Recent work (big dl)

[Mon]

Instead of posting your work every now and then like normal people do, I've saved up on a huge load of images I'm dumping on you right now. Some of these pieces are over a year old, but most of it is pretty recent.

Here are a couple of black & whites to set things off. This first one I did for a Vampire book by White Wolf. Only three hours from start to finish, it's probably a personal speed record for a piece like this:

http://img33.exs.cx/img33/5067/WWfight.jpg

This one was for a book by Mythic Dreams Studios.

http://img33.exs.cx/img33/1007/MYTHICsnygg_motelcop.jpg

These next two were never published, and never paid for... They remain personal favourites of my b&w work, even though they'er well over a year old now.

http://img33.exs.cx/img33/7593/Sewer_Cannibal.jpg

http://img33.exs.cx/img33/1470/Shadow_thief.jpg

A few months back I was asked to help develop a new IP for Decipher, a trading card game based on the Starwars TCG game mechanics. I did lots and lots of images for this project, both card illustrations and concept art. The team they assembled for this production is just amazing (including some very distinguished CA members), and I have no doubt this game will be around for a good long while. It's called WARS TCG, it's sci-fi, and i got to draw lots of aliens :)

First some card art:

http://img33.exs.cx/img33/6296/S0shiblessing.jpg

http://img33.exs.cx/img33/5223/S01C171mattiassnyggFIN.jpg

http://img33.exs.cx/img33/1458/S01C173mattiassnyggFIN.jpg

http://img33.exs.cx/img33/6154/S01C218mattiassnyggFIN.jpg

http://img33.exs.cx/img33/50/S01C170mattiassnyggFIN.jpg

Here are a couple of other cards, and how they'll look in print (click them for a larger picture):
http://img33.exs.cx/img33/2182/WARS-EN01252.th.jpg (http://img33.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img33&image=WARS-EN01252.jpg) http://img33.exs.cx/img33/6882/WARS-EN01241.th.jpg (http://img33.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img33&image=WARS-EN01241.jpg) http://img33.exs.cx/img33/1286/WARS-EN01034.th.jpg (http://img33.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img33&image=WARS-EN01034.jpg)

Aaaaand some concepts (first one based on a sketch by John Howe)

http://img33.exs.cx/img33/4862/QuayArmourinblue2.jpg

These next two were ideas for the game poster. They went a totally different way with that one :)

http://img33.exs.cx/img33/576/poster_2ndtry2.jpg

http://img33.exs.cx/img33/7871/posterboy2_logo.jpg

some weird idea (http://img33.exs.cx/img33/1569/worm_shi.jpg) | unrelated speedpainting (http://img69.exs.cx/img69/7669/portrait_I.jpg)

I'm probably forgetting something... Oh well, hope you've enjoyed these as much as I enjoyed making them. Take care everyone,

- m

[Jason Manley]

good stuff man!

[Cyrus]

I really like the character in the first piece of card art; I don't play any card games, but I sometimes pick up random cards just for the art, any idea when it'll be out?

[Aleksi]

Ouch ! Excellent !!
I love your color cards stuff !

[Bomba]

Your card art is awesome. The best you have done yet. Bravo! ;)
-J-

[PhilHolland]

Extremely nice work. I'll look at anything you paint.

Phil

[se7en_]

dude these are huge. I love the creature designs and your painting technique is wicked. I really like the heavy texture that you get in all of your pieces. My favorite hands down is the side profile of the dragon-type head with the fire mouth.... damn that is so tight. The metallic skin is rendered with incrediblly cool style.

[jrr]

beautiful work mon.
been enjoying your work since i first saw it in sijun

[I.was.ink]

Great update Mon. I love the color piece and the b&w pieces. I think the black and white pieces are just outstanding! :O

btw, do you have any progress shots on any of these? IF you dont, the next time you do another illustration/speedpaint could you show us your progress? I know you have a tut on your site, but I know we could all learn from your paintings. :)

-Iwasink

[p4b10]

Good stuff, nice value in b & w ones. Very nice!

[Zafio]

:bow:

[Noah Bradley]

Wow, another killer artist working on Wars. There's a few others around here (Wes, Joshua). Killer work. Lighting on that first one is killer. Looking forward to playing some of those cards. ;)

(I like saying Killer)

[Shreya]

Such brilliant pieces, very very well done!

*jealous*

I'd love to see some in-progress shots too, nice to learn from the masters ^_^

[Jon Hodgson]

Hey Mattias.
Beautiful as ever.
You have an awesome sense of light. How did you come by that? I mean, I know it's a stupidily broad question, but did you study film lighting, or photography at any point? Your b/w work in particular just soars.

[foster]

composition, lighting, texture, perfect!

these were allot of fun to go through and i will go through them again. i like that you do not feel the need to finish every part of the painting this gives me room to go back and see each in a new light depending on my mood.

bravo!

Jon

[Blackarts]

wow - great work as usual Mon. 3 hours for that B+W one....you are a machine!

strong work..

[Presence]

Mon...these are just sick!! The only thing, not really a crit, is that I think you could get away with a little more glow in your lighting technique, nothing over the top I just think it will make the lighting a little more dynamic. Considering you play with shadow so much it might also add a little more depth.

Just a thought.

[ozan]

Hey Mon, thanks for posting. This stuff is very inspiring! I love the rift wars stuff. I wish I could have worked on that too.

[fukifino]

OMG I'm so dense....Mon = Snygg! Hahaha, oh man, I kept drooling over your art in the Vampire book. I kept thinking "wow, this guy does some great textures...I mean it's obviously painter, but it's just a great use of minimal/loose brush strokes." I can't believe I never knew you two were the same person. But as soon as I saw that first image you just posted, I had to run back to your website and it all makes sense now. hehe.

Gorgeous stuff dude. Now that I know what you go by in the published world, I'll definately be keeping an eye out. :D

[Aleksi]

It would be a 5 stars thread !
Post more !

[el coro]

always a treat to see some new stuff from you. i hope everything is going well with ya. post more more!!!! if ya got em that is :) -c36

[Mon]

Jason - thanks man :)

Cyrus - I think the release date is set to October 6. There's already a lot of stuff on the wars website: http://warstcg.fanhq.com/

Aleksi - cheers mate

Bomba - well i'd have to agree with you there =)

PhilHolland - thanks a lot

se7en_ - I'm glad you like it. The glow in the mouth dude was one that caused me some trouble actually... The ancient problem of how to paint glowing eyes and mouth without making it look cheap ;) It looked like crap until the very last minute when everything fell into place, very interesting.

jrr - thank you.

I.was.ink - Hey there, well, I do have a couple of those, here you go:

http://img17.exs.cx/img17/1166/newone1.jpg

http://img17.exs.cx/img17/4337/maybe1.jpg

Don't know if they're any helpful though, but if you get anything out of those then it's great :)

p4b10 - thanks

Jull - :)

silvir - oh yeah, and the art they've been making is just fantastic. I'm really looking forward to seeing all of it together!

Shreya - hope those images helped :) if anything seems strange or if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask. That goes for everyone.

Jon Hodgson - cheers jon! to answer you question - i have no idea. I really don't. There are lots of approaches to light in painting, i know Craig Mullins has some very good explanations to how light works on different surfaces etc... I like the idea of achieving the impression of realism, and playing with the light seems to get me closer to that. But i use it very unscientificly :D It's basicly the same deal as with detail. I absolutely love the *impression* of detail but i find that too much actual detail steals away the emotion of a piece. Actual realism is cold, hard and very unforgiving when you try to compose something... I'd love to talk more to you on this, you always have very good insights, so drop me an email if you're up to it!

foster - thanks a lot, i'm glad you got something out of them :)

Blackarts - haha i had no choice! i did all of the white wolf stuff in a rush, but looking back at them i thing the images actually benefited from it ;)

Presence - thanks, not sure what you mean by glow tho...

ozan - well, i would have loved to see what you'd do with a couple of cards on that one. your work is very good.

fukifino - hehe yeah it can get confusing with all these screen names =) i'm glad you liked them.

Aleksi - :)

el coro - so far everything has been going great, now that i'm out of freelancing. A regular paycheck helps quite a lot, and i'm working on a really intersting project :) take care buddy

another ww piece:
http://img33.exs.cx/img33/2999/WWtransformation.th.jpg (http://img33.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img33&image=WWtransformation.jpg)

and a speedpainting that worked just the way i wanted to (a rare treat)
http://img16.exs.cx/img16/8595/miffo.jpg

thanks!

[I.was.ink]

Those wip shots do help. Thx

what brushes are you using in ps that give you those textures? Are they custom brushes? If they are would you mind sharing? ;)

-Iwasink

[Aleksi]

this last one is awesome !!!

[Denart]

amazing work. I love the lighting and form depicted. :D


I love your tuts on your site. Clever stuff there

you forced me to buy Arkham Asylum.....thanks! ;)
Are you a fan of Ash Wood's batman stuff?

[flex mathews]

very nice, very inspiring. thanks for some process shots and for the post.

[Magicjuand]

thank you for sharing.... so fresh so juicy... yet so evil... Im excited to see your future creations

[morgandesigns]

I love the texture you put in these. That ruff tore up epithelial layer ads to the darkness of these. Your color pallete is interesting to me as well.
These painting are scary dude.
I like...

[Red_Rook]

very very nice, im in love with all of these :)

[behemot5]

:D :D :D :D :D i love it.....

[USER777]

YOU ARE TEH AWESOME!!11²³
me bow in fronta you! :bow: :bow: :bow:
POST MORE!! :$

Lim :bashful:

btw ca.org smilies rock!!

[strych9ine]

Sweetness, your art has such a cinematic quality to it. Awesome thread.

[Egets]

wow that head hunter raawwwksss !! nice realism yet fantasy

[Aerythes]

Every one of your paintings has this amazingly solid feel to them. A treat for the eyes!

[Sam0s]

One of swedens finest,
beautiful illustrations snygging!

kommer du till fransiscos tillhallning??, vore angenamnt med en inhemsk narvarande :)

[Mon]

I.was.ink - Sure, here's my brush setup: snygg-brushes.zip (http://www.mattiassnygg.com/togo/snygg-brushes.zip) (500kb) They only work in PS 8. have fun =)

Aleksi - i'm glad you like that one :)

Denart - never saw his stuff before, but i did a little search and it looks really nice, thanks

flex mathews - no problem

Magicjuand - thanks =)

morgandesigns - interesting that you think they look evil... :) i see a lot more humor in them but i guess that's just me!

Red_Rook - cheers

behemot5 - :)

Lim - hehe will do

strych9ine - thanks!

Egets - one of my favourites too, probably the darkest of the bunch

Aerythes - thank you.

Sam0s - that's a new one... ;) not going tho, you'll have to represent sweden on your own. take care

thanks people!

[JoshuaTheJames]

Nice stuff dude!

-Joshua James

[Gillespie]

Thanks for the brushes Mon. I really like the Kulak card. His estranged persona is very appealing.

[Common Terry]

Oooh! Ahhh!

Taking another break form painting and came across these. Very nice!

I'm also working on some WARS TCG Shi warriors pieces and was looking at yours as inspiration before I saw them posted here. Having fun doing characters that aren't human is a blast.

BTW - Those b&w pieces are awesome! Nice punch! Look forward to seeing more of your stuff.