NORSEMEN!!!

All I can say is that I'm loving the new tablet. I fired this rough little doodle off tonight once I got my new toy home and revved up. I don't often work in Corel Painter, so it was an experiment in both software and tablet.

To the MOON, Alice. To the moon!

Here's a quick non-RPG commission that I knocked out over the weekend. The client wanted a simple vector drawing of a kilt-wearing astronaut hoisting a mug of beer. Cheers!

In other news, I'll be picking up a fun new toy this evening. I can't wait to kick the tires a little, and hopefully I'll have some gorgeous new art to show for it!

Stay tuned as I fumble with this frightening new technology...

Aaaaand the third head finally shows up!

Well, as they say...better late than never! The guys have been getting on my case (and rightly so) to get over here and add to 3HT's new blog, so I felt it my duty to oblige my fellow troll heads. It's been busy lately with tons o' art being produced from the three of us. As I reflect on the art I've produced over this last year I've seen major room for improvement on my part and have since decided to start taking a little more time on my pieces so that hopefully this head turns out a better product. We'll see if that happens. ;)

As far as art of late from my own personal drawing table, I've started another "demon" piece involving that Prince of Demons...Demogorgon! Duh-duh-duuuuuuh! This is the biggest picture I've done to date coming in at a whoppin' 17" x 22".

Here's a couple of photos taken by my cruddy digital dinosaur of a camera of early stages of the Demogorgon pic...hope you enjoy!

The Flintwork Clan

Completed part three today.
Pubo climbs down the rope about 100 feet onto
a rock ledge littered with rubble. The other party members
await him there. The only way on appears to be another shaft
downwards. There is nothing of interest here save rubble, a few disturbed bats, and
bat droppings, so the party must continue downwards.

The Flintwork Clan
I have decided to catalogue the adventures of the down at heel, sundered group of petty Dwarves known as "The Flintwork Clan". Out of work since their small flint mine closed, the family has been looking for other outlets to earn a living.
So far I have worked out that the clan is called Flintwork, their flint mine has closed, they are a poor, smelly and down at heel lot, rather like petty Dwarves. Their leader is Pubo "Pumpkinhead" Flintwork (owing to his overtly large head) Then there is Gizzard, Mooji the Cat (a polymorphed Dwarf Thief), Pauli Swordbreaker, (the resident bad-ass Dwarf champion), and the two drunken "grogbreath" cousins. (one is called "Grog" the other "BBreath" or bad breath..."grogbreath" as a pair) Together they make up the fighting, adventuring and mining force of the rather small sundered Flintwork Clan. Known affectionately as the Flintwork Force! My first illo will depict the clan, and especially these principle chaacters. The second illo (which I finished today) depicts the team about to enter and survey a cave system located about two days journey from their home.

Adobe Photoshop Art Blog

I have been playing around with various Photoshop Tutorials to hopefully

improve my novice digital art rendering skills. I have this great painting an eye

from scratch tutorial by wonderful digital artist called, Brian Thomas.....no no,

sorry Brian Haberlin. He is really great, he deep breathes, he coughs, he clears his throat, his infant son sings in the background, the water pump from his fish tank bubbles away as he gives away all his precious digital art wisdom. And I'm there like a sponge lapping it all up. Great guy!

Here is an older eye tutorial result above. Using his pointers, I learned that eyeballs reflect light and colour and are not white. When you depict them you strive to show reflection, wetness and the fact that it is a ball in a socket.

The one I did today is on the left. (the one with the tan)
Its a great little tutorial to improve your rendering skills. I think everyone discovers Photoshop, creates cartoon colouring for a few months, then gets tired of it any starts using Painter. Then learns more, and comes back to Adobe Photoshop again. The trick is using the smudge tool for blending. You get Painter like mixed paint effects.

The Green eyeball was given much more time and detailing.

However I was not as happy with the upper lid or shading in that particular

version. As I said, its good practice. I universally never start artwork from scratch on computer, I always draw it and scan it in. So these Tut's have forced

me to begin a small piece of work from scratch in Photoshop. Overall its good

training for me too, as well as rendering training.

Silly 3D amusing things!

Messed around with a few old 3D Models I created in 3DSMAX7 today.
I've got pretty rusty with my 3D stuff as I have not done any in about 6 months.
Two Dwarven Zombies, using modified animations. And Peekatoot speaks for
himself!

In all seriousness, 2009 has been off to a busy start for we fellas here at Three-Headed Troll. On top of commissions for clients such as Chaotic Henchmen Productions, Brave Halfling Publishing, Center Stage Miniatures, Pied Piper Publishing, the City of New Braunfels and Gamewick Games, we Heads have been busy honing our own skills and pushing each other to the challenge. The volume of work, both professional and personal, has been heroic. There's also a revamp of our website in the works.

Here's to hoping the momentum carries on through the rest of the year! GLAD and I should have some really great work to show for ourselves when we display at Con on the Cob in October.

Bah! What else could you expect, Andy? You're on the other side of the Atlantic, effectively living in The FUUUUUUUUUUTUUUURE!

To all of our readers, this is the new incarnation of the Three-Headed Troll blog. Here the three heads will talk about life, art, adult beverages and whatever else crosses our minds. It'll be a fine place to catch news updates and maybe even preview some in-progress art.

Enjoy your stay!