Duke of Luck

Story;

There were two brothers, Tony and Duke. Tony always seemed down on his luck, while his brother was always lucky. Tony's wife left him, he contently lost jobs, and could not hold onto money for long. Duke on the other hand had a lovely wife and beautiful daughter, and always had money for his family.
One day Duke passed away. Tony had promised long ago to take care of his daughter if anything happened. But with no money, it seemed impossible.
Then one late night, while strolling on the beach contemplating how to earn money, Tony felt a slight nudge toward the water. He made his way closer to the waves, and he felt the push again. Tony looked around, but no one was there. He got on his knees next to the water. "What shall I do?" He thought.
Suddenly he looked down, and underneath the water were hundreds of pearls! He began to scoop them up quickly, and no matter how many he took there seemed to be hundreds more. Tony was so grateful, now he could take care of his niece!
But Tony looked again, and it was not his hands grabbing the pearls, but a pair of floating hands in front of his! Tony smiled, his heart filled with joy. His brother had used his luck one last time to help Tony.







I don't know if the extra pair of hands clutter the piece too much or not

NOTE; Only the sketch will be completely digital. The final will be the same as the rest of my thesis :)

sorry paul!

I know you just posted, so im sorry for bumping you down like this :c

anyway! here are my preliminary sketches for the new story i am illustrating:

Quick Synopsis:

Title: Flowers of Illusion

"A Taoist priest becomes popular after doing a series of tricks and incantations he performs in public. The high ranking local mandarins take notice of him, and invite him to his home. to return the favor, he invites them out to a lake for tea. In the story, it is in the middle of winter and one commissioner says out loud how he wished to enjoy the lake when it is in full bloom. no sooner does he say it than the priest fills the lake with flowers. The commissioner then orders his men to take boats out onto the lake to collect the flowers. Do their dismay, the flowers continually disappear whenever they get too close, thus they come back empty handed. Later on, after the tea party is over, a commissioner invites him to his home. One day, while the commissioner is serving guests, they ask for wine. the commissioner lies and tells them he has nothing, when the priest steps in and offers to make some for them. they drink to their hearts content. The commissioner, being weary of the priest, checks his own wine supply later that day, and finds the barrels completely empty. He becomes angry at the priest, and orders him to be arrested and beaten. he is, but he transfers the pain to the commissioner who at once orders it to stop, after realizing what happened. After that, the priest left, and people rarely heard of him again."

For these im focusing on the relationship between the priest, and the commissioners greed towards his wine and the flowers. I wanted to give it a sense of mystery, as the priest looks down onto the illusionistic flowers and smiles. my plan is to have a misty/fog-ish background, with the flower glowing as the light source. i'm also planning on tinting the water purple, to represent the wine. (he is in the lake, by the way.)

the one with the hand is taking a more literal approach. It illustrates the people on the boats as they attempt to grasp the lotus's in the water.

On A Pale Horse Book Cover

Hey all,

I wanted to get some input on my sketches for the next book cover. I reworked On A Pale Horse from my thumbnails. I went with the James Dean cool kid loner type smoker. The bottom one I have him looking off and the second one up he is looking right at the viewer. I also have included some quick color studies.

Twin girl Spirits

A quick refresher of the story;

Late one night, a bus driver finds twin young girls waiting on the side of the road. He offers a ride back to their home, which they show it at the top of a long hill. As he drove the girls, he tried a few times to make conversation, but the girls continued to stay silent, staring forward. As the bus driver stopped in front of the house, the front porch door opened, and an elderly woman stepped out. The girls ran to her, and they slipped quietly into the house shutting the door behind them.
The bus driver found out the next day, that no one had lived in that house for over 50 years. He had brought home two good spirits that had been waiting to return

Jamie Lidell Poster~

I was going for quiet earthy tones. And then somewhere along the way that punch-you-in-the-face orange showed up. Believe it or not, it used to be neon punch-you-in-the-face orange.

So. Um. Guys. Any tweaks you think it needs? Color stuff? Shading's not working out? I'm totally not made out to do any graphic design/lettering at all? Hit me~

The Bufo Toad Update

Tried to work in more black toward the bottom and more of the smoke up the composition to even out the colors, hopefully this balanced the piece out more

Painted skin: WIP

Heeyy here's a WIP for my upcoming piece based on the story "the painted skin". its my usual style, but i used textures in a slightly calmer fashion this time around. i also have two different color concepts im working with atm, one is slightly more red than the other. if there's anything else i should change before the finish, feel free to tell me =D thanks!