Sea of Chaos

Ever since I was a little kid I had a fascination with sailing ships, in particular the mighty Galleons and Carracks from the 15th and 16th centuries. One of my earliest drawings was of a Galleon model kit from a toy catalogue and I still vividly remember working on it.
This fascination has never left me and I make sure to re-visiting the subject from time to time.

Such a time came just recently while I was searching for a fitting subject for my entry to the ArtOrder Inspiration Challenge. After thinking about the topic for quite some time, and going off into all kinds of unfruitful directions, I suddenly remembered. In fact, the memory was triggered while visiting the Auckland Tall Ships Festival... that and playing a wonderful little game called Dreadfleet*.

*I don't care what all the haters say, I think it's awesome fun to play and am already tinkering with my own expansion ideas.

So anyway, inspired by all of the above I got to work... with Pirates of the Caribbean and other such movies playing in the background. And here's what came out...

Judging for the challenge is currently in progress, so I can't tell you how I've done just yet.

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.

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.