Sunday, March 31, 2024

Artists I Like: Hank Van Brunt

The artists series continues...

Hank Van Brunt is to comics and art what butter knives are to peanut butter.

Hank's work is weird in that when I started seeing it on Instagram, I thought there was a comic book. Almost everything he posts appears to be part of a comic book. But these are really just scenes and moments in a greater narrative that is hinted at but never actually revealed. A single image with a single caption tells a POTENTIAL story. Since I've always been greatly attracted to potentialities, I'm greatly attracted to Hank's creations.

Most of his work centers on the motley crew of the Bad George, a space ship. The main characters are Gopy, Hank (a self-insert?), Djenny, Gresmatch, Aluzza, and Isambard. There's also Princess Aspartame as well as a bunch other wild ass characters.

I like how Hank just kind of draws things, adds a bit of narrative to it, and rolls on to something else. It feels like we're just catching glimpses of a much bigger story.

His art is lovely. It appears to be drawing completely digitally and I think he take full advantage of the digital canvas to make his colors pop. Did I mention this guy can draw the BEST sci-fi ships and vehicles and devices? I want you to look at some of these images closely and notice the little details. Has anyone drawn better twisted phone cords in the history of art?















 

Saturday, March 30, 2024

Saturday Morning Art Rumble 2

Are you ready to RUMBLLLLLLEEE? Of course you are. It's Saturday.

Time to randomly select 5 drawings from my art folder and rate each one with some ♥s.

Rolling my giant obsidian 3000+ sided die... oh my goodness I can't include that one! JV, you are such a scamp. Put that drawing into the other folder. Let's roll again...

One of the great wizards! ♥♥

Fawn Rainchild. Unfair inclusion! ♥♥♥♥

Adventure location for Black Pudding 8. ♥♥♥

Bunch of weirdos. ♥

Zarp! ♥♥♥♥

Ok, we got another tie!

This is quite unfair because Zarp and Fawn are two of my oldest and most dear characters. How do I choose between my babies?

d20 vs. d20, of course.

Fawn rolls a 4... Zarp gets a 12. Once again, no amount of Charisma bonus is gonna help here. Zarp wins it... this time.

Sunday, March 24, 2024

Artists I Like: Bruno Prosaiko

It's a series!

Bruno Prosaiko is a Brazilian artist whose work I first encountered when I saw a pretty kickass character sheet he created. From that point I followed him on Instagram, FB, or wherever fine arts are served.

Bruno's work is stylized, as they say, and has a strong sense of design from composition to color choice (his color eye is fantastic!). I'm not sure what medium he works in. Possibly digital, but I'm not familiar enough to say. I think his colors are probably digital, but even that is not certain to me and I haven't done the research to find out because honestly all that matters is how incredible he is.

You can find him across the RPG universe (check out the covers of Knock magazine 3 and 4) and even comic books too










Saturday, March 23, 2024

Saturday Morning Art Rumble 1

Saturday mornings are very special to me. When I was a kid, they meant cartoons. As an adult working a Mon-Fri office job, they mean no work. In any case, this is sacred space. I think I'll celebrate Saturdays by posting some of my drawings, old and new, because I don't post consistently enough on this blog.

This week, I'm going to roll my 3000+ sided die and randomly pick a 5 drawings. I'll give each some ♥s for giggles. I was gonna make it a whole contest thing but there's no way in hell I'll maintain that over time. I know myself too well. But fuck all that, let's ROLL!

I got 754, 794, 2925, 1809, and 2533. Oh god I'm scared. But here we go.

♥♥♥


♥♥

Oh... the 2010s era JVW. Lots of catgirls. ♥♥♥

Title header thing for a GOZR comic I didn't finish. Yet. ♥♥

Everyone loves a good Zarp! ♥♥

Oh damn, got a tie! How to break it?? The only fair way is to do a roll off. Graveyard Catgirl vs. Back Scabbard... Each rolls 1d20...

Oh snap! Catgirl got an 11 and Back Scabbard got a 18. Shit, even with her +3 for Charisma she can't beat him. Back Scabbard for the win.

 

Some Art

I haven't been drawing as much lately as normal. I'm in a bit of a funk. I have a few open commissions to do and I can't seem to get the creative juice to knock them out. But hopefully this weekend will prove fruitful.

These were all doodled in a new sketchbook I picked up. It's a 8x8 Articka that I quite like.




 

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Artists I Like: Andrés Garrido Martín

Another exciting post in this series.

One thing I love about the modern world is we can very easily find people all over the planet doing cool things. Andrés Garrido Martín is a Spanish artist I found on Instagram (god bless Instagram, honestly) and fell in love with instantly. He (I'm assuming gender here) has a style that reminds me very much of another artist I've looked at in this series, Rune Ryberg. Both have a "nervous line" energy I love.

Andrés' work is nothing if not energetic. But also atmospheric. He knows how to emphasize shapes and shadows and composition to deliver an emotional impact. His figures are dynamic and varied, with more than a few lovely nods to bodies of bigger size. If I could snap my fingers and have him draw a comic for me I'd do it in a heartbeat. But I might need him to write the comic too because I haven't had any good comic book ideas for a long time (tangent... sigh).

Regarding tools, I am not sure how he works. The colors seem digitally rendered but the linework, which is clearly some kind of pen, could be digital or traditional. I'm not sure which.

I don't see an official website for this artist, so go check out his Instagram and maybe buy him a coffee.









Perfect example of tension, emotion, composition...


Friday, March 15, 2024

Artists I Like: Evlyn Moreau

Another entry in this spectacular series.

I love a lot of artists. More than I can even count. But some of them have ambiance and beauty that can't be forgotten or lost in a sea of other creators. Canadian artist Evlyn Moreau is one of those.

The first time I can remember seeing her work was this delicious drawing she did for an old school character class called the Goblin Enchantress, written by Benjamin Baugh. A delightful, delicate drawing featuring her signature linework and textures. Evlyn's drawings are what I would call "stamp like". Meaning, they resemble designs as much as drawings. They are generally composed of simple figures drawn without any extreme concern for realism, embellished heavily with wonderful textures and patterns. Lovely to behold.

I love her work so much I got my hands on some of it for Black Pudding #6. Follow her Patreon, it's chock full of wondrous art! Also, I think if you spend more than 5 minutes browsing indie, small press, and OSR role-playing games, you will be unable to avoid running across her work. She's always in demand!