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.

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.

Plague Demon

Revisiting old sketches is not really something I do as much as I should.
The other day, however, I was flicking through my sketchbook from a couple of years ago and came across a sketch that I had always been rather fond of... a Warhammer inspired demon known as a Plaguebearer. In a flash of inspiration I decided to give it some colour. So below is the result of about 3 hours work in Photoshop.

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.