bfowler.com

It’s that time of year again.  The Heroes Convention in Charlotte , NC will be held from June 3rd to June 5th.  I’ll be there all three days in space SP-22 in Artists Alley.

EARLY BIRD COMMISSIONS!!!

I’m also taking early bird commissions at over 50% off my usual price.  Character of your choice, black and white or color!  If you’d like to commission a piece drop me an email at bryanfowlerart@gmail.com.  You can pick it up at the show (or I can always mail it to you if you prefer).  Special only runs til June 3rd.

Here’s an illustration for a Tattoo for a client.  He’s doing a motif on the signs of the birth of his children.  Here is Sagittarius.

This is a little different from most of the commercial work I do.  My brother is in a hardcore fantasy football league and I help him co-manage the team.  After last season (where we got ousted in the first round of the playoffs) he wanted me to come up with a logo for our team.  Thus, the 100lb. newborn was born.

Here’s a little commission I did a few weeks back.  The wife of a previous client emailed and wanted something special for her husband for a Christmas present.  She wrapped up frame with a note saying she’d already paid me for a commission of his choice.  A few days later he contacted me and had settled on Beastman from He-man and the Masters of the Universe fame.

Last post we saw my finished thumbnails and rough.  Now it’s time to gather my reference.  I begin by surfing the internet and going through my reference files for images that will be helpful in the illustration.  Pictures of bats, bat’s wings, fur, the Walther P-38, etc.  You want to make sure you especially reference anything that is any type of name brand.  Ravenwood uses a Walther P-38 so I couldn’t just draw in a generic gun.  These details are important and believe me, fans will pick up on this stuff in a heart beat.

After I’ve filled a folder full of images it’s time to gather some props (or build your own), find some models and schedule a photo shoot.  In this case, the props were very minimal.  The gun and the sword.  For the gun I used my son’s Nerf dart gun.  I mostly needed the way a hand would hold the gun at a certain angle.  For the models my gracious brother and his wife agreed to be my subjects.  Along with my props, camera and lights I went to their house for the photo shot.  In this instance it didn’t matter the location since the background was completely dark.

My camera is a Nikon D80.  A great camera.  I make sure to not just take overall shots of my models posing.  I take close-ups of anything I’ll want details for in the drawing and painting stage.  I always get close-up of faces and hands.  You can mess up the entire rest of an image but as long as the face and hands look good you’ll be OK.  At least that’s what I was told by Dan Dos Santos.

After I’ve got all my photography shot and my references, I take it all into photoshop and digitally produce a comp that’s arranged as close as I can get to my final image.  The it’s time to transfer my image to my paper.

Next: Transferring the image!

I was recently commissioned to do the cover to the book “Ravenwood: Step Son of Mystery” set to come out from Airship27  Productions next month.  Special thanks to Producer and Publisher Ron and Art Director Rob over at Airship27 for making it a fun and easy project to work on.  Go HERE for all the details.

I began this project with a brief from Ron who had a few selections from the book that another artist had done interior pen and ink drawings for.  I got to choose from those scenes in the story for the cover.  The one I liked best was of our Hero discovering a human like Bat creature.   I began doing thumbnails right away.  Initially, my thumbnails are really, really loose.  I was looking for a nice composition first and foremost.  So I just start arranging shapes and letting whatever comes happen.  It important at this stage not to get to tied in to something.  At left is one page of many from my sketchbook of some thumbnails for this project.

After I’ve got dozens of thumbnails and I’ve explored the idea pretty well I select a few to work up to a more finished stage to send my client.  I try to pick slightly different ways I could approach the cover.  Some of more narrative while other may have more of a pinup or movie poster feel.

I pencil the roughs and then scan them into Photoshop to add some gray tones.  Ron and Rob both loved the 3rd image and approved it with some minor changes involving facial expressions and where the characters were looking.  Armed with my approved rough it was time to take some reference and pencil my final image.

Next up:  Ravenwood Reference.