owlbear sketch
Posted in Sketches with tags owlbear, Sketches on April 30, 2009 by sweed
an owl that is also a bear
Quickie – Renfield
Posted in Quickies, Sketches on January 31, 2008 by sweed 
Also maybe a Ravenloft character that I will be playing…
Quickie – RuneQuest pics
Posted in Quickies, Updates on January 25, 2008 by sweedHere’s some more work I just wrapped up for Mongoose Publishing’s RuneQuest. I’ll add these to the main site as soon as I get around to making room for them. I haven’t decided whether I want to shrink down all the thumbnails or just do some site reformatting and divide my work up into pages.
No comic this week – I was doing these instead. I’ve got some new stuff kicking around, and more comics coming up, so stay tuned.
Michael Whelan lecture
Posted in Exhibits on January 20, 2008 by sweedWell, I just got back from a lecture in Danbury, CT by fantasy/science fiction illustrator Michael Whelan. I’m afraid I really didn’t get to introduce myself or anything thanks to being in a line of people impatiently waiting to get their books signed, but I did get to say hi and listen in on a great talk.
His slide lecture focused pretty much on his career and his thought processes behind a lot of his paintings. What struck me was that in every painting he does he seems to add some secret personal meaning to it to keep himself invested in it. For instance, he came to a slide of a horror story cover he’d done in 1980 and explained how, even though on the surface it’s just a horror story cover, to him it represented a rough time in his life, and there were little vignettes and personal messages seeded throughout the image that meant things to him, even though to everyone else, it was essentially a skull with some smoke pouring out of it. Maybe it’s little obvious to some people, but I thought this idea of “secret meanings” was pretty interesting.
Anyways, if you haven’t checked out Michael Whelan, he’s an awesome painter and in all respects seems to be a genuinely nice guy, so here’s his website link: http://www.michaelwhelan.com/. I meant to ask him a bit about his technique, but I’m pretty sure one of the sci-fi fans behind me was going to beat me with her copy of The Dark Tower that she wanted autographed, so I thought better of it.
In other news, I’m currently working on some more illustrations for Mongoose Publishing’s RuneQuest, so stay tuned for those later this week.
Enjoying: How hilarious the internet is. Especially the three comments and the corresponding three 5-star ratings.
Anticipating: Some RPGin’ next month!
Studying: some books on Pre-Raphaelite painters I got from my local public library
The universe is flux. Life is opinion.
Nerdvana – P.C. PCs
Posted in Comics on January 17, 2008 by sweed
I’m usually not very political at all, but I wasn’t old enough to have an opinion when this sort of thing was getting talked about in the 80’s, so I guess I’m retroactively getting it out of my system. This is apropos the recent change of the cover of D&D’s upcoming Player’s Handbook because one of the heroes on the cover is a tiefling, which, for those unfamiliar with the geek parlance, is a demony-lookin’-guy. I actually support the change in cover, not because of the tiefling, but because the same artist is doing the new cover, which means I get to see more of his work, which is great. I can also understand WotC’s decision, since they are, you know, a business and do well to listen to their vendors when they voice concerns about whether or not something will be popular, which I read was the reason for the switch. Really the issue and the subsequent message board discussions just got my mental wheels turning about the nature of personal offense. I think my own stance is that it’s possible to keep one’s faith and one’s imagination in separate, well-labeled boxes.
Nerdvana – Ch-ch-ch-changes
Posted in Comics on January 10, 2008 by sweed
The barrage of nerd in-jokes continues. The font is a tad too small to read without the help of special ocular implants, so unless you’re Steve Austin, you’re going to have to click on the preview image to read it. A brief forewarning, if the word “eladrin” means nothing to you, you’re not liable to take much away from this one. Actually, that’s not true. My dad liked the part about the sideburns.
Sweedart 
