Tag Archives: D&D

Curse of Strahd D&D Commission

Another Curse of Strahd party commission! I think this is the fourth one I’ve done now? It’s evidently quite a popular module — I can probably draw that Castle Ravenloft in the background from memory by now!  I actually played briefly in a Curse of Strahd campaign recently, until I had to drop out because of lack of time. Maybe one of these days…  Anyway, this was a really fun piece to do! I love these posed “group photo” pieces — they’re always a lot of fun to compose. I also started to find a nice coloring process on this one that’s sort of a hybrid between cel-shaded, and fully-painted, which looks great, but is still efficient to do.

 

Drawing the Monster Manual #15: Stirge

I got thrown off course for a while, but I’m back! This is #15 in my quest to draw the entire D&D 5th Edition Monster Manual.

I guess I was feeling burned out on doing the same style for so many years, and I was starting to feel hemmed in by the limitations of my coloring process, especially. So I took some time away to really delve into digital painting. I learned a lot, but after a while, I found myself itching to ink again. So now I’m bringing some of what I learned studying digital painting into my coloring, and I like the results! But there’s still a lot to figure out, so I decided to bring this series back and have some fun.

As for the Stirge itself — a two-foot, multi-winged, fleshy mosquito monster. Gross.

Mighty Ground Pounders End-of-Campaign Poster

Here’s a huge illustration I had the opportunity to do recently for a D&D group to celebrate the ending of their two-year-long campaign. It features the whole party, their airship, the main villains, and a bunch of their favorite NPCs.

I got to try out a new coloring process on this one, using my newly-developed digital painting skills to bring more depth and variety to the rendering. I’m really pleased with how it came out.

My favorite detail about this piece is the Mindflayer head in a jar on the back of the evil wizard in the foreground. They sent me an update of their final sessions showing how that turned out, since I when I finished the piece, they still had a couple of sessions left. That Mindflayer head became a Mindflayer giant for the final battle, with a mini on the table that must’ve been a foot tall!

Vampire Lord Damon LeDarq

I was playing an old Castlevania game, and I got it in my head that it would be run to run an RPG scenario inspired by Castlevania. Got to thinking about the characters that would be involved, and came up with this guy, and his dysfunctional family. Don’t know if I’ll ever run that scenario, but I had a great time painting these characters!

Resourceful Half-Orc Fighter From a Secluded Village Who Was Kidnapped By Cultists

Here’s another character from the D&D character concept generator http://www.whothefuckismydndcharacter.com.  Finding ways to put the character concept into the art has been a fun challenge with these. Having been captured by cultists, this guy apparently got a hold of some of their weapons and robes, plus some bells and a bit of tree to aid in his escape!

The Cult of the Blue Oyster, My Online D&D Group

I’d always shied away from the idea of online D&D. I just wanted to play with my friends, even if we only made it once every couple of months. But when Covid hit and the lockdown started, that was no longer an option. Then it occurred to me that there must be lots of others in the same situation, so it would be a great time to finally try out this online thing. Just a one-shot, you know. I whipped up a Discord server, hit up r/LFG, and in 15 minutes I had a group. However, that one-shot grew, and after a couple of personnel changes for various reasons, we’ve got a fantastic group full of great players (and great people!), and we’re now over 20 sessions deep into the weekly campaign I’ve always wanted to run.

Clockwise from the top, here’s the Cult of the Blue Oyster!

Kalderon “Kal” Enevara, Eladrin Sorcerer! Kal is a gentle soul, on a mission from his God to heal a corrupted forest in the Barony of Sarnoff. He’s new to this world, and enjoys learning about all the various flora, fauna, and customs. He’s even got a jar full of tadpoles he’s meticulously tending to. But he really just wants to get this thing over with and get back to his family in the Feywild. I don’t know if I have the heart to tell him…

Jade Coil, Tabaxi Monk! We don’t know her too well yet, because she’s pretty new. Her player’s previous character, a Warforged Paladin with a dark past, ended up straight up murdering an allied NPC in an emotional dispute, and then the player didn’t really want to play that character anymore. Enter Jade! We know she likes learning about religion and history, and going “bonk bonk” with them paws!

Gwin “Bloody Redd” Garkalan, Dwarf Bard. Perhaps the chaotic beating heart of the group. She disguised herself as a male to learn the manly arts in her highly gender-segregated dwarven society, but she was discovered and cast out. Prone to music puns, now she roams the land, shredding on her axe and inventing heavy metal!

And last but not least, Massimo “Mas” K’Zar, Aarakocra Ranger, and Wolfie! Mas is a young bird boy on a quest to become a great hunter. He tends to kinda hang in the background, only to pop up with a well-timed quip. But when he sees a sweet hat on an enemy cult leader’s head, watch out, because he’s gonna GET that hat. He also feeds Kal’s tadpoles with bugs shaken from his feathers.

 

Drawing the Monster Manual #14: Green Hag

#14 in my quest to draw the entire 5th Edition Monster Manual: The Green Hag!

Hags are cool. Creepy witches in the woods tricking you into deals that backfire spectacularly, and cackling at your ruin. I don’t know why, but I’ve always liked witches. I’m looking forward to throwing some of these ladies at my players some time soon, perhaps! They’re supposed to be repulsively ugly, but I think this one came out kinda charming somehow. Oh well!

So when I started this series, I intended to ultimately use these drawings for paper miniatures. However, at this point, I think I’ve abandoned that idea. Drawing paper minis is so restrictive in so many ways, because you have to have the front match up with the back perfectly for when you print and assemble them. You’re pretty much stuck with a straight-on camera angle, and they either have be standing right on the ground with both feet, or you gotta do some janky workarounds. I like to put some hints of environment into these drawings, and trying to do them for minis makes that difficult. So having decided to forgo that plan, I’ve now gone a little overboard and let the hints of environment start to turn into a full background. Well, you gotta have the little witch hut, right? I tried to let it blend into the parchment texture in the background. I don’t know if it works, but hey, you gotta try things.

Drawing the Monster Manual #13: Grell!

#13 in my quest to draw the entire 5th Edition Monster Manual: The Grell!

Lucky number 13, and I couldn’t have rolled a cuddlier little guy. What the hell is this thing? A beaked brain with barbed tentacles? Gross. But also undeniably awesome. Of course it’s from the Underdark!

I’m struck by how many D&D monsters are just a weird combination of different animals and different body parts. Hey, don’t mess with what works, right?

Drawing the Monster Manual #12: Goblin!

Number 12 in my quest to draw the entire 5th Edition Monster Manual, the Goblin!

An even dozen, and (finally? Already?) we come to the ubiquitous Goblin. I don’t know why, I love these guys. They’re so standard that everyone knows what a Goblin is supposed to be. They’re perfect low-level generic bad guys that you can always find a reason to put in, and at least in my estimation, they have a hilariously selfish and chaotic culture.

On the other hand, this guy came out looking pretty heroic. Maybe less of a Monster Manual Goblin, and more of a Volo’s Guide. I’d play that Goblin! (In fact I think I’ll put him on the list: Slerk, Goblin Barbarian. Nothing fancy, but I’ll bet he’d be fun.)

I’ve been experimenting with a new coloring style lately, and I think it finally started to click on this piece. More “painted” than the cel-shaded/comic book look I’ve always used. Until now, these experiments have been an uneasy combination of old and new. Here, I feel like it all started to click as a unified whole. I’ve got a new feeling of inspiration here, so I’ll bet the next entry in this series will come soon!

Drawing the Monster Manual #11: Bronze Dragon Wyrmling

#11 in my quest to draw the entire D&D 5th Edition Monster Manual: The Bronze Dragon Wyrmling!

So this whole pandemic/lockdown kinda threw me off my game for this project. Funny how that works — you’d think with all the extra time at home, you’d get so much done, but in my experience and observation, it’s worked out quite the opposite. (Must be that creeping existential terror!) But anyway, I’m back on the case now!

This is the first dragon of any kind that I’ve drawn for this project, but certainly not the last. I’m playing with some new coloring techniques — more of a painted style of rendering, rather than the “airbrush cuts” comic book style I’ve typically used. We’ll see how it goes!

Drawing the Monster Manual #10: Doppelganger

Number 10 in my quest to draw the entire 5th Edition Monster Manual: The Doppelganger!

Doppelganger is kind of a weird one, because the whole point is that it’s a monster that takes on the appearance of other people. Its true form is apparently a kind of nondescript, slightly melty purple dude. Different art depics it in different ways — the 5th Edition Monster Manual has it as a very humanoid figure. Other sou rces depict it in a stranger way, often with big “grey alien” eyes, or with an overgrown, misshapen shoulder girdle, and spikes growing out all over.

Like I’ve mentioned before, I’m planning on producing paper minis out of this series. I’m looking forward to using this guy in my game soon!

Drawing the Monster Manual #9: Fire Giant

Number 9 in my quest to draw the entire 5th Edition Monster Manual — the Fire Giant! I got a nasty flu last week (and hiccups for almost a week besides) so it’s been a while since I’ve released one of these, but I’m back at it! Can’t stop this train! I’ve actually been sitting on the sketch for this one for months, and it kinda got lost on my tablet. Finally got around to finishing it up. I struggled a little with the armor design — the Fire Giants in the book, and most of the ones you can find on the internet all have that dark, monochrome armor, and I felt like it was a tough to make it look good. To that end, I added a little bit of red cloth, which helped. I guess I don’t have a lot else to say about fire giants. Never used one in game — still far too early in my DM career to be using such high CR creatures. But like I’ve mentioned before, I plan to format all of these as paper minis eventually, and I would like to use it one of these days!

Drawing the Monster Manual #7: Mummy

Number 7 in my quest to draw the entire 5th Edition Monster Manual: The Mummy!

I’ve been trying to get through at least one of these a week, but I had an extremely busy week on a personal level, not to mention the fact that for some reason I struggled with this guy. I guess I had trouble finding a way to do the wraps that I was happy with — and with a mummy, if you don’t have the wraps, you don’t have anything! But then I remembered that one of the points of this project was to not be too precious with it — with over 200 creatures in the Monster Manual, I just can’t afford to! So I knocked it out and moved on. But ultimately, by the time I got the color on there, I think it came out alright!