The Art of Schwager - Archive: Fantasy

Showing posts with label Fantasy. Show all posts

Tuesday, 4 October 2016

Black Gate Miniatures: 10mm Ogre Kickstarter

A while ago I got to work on some concepts for a project that is now up on Kickstarter: 10mm Fantasy Ogre Miniatures from Black Gate Miniatures.

Needless to say, this was awesome fun and, depending on how successful the Kickstarter turns out, there might be plenty more to come. In the meantime, here's some of the work I've done on the project so far...

The mighty Ogre Chieftain/Champion (one of the stretch goals).

Some preliminary concepts (for ideas, scale, etc.).

And finally some actual concepts (different unit types and poses).

Feel free to spread the word and/or pledge for lots of minis yourselves. The more money the KS makes, the more work there will be for yours truly. ;)

And here you can read an interview with the man behind this project: http://fanplasticlittlemen.blogspot.de/2016/10/black-gate-miniatures-ogres-kickstarter.html

Sunday, 27 October 2013

Vnicorne (Unicorn)

Unicorns are one of those iconic breeds of fantasy creatures that I always wanted to add to my portfolio, but never got around to... until recently.
The Creature of the Week challenge #304 over on conceptart.org asked for "Twisted Fantasy Creatures: Equines". We were asked to portray an evil and sadistic version of one (or all) of the following: Unicorn, Pegasus & Hippocampus.

Obviously I went for the Unicorn, so here's what I came up with... followed by a short description of the concept.

The Vnicorne is the grim dark cousin of the Unicorn. It is of a cruel and twisted nature and hungers for blood and raw flesh. Eager to spread its corrupted seed, it proudly displays its masculinity and its impressive mane.

Sunday, 23 June 2013

Relics Rulebook 1.2 Artwork

A few month ago I had the wonderful opportunity to revisit the world of Relicia in full colour.
Gavin, the man behind the madness at Tor Gaming, asked me to do a few more colour pieces for the new version of the Relics Rulebook. In addition to the original Nuem art I had done previously, each of the remaining factions was to have its own feature piece. And here they are:

Britanan Troopers (lead by Sergeant Major) blasting away at some Orcnar Grymann

Orcnar Unmann charging at (and dismembering) C'thu Archers

Vaettir Varriers ambushing a group of Nuem Paenitentiam

Aside from all this full colour goodness, the book also features a great many drawings of the various units found in the game of Relics. So many in fact, you could almost call it a sketchbook!

The Relics Rulebook 1.2 is available from the Tor Gaming Online Store. There is a standard edition as well as a collectors edition, which is limited to 200 copies.

Sunday, 19 May 2013

Ordo Illuminatus :: Revisited

A few years ago I discovered an awesome online community that is all about the appreciation and creation of Warhammer and Warhammer 40k inspired art: Ordo Illuminatus

Even though activity was already on the decline when I actively joined the forum in 2009, there were still a great number of talented and enthusiastic individuals about and I tremendously enjoyed being a part of this community. Unfortunately, life has since left the Ordo Illuminatus forum, but it is still up in case anyone wants to head over there to have a look-see.
As the 2009 season of the Ordo Illuminatus Weekly Sketch Group was about to kick off, I jumped in with both feet and got drawing. In fact, I set myself the goal to contribute to every single sketch challenge throughout the year... and I did. More on that at the end of this post.

Earlier this year, as I was looking through my old sketchbooks, I re-discovered all of these sketches. So I decided to revisit some of them for my portfolio and give them some (digital) paint. Here are the first two (I plan to paint more of them at some stage)...

WSG#28: Champions (Champion of Nurgle)

WSG#22: Or(k)nate Armour

Throughout the 2009 season of the Weekly Sketch Group there were a total of 50 challenges, one of which was not an art challenge. Since my contributions are no longer on the forum (re-designed my homepage and needed the space on the server) I decided to compile all 49 of my entries into the single image below.

Sunday, 20 January 2013

The Legendary Pirate Cap'n Redbeard

Happy New Year everyone!

When our postie handed me the latest issue of Imagine FX magazine the other day, I could barely contain my excitement. As usual, the issue is filled with lots of wonderful art, as well as plenty of useful tips and tutorials. It also features a piece by yours truly. The legendary pirate Cap'n Redbeard.

This piece was my entry for the MyFX Weekly Challenge #301, late last year. Needless to say, I was pretty thrilled when I found out that, not only had I won the challenge, but my picture had also been selected as the forum image of the month by the IFX staff. Which, of course, means that I get a whole page to myself :)
Big thanks to Nicola and the IFX crew for letting me share the whole spread (which features some more great work from fellow forumites) on my blog.

For those that are interested in what the text reads, here it is:
With a keen interest in pirates since childhood, the challenge to create an imposing Scottish pirate captain was right up Christian’s street.
“My pirates tend to be of a more medieval variety, with some Warhammer influences thrown into the mix.” Coincidently, as the challenge brief provided details of the Captain’s unmistakable red beard, Christian’s took inspiration from Warhammer artist John Blanche in terms of colour and style. “John is a huge inspiration for me, and looking at his artwork also brought about the mostly red palette I’ve used in the piece. It was tons of fun to work on.

Shouldn't be too long before IFX Issue 92 hits the shelves here in New Zealand. Here's the cover, if you want to look for it.

Sunday, 21 October 2012

A New Hero

Another entry for conceptart.org's Character of the Week challenge. This time, the idea was to create a hero that is entirely unsuited to the task... because all the real heroes are away fighting monsters and evil elsewhere.
I went with a young peasant girl for mine, with armour and weapons that are way to big for her. If you can spare a moment, let me know what you think her chances are in the comments section.

And here are some WIPs to show how it all came together.

Sunday, 14 October 2012

Piety & Wickedness

Monarch of Duality was the excellent theme for the big CHOW (Character of the Week) #300 challenge over at conceptart.org a while back. Needless to say, I couldn't resist giving this one a go. The piece below is what I came up with.

I've also created a little GIF animation, to show how the artwork evolved from a pencil sketch into the finished painting.

Sunday, 23 September 2012

From deep under the mountains...

... rise the dark and twisted Nuem.

As some of you may already know, I've been doing a lot of work for Tor Gaming's Relics over the past year, mainly miniature concepts.
Check out their website for more info about the game and the awesome range of miniatures that goes with it.

One of my recent assignments was to create a series of 4 paintings to go with the Nuem pre-order campaign on IndieGoGo.com.
These paintings will be sent out as a set of postcards to everyone who purchased models through the campaign. In the future they may also be available as postcards or prints from the Tor Gaming online shop. So keep your eyes peeled if you want to get your hands on those.

And here they are in all their un-cropped glory... enjoy :)

Sunday, 9 September 2012

Hobbits, Beasts & Demonswords

After having realised just how long I had neglected my poor blog for, I now present you with some new-ish artwork from a number of Imagine FX challenges.

Hope you'll enjoy them :)

MyFX #274: Elric of Melniboné