to be among the most renowned and honoured chapters of the Second Founding’s ranks. They have earned a reputation for victory, no matter the odds. They claim lineage from the line of the Ultramarines although records are hazy on the matter. Given the number of successor chapters who take their genestock from this great line, however, there is no dispute.

The chapter takes its name from its tradition of claiming the heads of their opponents, coating them in silver and then displaying them as trophies of battle in their ships and vaults.”

If you’re interested in the Silver Skulls, there is a book written by Sarah Cawkwell called The Gildar Rift to be released in December, you can check it out at the Black Library.

-Forjador.

Adeptus Custodes

To see a bigger image please click on the pictures

Ball-point Pen on Paper

From the Lexicanum:

“The Adeptus Custodes are the guardians of the Imperial Palace and the Golden Throne, as well as being the personal bodyguard to the Emperor. A small elite of three hundred Custodes, known as the Companions, form the Emperor’s personal bodyguard and never leave his side. Due to the vast size of the Imperial Palace, the Custodes always act as a defensive army. The Custodes themselves never leave Terra, and only rarely leave the Palace.

It is the Adeptus Custodes that decide who may enter the throne room of the Emperor, and when.”

The Adeptus Custodes are larger and stronger than the Space Marines, they are not mass produced as the Astartes are. They are trained as Bodyguards rather than soldiers; they excel in the art of assassination – in order to counter possible assassination attempts to the Emperor.

An interesting fact about the Custodes training is what they call the Blood Games: an exercise were some members of the Custodes act as enemy fighters and attempt to penetrate the security of the Imperial Palace on Terra. On the subject, there is a short novel by Dan Abnett contained in Tales of Heresy (the 10th book in the Horus Heresy series) called… Blood Games. Worth reading – I’m a confessed Herr Abnett fan.

I meant to post this drawing back on June, but I had problems finding an A3 scanner. I’m loving drawing on A3 format rather than A4, I’d love to try bigger sizes even. But until I can make some space at home where to fit a proper drawing board I’ll have to stick to my A4-A3 sketch pads.

-Forjador.

Miriael Sabathiel

To see a bigger image please click on the picture.

Black ball-point pen on paper.

According to the Lexicanum, the Codex: Sisters of Battle 2nd edition states: “A sign of the Sisters strength is the fact that in their entire history only a single sister, Miriael Sabathiel, has fallen to the lure of Chaos. How Miriael fell is unknown, only that she was turned from the Emperor’s light to Slaanesh worship, and now serves as one of the prince of chaos’ greatest warriors.”

Miriael’s combat prowess is well documented: her blade killed Khorgath, Champion of Khorne. Her bolt pistol executed Justicar Tankrius of the Grey Knights. Her machinations trapped Autarch Eliathon of Ulthwe.

Most images portrait Miriael on her prime: a Champion of Slaanesh, glowing runesword in hand, armour sealed with demonic wards. But I wanted to explore a different angle. It is said that Miriael’s most powerful weapon is he siren’s beauty, so I wanted to show Sabathiel at the beginning of her falling; naked and wielding no weapons – looking almost fragile. Get drawn into her eyes, get lured by her flesh… is your will going to be strong enough to resist?

-Forjador.

Sketch: Sister Miriael – In the Name of Lust

Pencil on paper.

I’m going to shade this sketch with ball-point pen. I want to contrast Miriael against the Dark Eldar, her pale skin appearing to shine over the towering warrior submerged in shadows. I’ve some ideas I want to try as well so I may take this one to Photoshop for some experimentation.

Let’s see how it goes

-Forjador.

Marauder Champion

To see a bigger image please click on the picture

Ball-point pen on paper.

This is a warrior from Norsca, a Graelinger, a marauder on the path to become a Chaos Champion.

-Forjador.

From sketching to painting

Some people have been asking me about my approach to digital painting. So I thought to take my last illustration as an example. First thing you should know is that I love drawing, specially black & white: pen, ink, pencil, charcoal… it doesn’t matter. There is something about drawing that I find very appealing, it just connects… and makes me lose track of time

We can say everything starts with a mental image. I like to take mine to a piece of paper (though many artists start sketching straight away on the computer using a Wacom). I sketch freely on pencil, sometimes I decide to shade the drawing with a ball-point pen (that is my favourite technique), sometimes I just leave the drawing as a line art. Either way, once I’m happy with the results, I scan the image and take it to Photoshop – like the picture below.

The next thing I like to do is to get rid of the white space. I use a plain colour as a background and this is going to dictate the mood of the artwork. Then I start placing solid blocks of colour to separate the different elements. On the image below I’m still keeping the line. At this stage I was still deciding if I was going to paint this “comic style” (keeping the line and airbrushing the artwork) or to lose the line and go for something more complex.

On this occasion I decided to lose the line. I started working on lights and shadows to give the piece some volume. I also started amending or changing things here and there, like for example, on Malakai’s goggles – see if you can spot the difference

Lastly, my favourite part. I work on all the details, correct the colours and add textures. I’ve to be very careful or this stage would be never-ending! I could spend an eternity just messing around with the artwork. At some point I require of some mighty willpower to let it go…

This was just a very brief explanation about my approach to digital painting. I haven’t mentioned any technicalities: how many layers I use, what kind of brushes, etc. But if you have any questions please feel free to ask.

-Forjador.

Tribute: Dwarven Heroes – colour illustration

Photoshop & Wacom

To see a bigger image please click on the picture.

Taking advantage of the Christmas holidays I managed to finish this illustration I call ‘Dwarven Heroes’ which I started long time ago (and never managed to complete for one thing or another).

This is a tribute to all the creative people that through the years have been bringing the dawi to life with their stories and illustrations. People like William King, Nick Kyme, Gav Thorpe, Nathan Long and Adrian Smith.

The dwarfs on the illustration are my favourite characters from different novels:

Gotrek Gurnisson from Gotrek and Felix series by William King and more recently by Nathan Long

Malakai Makaisson from Gotrek and Felix series by William King and more recently by Nathan Long

Halgar Halfhand from Oathbreaker by Nick Kyme

Morek Stonehammer from Honourkeeper by Nick Kyme

If you haven’t read any books about dwarfs written by Nick Kyme or Gav Thorpe I strongly recommend you have a look at this omnibus from The Black Library coming next year, it’s called Dwarfs and it will contain the novels Grudgebearer, Oathbreaker and Honourkeeper.

Khazuk!

-Forjador.

 

 

Flesh Trilogy: book cover

Photoshop + Wacom Graphire3

To see a bigger image please click on the picture

Following my previous illustration, I’ve designed the cover for Lord Lucan’s Flesh Trilogy. As some of you may remember, Lord Lucan was the winner of the competition I did celebrating the first anniversary of the blog. You can read about it here.

-Forjador.

The Lychen: Corporal Vash (colour illustration)

Photoshop + Wacom Graphire3

To see a bigger picture please click on the images.

Finally I’ve completed the illustration of Corporal Vash. He is the main character of Lord Lucan’s “Flesh Trilogy”. If you want to know more about it please check this previous entry: Sketching Corporal Vash

As usual, I could spend hours just working on little details or amending mistakes here and there, but this illustration has been taking too long already and I need to move on. I tried extending the drawing and placing Vash on top of a pile of corpses, I even added a Thunderer (siege tank) in the background; but it wasn’t working as it was too distracting. I wanted this painting to be all about Vash and Vash alone.

Working on the corporal has been a great experience and I’ll probably be doing more about the Lychen in future, though for now it is time to focus on another part of the vast universe of Warhammer. There are some unfinished Dwarven Heroes that needs my attention, I have plenty to do about the Silver Skulls, Nick Kyme’s Grimblades, Dan Abnett’s Eisenhorn/Ravenor and many more.

-Forjador.