Dragon Wings 2

You can't get too far away from the bat wing design for dragons' wings, unless you put feathers on it and make a birdlike dragon. When the "traditional" dragon was imagined, thousands of years ago, people didn't know anything about dinosaurs, yet alone pterosaurs. But people knew what bat wings looked like. As you remember, I found that out personally when a bat flew into my apartment. Fortunately, I haven't had any more critter intrusions. As for dragons, I'll continue to work on wings. These are from Sandra Staple's book. The colorful dragon diagram at the upper left is the result of my testing some colored pencils I inherited. Those colors, purple and mineral green, go into storage as they don't match the Virginia landscape. The yellow-green, though, is perfect for all those fresh spring leaves just coming out now. I'll retrieve the purple pencils when the Cabernet Franc grapes are ripe.

Dragon wings studies are pencils on sketchbook page, 8" x 10", April 7, 2012.

Note in memoriam: I am shocked to hear of the passing of Thomas Kinkade. He and his art were reviled by anyone "respectable" in the art world. They called his work "kitsch" and "saccharine" and much worse. But I've always liked it and had a fondness for Kinkade's paintings. I hope to write more in a later post.

Dagny's Dreamworld

When I was a Rand fan back in the late 1970s, as well as a beginning fantasy artist, illustrating Rand's magnum opus ATLAS SHRUGGED was an Olympian dream that I hoped one day to achieve. In this drawing, in an "engraving" style I no longer use, I tried to depict Dagny Taggart, the heroine of the epic. I used the famous old film star Greta Garbo as my model. It isn't very good, but I was still an amateur.

Just today I finally saw the movie that was made of ATLAS. In those older days, ATLAS was considered unfilmable, what with its long explanatory dialogue and abstracted characters. But the crew here, under the command of producer John Aglialoro, has done a fair and faithful job re-creating the world, plot, and characters of Rand. Instead of setting it in the fifties, which I did with this picture (steam engine!) and my comic book adaptation of a couple of years ago, this version sets it in 2016, when trends we see today have reached catastrophic proportions. Rand's industrial world isn't quite like the "real" world; individual executives and company leaders seem to run their businesses with a personal hand, one by one. There are lots of juicy scenes of rushing trains and flaming steel mills, which I appreciate, while the hot consummation between steelman Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart takes place in near-total darkness, with appropriately industrial heavy breathing.

I used to believe that Rand's vision of economics would actually work. All you had to do was let the geniuses and the hard workers have their way without government interference, and prosperity would blossom forth. Now it seems that neither capitalism nor socialism nor any other system is working, and I'm not sure why. Is it because there aren't enough geniuses or hard workers? Is it because people are essentially greedy and dishonest? Do we need more trains? We'll find out how the Rand dream plays out in the next two installments of this movie, which is in three parts, just like LORD OF THE RINGS.

Dagny is ink on Bristol board, 8" x 10", July 1978. Klik as usual for a larger view.

Dragon Wings 1

These dragon wing studies are copied from Hanson and Burns' dragon drawing book. There are plenty of versions of dragon wings in the other books which I will study and copy. The books contain analysis of how the wings attach to the dragon's body and how many points of articulation are on them. There are also elements of texture and color which I am not currently considering. I think the ones on the top are the best-looking but are not sufficiently connected to the body. The middle ones, which seem to appear in many fantasy drawings, don't do much at all, connected to the body only by a strong arm-like limb.

A dragon is a big creature and its wings have to be big, but our universe's physics would never allow a traditionally designed dragon to fly. It is just too heavy and its wingspan too small to lift it into the air unaided. The closest this universe has ever come is the pterodactyl, which is pretty dragon-like if you look at the re-creations done by paleoartists. As for the fantasy dragons, remember what Anne McCaffrey said to me about their flight..."They levitate!"

Dragon wings are in pencil on sketchbook page, about 8" x 10", April 5, 2012.

The Unfortunate Courier

If his masters thought that they had the best chance of getting their secret treasure moved by a single courier under cover of the night, they were very wrong. Someone knew exactly where the hapless youth's path would take him, and they set upon him while their young scout looked down the alley in case any lawmen might pursue them. Scream all you want, courier; no one is going to come help you in this low part of town. Maybe they will leave him alive if he doesn't resist. But probably not. Haven is a brutal place, fit only for rats (see foreground) and thugs. Such is the life of the Thieves' Guild.

This is a cover I did for Gamelords' role-player "Thieves' Guild." As you can see, the plots and scenarios concentrated on thefts and street crime, with bigger bosses behind the scenes organizing crime for profit. It took place in the same city of Haven, where there was no shortage of criminal manpower, and human life was cheap.

I painted this one in opaque acrylic, rather than the acrylic watercolor over ink I used for the other ones. That way I could get more dramatic lights and shadows, and brighter colors. Nowadays, all this kind of art is done in digital medium.

"Thieves' Guild" is acrylic on Strathmore illustration board, 11" x 14", November 1983. It was published as a game cover in 1984. Klik for larger view.

Not Always a Dragon

Sure, dragons are grand and noble and fierce, but they aren't the only critters in this world. How about us little folks who are too small for dragons to notice? The kind who live in cozy burrows under roots or rocks and come out in the moist cool night to find our dinner? No fire-breathing, cloud-climbing for us, just the spaces under the dead leaves and the light of the moon, or no light at all when the feelers find our way. The greatness flies overhead, we do not even look up.

Critter, Photoshop, 6 3/4" x 4", April 3, 2012.

Busted in Gameworld

The thief has been caught! This is an illustration from one of the game books that I worked on for Gamelords. I did many black and white pen drawings for different possible scenarios in the game. I used an old-fashioned pen and ink style to keep with the "Renaissance" era setting. Here, two policemen (or militia members) haul a thief in front of a tribunal. The trial and the fate of the thief would be part of the game play.

This image was rescued from a book of plastic page sleeves full of my illustrations of the time. I would copy the ink drawings on a Xerox machine and place them in the plastic portfolio book. I didn't know until too late that the toner "ink" on the Xeroxed pages stuck to the plastic of the sleeves, so you can't pull the paper out without wrecking the whole thing. For this image, I stuffed the whole open plastic book onto the scanner. This resulted in some minor distortion and fall-off which I have handled as best I can in Photoshop, which didn't exist when I did this drawing.

Original drawing of "Thief" is ink on Bristol board, 8" x 5 1/2", spring 1984.

Fox Meadow Springtime

The last time I visited Fox Meadow vineyard and winery, it was a freezing January day in 2011. This time it was still chilly, and more so at the higher elevation. But the view was beautiful in every season and the wine was good too. It was warm enough to sip outside on the decks. I did an iPad sketch of the vineyard and the hills with the bright green of new grasses under the framework, and bright green new foliage on the trees. The vines have buds but they are still tiny and brown and have not yet exploded into greenery. I wish I could have stayed longer.

iPad sketch was done in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, finished in Photoshop when I got home. March 31, 2012.