Chris Howard's Writing & Art

Asteroid Mining

Drew this on the iPad in Art Rage, about two hours.

 

 

Storyboarding

Here's a quick sketch from the book I'm working on, showing a 90-meter supply ship with that cool x-bow shape all the new OSVs (Offshore Supply Vessels) are sporting.  This is the opening scene, afternoon sun highlighting the waves, just before everything falls apart.  Speed painting in Art Rage Studio Pro. I'm contemplating storyboarding the whole thing out, create the graphic version of the same story as I'm writing the prose version.

IF: Brigade

Readercon sketching

A few samples of some of the stuff I drew in the Art Rage app on the iPad while taking in some of the panels at Readercon over the weekend. I'm working--as much as I can--on redrawing all of chapter 2 of Saltwater Witch (http://www.saltwaterwitch.com/switch).

Here are the beginnings of three of the replacement panels.

[illustration] Friday Wallpaper

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "shadows". I painted this one of a pensive Kassandra from my book Seaborn for the background of my web site SaltwaterWitch.com, but it makes a great background for any desktop. I've cropped it and reduced it to a variety of standard resolutions for a variety of devices.

Pick yours, download it, and set it as your wallerpaper!

Links below the image to sizes.

1600x1200
Seaborn-Wallpaper-1600x1200.jpg

1280x768
Seaborn-Wallpaper-1280x768.jpg

1280x960
Seaborn-Wallpaper-1280x960.jpg

1024x768
Seaborn-Wallpaper-1024x768.jpg

768x1024 (Portrait - iPad/tablet)
Seaborn-Wallpaper-768x1024.jpg

320x480 (Portrait - Phone)
Seaborn-Wallpaper-320x480.jpg

Here's the 320x480 image:

 

One of several pieces of book cover art I'm drawing

Cover for Seaborn Omnibus

I designed and painted the new cover and art for all three books, Saltwater Witch, Seaborn, and Sea Throne, all under one cover.  (See links down left side of page).  See the full cover--front, back, and spine--at the bottom.

Click for the full view! 

CLICK FOR THE FULL VIEW:

Have a great 2010!

Happy New Year! I stole my last panel from Saltwater Witch for this one, but it works.  Click for the full view.

Mermaid

I haven't painted a traditional mermaid in a long time.  I've penciled and painted bunches of "people from the sea," but my Seaborn don't have tails, in fact they make fun of the mermaid myths.  I actually started thinking about this in May for a contest running on dA that ended in June.  But I was finishing up my last book, and never got around to it.

I wanted a fairly realistic mermaid with jewelry, rings in her hair, maybe some cool tattoos, and clothes of course would be for those freaks who breathe air.  I wanted a mermaid who can kick Waterhouse's mermaid's scaly butt--with her tail. I wanted a mermaid who was stronger, edgier and maybe a little tragic, none of that combing long tresses and singing on the rocks--not unless it was clear that it's just a ploy to lure sailors to their dooms. Finally got around to completing the painting this morning.

A lot of this painting is about the light, bold white light coming from above.  As usual, I'm still tweaking, but it's pretty much done.  Hope you like.  Love to hear what you think.

So, here's the full work and some detail crops.  Click them for the full view.

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IF: unfold

I continue to tweak this one, starting out as from the perspective of someone looking over a vast forested landscape from above, and from there, drawing it deeper until we're now looking up at the figure at the crest of the tree from below.  Also playing with the reflection.

That's what reflections do, right?  Mirrors, prisms, the surface of water--they show you where and how reality can be unfolded.

This one's really big. Click here to see the full view.