5 card illustrations (updated with some painting steps)

[cos]

A couple of paintings I've recently completed for the Fantasy Flight Games card game 'A Game of Thrones'

http://img.ranchoweb.com/images/artstuff/house_mormont_spearman_final_s.jpg

http://img.ranchoweb.com/images/artstuff/septons_blessing_final_s.jpg

c&c welcome

[hurricane]

'lo cos, long time ago, im just lurking around, watching, keeping my art for my self :)

great pics (as usual) the hair line might be a bit too sharp, it looks like he is in motion, hmm, well the direction is good, but hmm i still think the hairline is too sharp :D
and his cape on the first pic, it looks like its infron of the tiny grass hill, but he is behind it, and moving forward ..hmm... maybe draw his front foot infront of the grass ? :) hehe, i might be wrong but thats my crit :)

second pic rocks ! his armor is exellent !!
but the priest looks short, or his bottom part, looks like hes standing below the ground the knight kneels (?) on

kick ass nontheless :)

[Loga4]

Wow Cos,really awesome.

[Lono]

great stuff as always cos!

second one is my fav.

-Lono

[ZeeWire]

Nice work, I love the misty environment, it creates an interesting mood. Did you use painter for that?.

The second piece is my favorite. The first is also nice but I find the cape too strait and stiff, and the fact that is touching the side of the slope & then locks into those trees, takes some of the action away into a semi static pose.

Great job thou, I would love to see more.

[davi]

amazing..


can't think of anything else to say besides that. Amazing.

[I.was.ink]

really nice pieces. I also think that the swaying of the cape would look better if it wasn't touching the miny hill next to that tree there. the second pic is my favorite. I love the red cape and the armor. Great stuff!

The only other crit, is on that priest looking guy! i think the top of his head is a bit on the big side.

could be wrong though!

[TJ Verhagen]

Hey Cos,

Always great to see your work, cuz your work be great:D
Looks extremely excelent man, keep it up.

[taff]

i am with davi on this one..

a...a...a..amazing!

[gekitsu]

i'm with taff...

in the secind one, i love the knight... he's radiating something that says: "power" but his pose tells us he's not moving, but you can feel the force he's able to unleash...

amazing!

[MindCandyMan]

Wow totally amazing man...they are both really awesome wow. What brushes do you mainly use in painter? Also, is it possible for you to post closeups of the stone bricks...the trees, and the armor...awesome work man...totally inspiring.

[cos]

Hurricane - Hey man, haven't seen you for ages, glad to see you're still around. Cheers, hairline is abit too sharp along with other areas of the figure, I agree. I was actually asked to seperate him a little from the bg to stand him out, as they're gonna be printed quite small.

Not that sure what you mean about the grass hill? it's sposed to be thick grass he's in so it's growing over his feet, not sure if that hasn't come across? Priest is short to the Knight, exxaged that a little to give the Knight a feeling of more power. Didn't want to do them the same size.

ZeeWire - Thanks, they were all done in Photoshop. With the bearskin cloak, I didn't want to over flap it as I wanted to give it a slight sense of weight, maybe I made it a little too straight. It's not supposed to be touching that tree tho, just flapping in front of it. Maybe if I mistied the tree down the bottom some more, and cast some shadow on the grass in front, it would have been clearer. I'll keep it in mind for next time.

MindCandyMan - Thanks! I'll see if I can get permission to post close-ups.

Loga4, Lono, davi, iwasink, TJ Verhagen, taff, gekitsu - Thanks guys!

[Frost]

Cos!

Always wonderful to see your latest works. Your work has shot up many levels in the past year, truly impressive! Keep up the hard work, it's really paying off!

Cheers brotha'!

[cos]

Frost - Hey man! Thanks alot, nice of you to say so!

[jerO]

these are really fine, man.
i think they're definitely stronger than the stuff you posted for Warlord. Don't mean anything negative by that, these are just really supurb.

BTW, did you delete the other thread? can't find it.
jerO

[Oblio]

kick as stuff cos. You rock.
Unfortunately i can't enjoy too much the seccond (that priest looks like Lenin :bash: )

tortured.oblio

p.s. - on the first pic, the head of the guy seems .. displaced - a bit to the letf and also.. a bit stiff. (head only).

ont eh seccond pic - the priest looks like he has a too short neck. His left hand seems too long.

[cos]

jerO- Cheers man, these probably had a little more tweaking than the Warlord stuff I reckon.

Yeah, other thread got wiped, was a little too much. Headache prefer to let that crap end, haven't got the time for it..

Obli - Yah, but the knight looks like Lennon so it should balance that shit out for you! ;) Cheers dude.

Good points on the crits, I agree with them. Priests head also abit small now I look at it aswell..

[LEN]

I love this forum. I learn so much from the posted work and even more from the coments and coments on the coments. Bearing this in mind I have some coments and questions I would like to toss out there:

First being that the hair line is too sharp, what are some effective ways to deal with this issue. This is a genneral concern in my own work

Also just a comment on the superb secound painting, am I wrong when I say that I feel that the red cap is a little strong even with the complementing red shadow on the priest. It seems to be trapping my eye.

Lovely work thank you so much for posting.

[cos]

LEN - Thanks for your comments, glad you liked them.

Realistically I don't think the cape would glow as heavily red as that no. Tho as the palette is quite subdued, I felt it needed something to pop at you, and the cape worked well for that I think. I also tried a duller version tho it didn't improve it imo.

As for the sharp issue I have had a similar problem aswell, I think the trick is not being scared to get messy, softening/roughing edges where need be, and balancing your hards and softs. Something I'm still learning more and more as I continue to paint.

Cheers

[Atmospheria]

Nice stuff cos...i liked the sword mostly in the second one...and the armor is pretty good too...
I noticed something though...in the second one the knight hair gotto hang down...isn't it? I mean the whiskers....but its me anyway....cool stuff again!

[LEN]

cos,

Thanks for the response. again, fantastic.

[cos]

Atmospheria - Thanks, I agree on the crit with the knights hair, could have had more stringy bits dropping and flowing down. Someone else mentioned that to me while I was painting it.

My intention was to give hime a more classy noble look, which is why it's all really neat and slicked back. A messier look I thought might've had a more brutish look which I wanted to avoid, tho some strands dropping would not have hurt, thanks again.

[cos]

May aswell add the Warlord paintings here as this thread is back up.

http://www.imgmag.com/images/cozartworks/Mammut_s.jpg

http://www.imgmag.com/images/cozartworks/Terr_Org_s.jpg

http://www.imgmag.com/images/cozartworks/Unakhan_s.jpg

[TJ Verhagen]

wow, cos is at it again.
wicked cos, I always enjoy your work.

Any chance of you making a tutorial or show the steps you take?
I'd love to see how you work:D

[Oblio]

now you're talkin' :D
Verry Jason Manley like :p
Few crits but only subjective so i'll shut up (minor thing anyway)
Those look far better in my opinion.
Superb stuff!

Oblio

[cos]

Oblio - Cheers dude, glad you liked.

TJ - Thanks mate, been awhile to put any painting tuts together actually.

Here's something I put together a while ago.. If I do anymore I'll add em here aswell.

[MindCandyMan]

Thanks for posting this cos...it's interesting to see how you block out the dark areas ahead of time...almost like its with a sharpie or something. Awesome. :o

[cos]

MCM - Thanks man, Here's another I just put together for that mammut painting, from rough to finish. Hope it's helpful.

[I.was.ink]

Thanks for that little w.i.p

very helpful. I have one question though. I ten to start off in a similar fashion in ps( u do use ps right?) but it seems I can't get past the second stage. I can't get that finished look u achieve, but get stuck with all the little round circles all over the place in my stuff. Of course I haven't learned color theory either, well just a little, but I'm going to let art center teach me some of that! :)

But in the meantime, do u have any tips, or suggestions on how to get the strokes to blend in together? What r your settings in photoshop for the paintbrush? i have version 6 which one do u have?

thanks in advance!

[jerO]

Cos,
hey, i really like what you did with your WIP stuff.
If you don't mind, i'm gonna steal that. LOL

Up to this point, i've just had a series of WIP files
clogging my site at various stages of completion that
people could click through or whatever, but putting
the biggest changes all in one image makes a lot of sense
and would take up less room.

jerO

[ceenda]

Best thread of the year so far. :D

Hehe, man, your stuff keeps getting better and better.

I'd like to see more colour variation in some of your work. But then I'm probably talking crap.

Anyhoo, great stuff man!

[MindCandyMan]

I agree ceenda...I would love to see what would come out of cos working with a brighter type palette only. Although I have to say that I love dark paintings hehe...but maybe just to stretch you cos? :o

[cos]

Iwasink - Thanks dude, Glad you found it helpful.

I've been using ps6 for my finished pieces with plenty of custom textured brushes in there, and been experimenting with ps7 and painter7 which really has a much better selection. Not really having any specific brush settings, just mixing it up.

About the circular stuff, sounds like you may need to adjust your brush spacing in ps? Or possibly you are getting alot of slow down and need more ram.

JerO - haha, all yours man ;) Probably easier to understand the process this way I reckon, i.e. sketch > block in > render and details.

Ceenda - Hey man, way too kind, but thanks! I agree about getting more colour variations in there, not talking crap at all. Definetely something I'm working on developing.

MCM - Always found the darker desaturated stuff more appealing, might do some brighter coloured stuff for the sake of it, tho probably be more along the lines of sketches rather than finished paintings!