Let’s face it, I draw a lot of knights, warriors, and swords. Sometimes holding a feather duster or a hockey stick just doesn’t cut it. You can’t get the right weight or feel, you can’t see the perspective of the cross-guard, and it just doesn’t look as cool! I decided it was finally time to invest in a sword, for work-related reference of course!

There are so many different types of swords out there from various manufacturers, so it was hard to narrow down which sword I wanted to buy. At first I bought a viking sword, but the company I bought it from was a complete nightmare. Let’s just say in the end they screwed up my order 3 times, sent me the wrong sword, and then cursed me out when I asked them to send me the correct sword that I had already paid for. So I returned the sword, got my money back, and did some more research in order to find a place that was a little more professional. It seemed that everywhere I went, I ended up back at the Sword Buyers Guide. The site has a ton of reviews and videos and I spent a long time trying to find the best sword for my money. I finally decided to go with the 1306 Medieval Knight Sword from Darksword Armory. The sword had a great review and I liked the look of the sword.

You may ask “why do you need a battle ready sword?” Well, if I am going to invest in a sword, I want a real sword. I don’t want some lame fake sword that you can only hang on the wall. Sure I am buying it for reference purposes, but I always like to buy quality products just in case. Who knows, maybe the zombie apocalypse is coming soon and you know what, I’ll be ready for it.

You can read up more about the sword from the Sword Buyers Guide review. There are also some really great destruction test videos on there as well showing just how much punishment this sword can take. This sword was designed for steel on steel contact. Here are a few stats for the sword.

 
1060 Carbon Steel Blade, Tempered to a HRC of 53
Blade Length: 28”
Handle Length: 7”
Point of Balance: 4.5”
Weight: 3lbs 2oz

Considering this is my first sword, I am pretty happy. The only thing I was a little disappointed with was the scabbard. The sword doesn’t fit very well in the scabbard and rattles around a lot. The sword also falls out of the scabbard very easily since it doesn’t fit the sword. I probably won’t be running through a battlefield wearing my sword, but you always want the things you buy to be of a certain quality. I must admit though, I was walking around my apartment today wearing my sword.

It would be awesome to go chop up some bottles or chicken carcasses, but I am too afraid that I would mess up my sword or cut through my leg or something. Actually, I think I’m more worried about messing up my sword than hurting myself, hah.

This is actually perfect timing because I am in the process of painting a magazine cover of a knight wielding a sword. I shot some reference earlier today with my sword, so I hope to put it to good use later on today when I work on my painting. I think the next sword I want to buy is a katana, or maybe a two-handed sword, I dunno. Actually, I think I might want to buy a helmet next instead of another sword. Maybe one day I will have a full suit of armor, hah!

I am very excited to announce the illustration I did for the Mass Effect 3/Kingdoms of Amalur crossover. This was a pretty tough illustration in terms of approvals, but it was worth it. If you download and play the demos of Kingdoms of Amalur and Mass Effect 3, you can unlock two different armors and two different weapons for use in their respective game. I think it is a great promotion and I can’t wait to play both demos so that I can get my exclusive content! I believe the demo for Kingdoms of Amalur comes out on the 17th of January, so don’t forget to download it! For more information about the exclusive content and how to obtain them, visit the Kingdoms of Amalur site. You can also read about it on Kotaku, Game Informer, IGN, and pretty much any other gaming site around.

When Big Huge Games first approached me to design a Shepard inspired armor for Kingdoms of Amalur, to say I was excited is a gross understatement. Mass Effect has always been one of my favorite games, so I was honored to design a Mass Effect armor for the hero in KoA. I also designed the female version of the armor and I am happy to say that I was allowed to keep the covered up style from Mass Effect’s female armor designs. So for all the fans out there that want functional female armor, you should be happy.  It was really fun trying to translate some of the ME design cues into a fantasy based world while not going too far into the sci-fi realm. Hopefully the Mass Effect fans won’t be disappointed.

Several months later Big Huge Games e-mailed me again about creating a marketing illustration featuring both of my armor designs for the Mass Effect 3 and Kingdoms of Amalur crossover. Shepard’s armor is actually an armor I designed previously for Kingdoms of Amalur, with the exception of the helmet. I believe Todd McFarlane may have designed the helmet. I think he did a great job on the helmet and I think it really fits in with the Mass Effect world while still staying true to my armor design. That is the other crazy thing about working with Big Huge Games. Not only do I get to work on awesome promos with games like Mass Effect 3, but I get to work with Todd McFarlane who has been one of my art heroes since I was a kid. My picture with him when I was 12 still cracks me up.

As it is with most illustrations, this one was not without its trials and tribulations. Since this was a very high profile illustration from two different games and three different companies, a lot of people had their hands in it. Not only did I need approvals from Big Huge Games, but I also had to get approvals from EA and BioWare.

The first final I turned in had a completely different background. Since I was illustrating two different characters from different games and different genres, I tried to keep the background fairly generic. I wanted one that looked like it could possibly belong to both worlds. I really wanted to avoid any architecture since that would be very hard to fit in both worlds.

The image to the left is the mockup I received of the changes they wanted. What I didn’t expect was to completely redo the entire background. I hadn’t kept my characters on separate layers either, so I needed to go back and mask them out before repainting the background. I also need to make the changes by the next day. It was decided that Shepard needed the iconic background from Mass Effect 3 and the hero from Kingdoms of Amalur needed one as well. Trying to make two different backgrounds, one of which was from space looking down on a planet while the other one was on the surface of a planet, mesh together was a little challenging. I didn’t really want two separate backgrounds with a harsh transition down the middle, so I tried to blend them a little more by using that large rock shard element as the transition point.

As soon as I started blocking in the dark space behind Shepard I realized that my lighting scheme on Shepard was now completely off. I had to rethink my lighting scheme in order to make Shepard fit a little more with his surroundings. I also needed to repaint the Omniblade daggers and make a few other little changes. Ten hours later I turned in my revisions and got approval from all three companies! A few weeks later my painting was released and the crossover was announced. Now hopefully I’ll see it in stores!

Oh man, I have been really neglecting my blog lately. I launched my Enliighten site a month ago so my extra time has been going to that instead of this blog. I better post my MtG Worlds San Fran pics soon before it is old news. I guess it is already kind of old news, but this is the first time I have had a chance to put it all together. Right after I got back from Worlds I ended up getting ridiculously sick. I was sick for about 2 weeks straight…actually I still have a cough. I got to the point where I actually had to go to the doctor. I haven’t had to go to the doctor since I was in middle school. Ends up I had swine flu, yay. So yeah, that was fun. It was even more fun because about 2 weeks before I got swine flu I had just a normal flu for a week. So out of 4 weeks I was sick for 3 of them, which is crazy because I normally go 2-3 years without being sick.

Anyway, Worlds San Fran was awesome. I have never been to a worlds event before and it was amazing being in one place where there were so many people from different countries. There were also 3 other great artists there, none of which I had met before. It is even funnier because two of them, Jason Chan and Chris Rahn, both graduated from my school. In fact, Chris Rahn was there when I was there…and we had classes in the same building but I don’t remember ever seeing him. Matt Cavotta was there too, but who cares about that guy! I kid. Matt is awesome, even though he didn’t have computers back when he was in school. Hanging out with the artists is always one of my favorite parts about going to MtG events. We had some pretty tasty food…too bad Jason missed out!

It was good to be back in San Francisco. Both my wife and I went to school there, so it was awesome to visit all our old stomping grounds and hang out with old friends. It is always sad when you find out some of your favorite places are gone, like Borders in Union Square and The Crepe House on Post. Luckily I was still able to get my okonomiyaki in Japantown. If that place ever went out of business I would probably cry. Actually, I think almost all of the places we went back to eat at were Japanese places and Thai places…well we actually went to the same Thai place twice. Osha ftw.

Japantown is probably my favorite place in San Fran. It is always so nice and quiet there, plus they have awesome food and the Kinokuniya bookstore! The last time we went to San Fran we stayed in Japantown, which was good and bad because the shopping mall was just right outside the hotel. This time we were out by the Warf. It was funny because when we used to live there, walking from Pier 39 to Japantown was cake, but now I wonder how I ever did it. I am so out of shape now.

I ended up scoring a bunch of really cool books from Kinokuniya. The Hyper Angle books are awesome for reference. I also decided that maybe I should get back into drawing with pens and pencils. I’ve been wanting to go to some figure drawing workshops, so maybe this will give me a push in the right direction. There are actually some right by my house too….

Like I said before, we stayed at the Argonaut Hotel by Pier 39. I’ve never been there before, but it was a really cool hotel. I liked it a lot. All of the staff there were super nice and helpful. There is a museum in the hotel too, but unfortunately the new wing is still under construction. As you might expect, everything in the hotel was ship-themed. I took this picture of some lounge chairs in the lobby, but for some reason they look like little miniature toys.

I guess there isn’t really any point of reference and the depth of field filter made it look super tiny. During the entire trip the lobby was always full of Magic players. Not just any Magic players, but hall of fame Magic players. Pretty crazy.

Apparently my Dad has his own brand of water. He never told me about this new venture!

The best thing about Pier 39…mini donuts. That’s what I’m talking about. I probably should have ordered the big bag. I think these were consumed in a few seconds. Oh you tasty rings of evil. My belly curses you.

We went to Urban Outfitters on Powell and apparently Mimobots now come in blind boxes. I had to get a few. My Mimobot army has now grown to 5. In case you were ever wondering, you are not supposed to eat USB flash drives. You never know…I guess some electronics do look tasty.

Now for some alterations! This was the show for doing alterations on other artist’s cards. What was funnier is that several times I did alterations on Jason’s cards, even though he was sitting right next to me. Don’t hate me Jason! The fans demanded it! Just recently I started doing alterations with DecoColor paint pens. I really like using them because they are extremely opaque and dry fairly quickly. One reason I always hated doing alters in the past was because it is hard to make something look decent with only a black Sharpie and maybe a gold or silver pen. At least with these I can get a little more detailed and produce something that doesn’t look like total crap. The only problem is that they take a little longer to do.

So in conclusion, Worlds was great and I want to thank everyone for coming out to the show and standing in line. I had a great time and I’ll see you in Austin!

Enliighten.com has finally launched! I am both excited and extremely nervous about this launch. I’ve put in countless hours on this project and I hope that people aren’t disappointed by the contents. Since I am taking the approach of teaching the fundamentals of drawing and painting to people of all skill levels, some may find the first few weeks boring or full of information they already know. I have to assume that many viewers are going to be people that need to know how to use Photoshop or how to create a custom brush, so I can’t dive right into creating crazy paintings right away. I have a teaching schedule drafted out for the next 41 weeks, so some of the more advanced paintings won’t be seen for awhile.

Due to the fact that some people might be looking for actual painting tutorials at the launch, I decided to create a special debut tutorial going over a speed painting of a character. I still felt that this wasn’t enough for the launch, so I went ahead and included a still life painting of a kettle. I wanted to show what I will be working towards with these tutorials and that people need to learn the fundamentals before they learn the “cool” stuff. Unfortunately I did some last minute panicking and didn’t record the audio for the metal kettle still life until around 9:00pm. It took about an hour to render the video and then another 80 minutes to upload to Vimeo, and then it has to convert the file…so the still life tutorial might not be ready until maybe around 12:30am (for those of you who are attending the midnight launch).

In any case, I hope you all enjoy the site and keep coming back for the new tutorials. Remember, new tutorials will be posted every Wednesday and Friday. Be sure to leave comments and visit the forums! See you there!

This weekend my wife and I attended the SCG Open in Las Vegas. When we first arrived the hotel was completely dead. There was no one at the front desk, no one at the doors, and no one outside. We were a little worried that no one was going to show up, but we were pleasantly surprised when over 400 people showed up for the event.

The first day was extremely busy. I ended up signing/drawing for 10.5 hours and I still had 30 alterations to take back to the hotel room. When I woke up on Sunday morning I was pretty sick. I ended up having a wicked fever during the whole show on Sunday. 8 hours later and I was able to go back to my hotel room and crash. I think I went to bed around 8pm that night.

This was the second show I was able to use my new DecoColor pens to do my alterations. I like them a lot more, but they tend to take longer to create. This show marked the debut of my new and improved Bobaghast!

I also tried to come up with some new alterations. Altering Birthing Pod is always a tricky one because there aren’t very many things that seem appropriate. I came up with the idea to turn it into a Chestburster, which was pretty fun to create. I still have around 18 more alterations and 2 playmats to do at home before Worlds in San Francisco next week. It is gonna be a busy week!

As is customary when I go on trips, I always forget my camera. I had to make due with my iPhone. We actually stayed off the beaten path in a hotel called Alexis Park. I wasn’t very fond of the hotel considering no one was around, there was no TV remote in the room (in order to watcht the TV you had to have the remote), the heater didn’t work, and we had problems with the booking. They tried to kick us out after 2 nights, even though we paid for 5 nights. The room was pretty cool, despite the minor setbacks. Cabbing it back and forth between our hotel and the strip was a bit of a pain too since not many cabs came out to the boondocks. I must say, some of the cab drivers were really interesting. We had one that is a doctor. He had practiced in India for over 20 years and then came to America to practice here, only to find out he is being forced to go back to school and start completely over before he is allowed to practice. Now he has to drive a cab in order to help pay for his schooling.

On Thursday we went to see Cirque Du Soleil’s Ka. As usual, it was an amazing show. I still think O is the best one, but Ka is great too. Some of the things they do with the set is insane. I had to sneak shots of the set before the show started just because it is so cool looking. The costumes are amazing in Ka. Some of them really inspired me to create some character designs, so I may have to sit down and do some quick paintings.

I also had to go out and get the soundtrack to Ka. It is also really great, but again, I still think O is the best. The soundtrack to O really reminds me of Final Fantasy Cyrstal Chronicles for the GameCube. Whenever I hear the soundtrack I always picture Selkies and Lilties running around. I really liked the soundtrack to Iris as well, but unfortunately they haven’t finished making it yet. I believe it is out later this month.

Right before the show we decided to eat at Shibuya. It was probably some of the best food I have had. The Wagyu Skirt Steak was amazing and definitely worth trying at least once in your life. I would rate it up there with the food I had in Japan. The Spider Roll is also very good, probably one of the best Spider Rolls I have had. The atmosphere of the restaurant is great as well, but I think most things in Vegas look really cool.

Wagyu Skirt Steak

Spider Roll

We also dropped by the Shark Reef, Bodies and Titanic exhibit, but unfortunately you are not allowed to take any pictures. I’ve been wanting to see the Bodies exhibit for a long time, and it didn’t disappoint. I really wished I had brought along a sketchbook, but I dunno if they would have let me draw from the bodies.

The Shark Reef in Mandalay Bay is really cool, but I feel like it is pretty small. I think we went through the whole thing in like 20 minutes. I took a lot of pictures, but most of them are pretty blurry because I wasn’t using a flash and everything was swimming around too fast.

It was a great trip and a great show and I would like to thank everyone that came out and waited in line. I hope you had a great time! Thanks!

More random pics.






Inside the Luxor.

Technically this was the first CD cover I did for a band, but I actually had a different one come out before this one. It is crazy how time flies. I actually painted this almost a year ago and it is just now coming out.  Although I think I say that with almost everything that comes out.

In any case, this was for the Gravehammer album by the death metal band Vore. They were a great group to work with and it was really fun to create this fiery demon for their cover. Be sure to drop by their page and pick up the album when it comes out!

I am pretty happy with the way this illustration came out. It is always funny how people tend to like the paintings I didn’t spend as much time on more than paintings that take forever to paint. Maybe longer paintings end up losing the initial vitality and dynamism or maybe I lose a part of myself by refining the brush stokes too much. I think I only ended up spending a day and a half painting this cover. Maybe another reason is that it was more of a personal piece with more freedom. I didn’t have to answer to clients wanting more cleavage or making it look more like movie/game x. I was really able to take a very brief description and run with it. Luckily the guys trusted me enough to give me free reign.

One tough thing with this illustration was that I had to incorporate the band’s logo into his armor design. The logo is a very circular logo, so I wasn’t sure exactly how to tie it into the armor design. The brief mentioned that maybe it was a part of his chest armor, so I had to figure out how to place it without it looking silly or pasted on. I figured maybe since this is a fiery demon, maybe the logo is cut into his armor and you can see the fiery core of the demon shining through.

The hammer design was another thing I wasn’t too sure about. Since the name of the album was Gravehammer, I knew I had to create something unique. Since much of his armor design seemed to be fashioned from plates hammered together, I thought it could be a good look for the hammer too. A little fire never hurts either!

I hope you enjoyed this little look into my process of creating the Gravehammer illustration. Thanks for looking!

I’ve been working on my new tutorial site, Enliighten, for the past few months now. Well, I haven’t really worked on the site itself yet, but I’ve been busy recording tutorials so that when the site goes live I will have some content to publish.

Most of the tutorials I have done in the past were intermediate to advanced in terms of level, so I really wanted to take a step back and address the fundamentals of art and learning the basics of how to use Photoshop. The majority of the tutorials I am recording for the site are around 5 minutes long, but I do have some longer videos that cover figure drawing and still life painting. I plan to release a new video every Wednesday and Friday, so for some of the longer videos I might break them down into a few parts.

Another great aspect about this tutorial site is that the tutorials will be free. I have always tried to give back to the community as much as possible and with the ever growing problem of piracy, I really wanted to produce some material that students can take advantage of without having to steal it.

Since I will be releasing two new videos a week, I will constantly need new ideas for future tutorials. Right now I have around 25 tutorials finished, but if you have any ideas I would love to hear about them.

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Update – The site will launch 11.11.11!

Back in early 2010 I was given the opportunity to travel to the headquarters of WotC to be on their team to concept the entire world of Innistrad. The concept team consisted of Richard Whitters, Steve Prescott, Steven Belledin, and myself. Over the next four weeks I was crammed in a tiny room with Steve and Steve, drawing monsters and werewolves. It was such an amazing experience to be a part of a team of that calibre. Everyone at WotC was so enthusiastic and excited to be there. It was almost as if I had stepped into a weird movie where people actually enjoyed their job, crazy I know.

One might expect that the majority of my time was spent concepting Black creatures, but I actually created concepts for all colors, including land for each color. One of my concepts of a White priest was released on the WotC site. I was never able to finish this concept, but you get the general idea. Hopefully one day I can post some of my other concepts.

Ashmouth Hound

Infernal Plunge

Curse of the Nightly Hunt

Blasphemous Act

Voiceless Spirit

Slaanesh you evil temptress of all that is bad; you proved to be quite the formidable opponent. It may not look like much, but this illustration was actually pretty challenging. Let’s roll through the checklist of not so very nice requirements.

1. Paint a guy looking into a mirror, but yet you have to be able to see his face and the face of his reflection. I heard that the theater term is “cheat out.” Basically that means that the main character should not have his back to the audience. This is always tough to do because you really do have to cheat a little bit. Battle scenes always have these problems because the client will always want to see the faces of the heroes and the faces of the villains. Creating a dynamic composition that shows everyone’s face without everything being in profile view is always tricky.

2. Make the mirror look like a mirror. Sounds simple right? Nooope. Maybe if it was actually reflecting the same person, but it isn’t. The reflection has changed to a Daemonette. Some of the ways I tried to hint at the fact that it is a mirror is by adding dust and scratches to the surface, adding a frame, and trying to make it obvious that the “picture” cuts off at the edges of the frame. The frame itself can be tricky because it might end up looking like a doorway to another room.

3. The room inside the mirror should look like a Slaanesh decorated room instead of an Empire decorated room, but yet everything should still be in the same place. Again it sounds easy, but when you have a small mirror with a figure in it and then you have to jam recognizable furniture in it that mirrors the furniture in the room is a pain. I mainly focused on changing the banners, adding some chains, and a very phallic fixture on the ceiling. I also changed the color of the candles to a more Slaanesh friendly hue.

4. Interior with stuff. Nuff said. Painting interiors with figures in them is always hard, but then adding a bunch of props compounds the difficulty. I dunno, maybe it is because I don’t paint enough interiors, but I always find it challenging.

5. Tell a story using minimal, reserved emotions on a person that is in profile. Telling a story is a large part of being an illustrator, but sometimes you have to tell a story using reserved emotions. Painting someone that is angry is easy, or painting people that are in a battle and screaming…but try painting someone that is cautious or slightly interested in another element in the painting. If you saw a scary Daemonette staring back at you from a mirror, you would probably freak out. This guy is obviously not freaking out, but rather he is curious or intrigued by the reflection. He glances over his shoulder at the reflection, considering the lure of power as he pours over his secret documents. Not only does his face inform you of his reaction, but his posture does as well. With one hand on his hilt and the other resting on the table, you know that he is comfortable. Maybe he is a little weary of the lure of power, so he rests his hand on his hilt just in case he needs to draw his sword, but at the same time he wants to be nonchalant. Will he give in to the dark side or resist it?

Now that you know some of the major obstacles I had to deal with, let’s go through my painting process. I always dread showing my sketches to people because honestly, they are pretty bad. THIS is the reason I always become frustrated when starting a new piece. I am a pretty impatient person, so when my painting doesn’t look good immediately, I begin to lose steam and I feel like quitting. Staying confident is always the biggest hurdle. I just have to tell myself that it will look better in the end and to keep going. My sketches are always super loose and many times others can’t really tell what is going on. Many times I get to this stage and I stop and wonder “how do I take this mess to a finished illustration?” It is almost as if sometimes I forget how to paint and I can’t even imagine how I would continue.

As you can see my first sketch was very different from the final. In the original brief it said there was a Captain and his aide looking into the mirror and the Captain’s reflection had changed to a Daemonette while the aide stayed the same. Again I suffered from both of the Empire characters showing their back to the audience, so that was a big no no. Plus the composition is pretty lame and boring. Too many repeating elements, the picture plane is cut directly in half, the props don’t really add to the illustration, etc. I have to agree that seeing the Empire guys from behind is pretty boring. Is it me or does that aide sort of look like Gerard Butler? Madness! Remember when I said never get too attached to your painting? Well now is the time to take your painting and throw it in the virtual trashcan of rejected paintings. *delete*

Soooo, after finding out I had to start over and that I needed to “cheat out” the Captain, I came up with this new rough. Ok, I guess I didn’t have to completely start over, but I had to change a significant portion of the painting. Now you can see the Captain’s face and the aide is gone. The Captain probably sent him out for coffee and donuts. I thought maybe I was headed in the right direction, but I was wrong, sort of. I was informed that I now needed to zoom out of the picture by at least two times and change the pose of the Daemonette to mimic the Captain. Gah. That means I have to paint more of the room! You know what that means…add more banners, a larger window, and shadows! Done.

Back to the drawing board one more time. Constantly making huge changes to an illustration is always frustrating and time consuming, but for the most part they are always worth it and make for a better illustration in the end. I always have to keep that in mind whenever I get a huge change from a client. Okie dokie. I zoomed out, changed the position of the Daemonette, added more of the room, and now there is much more room up top to allow for the title/box design. Most of the elements are in place and all that is left is to refine the illustration. The illustration was used for the Lure of Power supplement for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. You can find out more about it from Fantasy Flight Game’s site.

I am definitely glad I made all of the changes, even though at the time I was groaning because of how much time it would take to start over and how much time was lost. If you want to improve as an artist, don’t let major changes deter you from striving to make a better illustration. Sometimes you just have to put your head down and slog on. So how do I feel about the final product? I think for the time allotted and the challenges I had to face, it ended up being a successful illustration. Successful doesn’t mean I like it, haha. I dunno, I tend to be more excited about my illustrations when I see them in print. I guess it is the “cool factor” of seeing your work sitting on a shelf at a store.

For the Empire! Or Slaanesh…or donuts?

I must apologize because I’ve been neglecting my art updates lately. Now that I upload my newest images to my Facebook page, I tend to forget to put them on here as well.

A few of my new Magic cards just came out recently. In M12 I have Call to the Grave and a reprint of Harbor Serpent. I also have Crescendo of War in the new Commander decks. I love painting hands, but I must say, it was a pain painting all of those hands. After awhile it was hard coming up with different poses since they are all reaching out for the guy and essentially performing the same action.

Another illustration that I just finished not too long ago is something that I am very excited about. The new illustration is for a CD cover entitled “Riding a Black Unicorn Down the Side of an Erupting Volcano While Drinking from a Chalice Filled with the Laughter of Small Children.” As soon as I heard what the album was going to be called, I knew this was going to be my kind of assignment.  If you don’t know about the artist Voltaire, you should. He is a musician, animator, comic artist, toy creator, and just an all around modern day renaissance man. I believe the release date is in September, so be sure to check it out!

Also a bunch of my WoW cards came out. I have a tough time keeping up with which ones came out and in which set. There isn’t much press when a set is released, and there isn’t a very good “gatherer” type system in place that you can search for your cards. There is the WoWTCGdb, but it is pretty incomplete and they don’t always list who the artist is. Plus I never know when I am going to get my proofs either, so I usually have to wait to get them in the mail before I can figure out which set they are from. I should have some cards in Twilight of the Dragons, which is set to release on July 26th.

This card gave me a bit of trouble. I was told to paint two fire elementals, easy right? I was a big WoW player, so I knew exactly what fire elementals looked like. I did my sketch and then went a little overboard and took the card to almost finish before submitting it for approval. I then heard back that I had to start over because they were changing the model of the fire elemental in Cataclysm. Doh!

Update – I just found this card on a Russian database site. I never knew it came out and I never got proofs of it. I actually painted this back in 2009, haha. I always wondered what happened to that card…