Year of the doodle

Happy 2014 everyone!
I know it's a bit late for a looking back at the year that was post, but here it goes anyway...

2013 was a very interesting year for me. There were a few big ups, as well as some pretty big downs. So this will be a bit more wordy than usual, as I look back at some of the highlights and a few of the low points of the past year.

Imperial Sanctioned Abhvmans a.k.a. Beastmen

Things started out pretty well. Going into the new year, I was full of confidence, energy, and had plenty of work on... concept art, illustration, graphic design, a bit of everything.
Thanks to the interwebs, I also met plenty of interesting people and got involved (as far as I do) with some great online communities.

Chervbim

I even managed to make good on my one and only New Year's resolution, which was to get in more gaming. Although my miniature modelling and painting endeavours were still pretty slow going (more like stagnant, actually), I was pretty content with how everything was going.
At that point, my head was just exploding with ideas and I was creating more artwork than ever before. I filled at least a sheet a day in one of my many doodle books. Hence the title of this post.

Miscellaneovs Doodles

Things got even better when John Blanche (one of my biggest idols) started showing an interest in my work and encouraged me to approach Games Workshop and Fantasy Flight Games for some freelance work.
I can't divulge any details at this stage, but I've been working on some pretty exciting stuff for Fantasy Flight Games throughout the rest of the year.

Infant Greif I

Just when I thought things couldn't get much better, I went on my first proper holiday in three years!
Thanks to my wonderful partner Kathi and her seemingly limitless love, patience, and support (yes, she paid for my flight), I got to spend five absolutely fantastic weeks in Germany.
I caught the final week of the Landshuter Hochzeit (Wedding of Landshut, a reenactment of one of the biggest events of early Renaissance Germany), and got to spend some quality time with family and friends.

Key Bearer

Upon my return to New Zealand, however, things slowly started to take a turn for the worse. Five weeks of not working had left a big dent in my bank balance. Over the first part of the year, I had also started to shift my focus more towards my artwork and away from graphic design work. With that came a huge paycut that I was to feel keenly over the coming month... and still am as I write this today.

Even though I had plenty of interesting projects on the go, I was constantly running at a loss. I've had money troubles for many years, but as Christmas drew ever nearer and things quieted down, it all began to look pretty bleak.
Soon enough, this situation started to take a toll on my (mental) health and, by the time Xmas rolled around, I felt thoroughly depressed about my life. I found it more and more difficult to motivate myself. Less and less work came in, mostly due to the holidays, and I just couldn't quite see a way forward anymore.

Gvn Hovnd

This carried on well into January 2014. Thankfully, as of a few days ago, I have finally managed to muster the energy to pull myself out of this hole. It was only possible thanks to the never-ending support of my amazing partner Kathi, my family, friends, clients, and all the fans and supporters of my work... as well as listening really loudly to old school Metallica and other high-energy music.

Gladivs Rex

So, while my financial troubles are far from over, I have a far more positive outlook on life again. New work is starting to come in and at last I feel that I might make it through this mess after all.
Onwards and upwards, I say... and to all of you who had the patience to read all of this, I wish you a really awesome and successful new year 2014!

Prints and more on Society6

Hi All
Finally got my print shop at Society6 up and running:
http://society6.com/schwager

You'll be able to buy prints (including framed and stretched canvas) of my artwork, as well as mugs, t-shirts and plenty of other goodies.

Whether you're still searching for a Xmas present for that hard to buy friend or family member, or just want to support a struggling artist, go there now and buy something!

I'll be uploading plenty more artwork in the days to come.
In the meantime, thanks for looking and happy shopping :)

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.

Father Time

Yet another great challenge topic on the Imagine FX forum: MyFX#326 - Father Time
After doing some quick research, I found that the image of an old man with a scythe and an hourglass was just too good to not give it a go. I also discovered that Father Time is often depicted with children, so I wanted to include that in my piece as well.
Naturally, I wanted the illustration to have a grim dark inspired flavour. The scythe offered the perfect opportunity for that. Nothing says 40K quite like a chainblade!
Add to that a Necromunda inspired hive city in the background and a slightly creepy looking kid in a survival suit and here we are...

Below you can see how the image developed from some early doodles to a proper pencil sketch, and eventually the finished illustration you see above.

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.

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.

Matrona Imperivm

This piece was my last minute entry for the MyFX April Challenge: Chiaroscuro.
I wasn't really planning on entering this challenge, until some last minute inspiration from a photo I saw on Dark Beauty Magazine's Facebook page compelled me to give it a go. The theme for the challenge, Chiaroscuro, was really interesting and a great opportunity to experiment a little. Awesome fun!

You can also see some of the WIPs for this piece on the Imagine FX forum.

Traitor Marine

I thought I'd try my hand at drawing a Space Marine... but then I thought, nah, let's go for a Traitor Marine instead.

Even after much deliberation, I was unable to decide exactly which legion (or chapter) he should be from. As the drawing evolved further I started to go with a slight Word Bearers theme, but nothing too obvious. There are one or two hints at it about the picture.
What I wanted to capture most about the character was that he'd been around (and exposed to the ruinous powers of the Warp) for a bloody long time.

Medicae Servitor

The Medicae Servitor only got the briefest of mentions in Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn trilogy (or was it Ravenor?), but it was enough to spark my imagination and I just had to do my own take on the concept.

Additional inspiration (mainly for the leg) came from looking at this website:

http://www.thealternativelimbproject.com