Category Archives: Commission

Here’s a very challenging D&D piece I completed recently. The commissioner was a DM running two campaigns for two parties respectively, and he wanted both in the same scene, but with wildly different backgrounds — the desert sandstorm of White Plume Mountain, and the underground tunnels of Forge of Fury — with the DM conjuring a dragon in front of both parties. What’s more, he also wanted two additional versions with just one party and the DM. That required some additional drawing, as well as a lot of planning and experimentation with my coloring process especially, to separate it all out in the end. So like I said, a big challenge! But a very welcome one, which made this piece very interesting to work on.

Here’s a really fun D&D commission I did a couple months back. The commissioner’s group was putting their regular game on hold for a Halloween session where their characters would encounter a fantasy version of a stereotypical Italian restaurant — a CANNIBAL Italian restaurant, run by the evil Tony Linguine and his staff of drunken goblins — and the PCs are on the menu (literally)!

Thanks for looking, and if you want to see more, you can check out my website at http://www.brandonpalas.com!

Children of the Blood Star

Here’s a recent commission — a poster for a D&D campaign called Children of the Blood Star. The heroes (the titular children, I assume) stand in front of the campaign’s main city, a flurry of red lanterns rising into the air, with the evil Zolph looming in the background above them. His broken skull contains The Void. The titular Blood Star can be seen over his shoulder.

I love doing these poster-style commissions! I’m not exactly a graphic designer, but these heavy metal-ish hand-drawn titles are a blast.

Here’s a cool Curse of Strahd commission I recently had the chance to do. It was commissioned to commemorate the end of the campaign, and immortalizes the triumphs and epic fails of the party, such as taking over a town, punching your way out of a shambling mound, accidentally burning down a windmill with a bunch of kids inside, accidentally drowning a bunch of ravens who were actually people, accidentally blowing up a wagon, and taking advice from a talking sword.  And of course, Strahd himself looms over the whole thing.

Artistically, it was a big challenge to fit this many characters, with this many bits of “business”, onto the page in some kind of coherent composition, all while giving each character the “screen time” they deserve. I think it ultimately came out very nicely, but it took a lot of messing around to get it there!

Magi-Tech D&D Commission

Here’s a real cool commission I had the opportunity to draw — a D&D party facing off against the Big Bad Evil Guy, all of whom are sporting badass alien power suits with internal weapons systems that cast Magic Missile and stuff like that. Not the typical D&D illustration, but very cool nonetheless!

Eldritch Foundry Employee Portraits

Here are a bunch of portraits commissioned by the people at Eldritch Foundry, a cool new company that makes custom miniatures for D&D and other tabletop role-playing games. They had me do all of their employees as their D&D alter-egos!

 

A Dashing D&D Party

Here’s a recent D&D commission. The client gave me far more specific detail about the characters’ looks and dress than I’ve ever had before, which was great — lots of fun swashbuckling looks — but also challenging. Anyway, I think it came out pretty good!

D&D Curse of Strahd Commission

Here’s a recent commission of a D&D party from a Curse of Strahd campaign. Curse of Strahd is set in D&D’s Ravenloft setting, which is like an old-school Hammer Horror, Transylvania kind of setting, and Count Strahd Von Zarovich is basically Dracula. In this illustration, Strahd is drawn with the likeness of the Dungeon Master, as he pulls the party’s strings!

The only couple of times I got to play D&D back in high school, it was set in Ravenloft, so this was a fun nostalgia trip!

Fang Breaker!

Here’s a really fun D&D commission I did recently. Really fun character –pyromaniac halfling rogue arsonist, fighting vampires with molotov cocktails and the the power of BRANDING — and it was a nice opportunity to do some cool hand-lettering.

Here’s an extended family portrait commission! I’ve never done a single illustration with so many full figures before, much less one where every figure was a likeness of a real person (or dog!) Very challenging, but very fun and rewarding.