The pirate ship “Dryad”

The pirate ship "Dryad"

This photograph of the pirate ship “Dryad” was taken by a travelling photographer in the Northern reaches of the ravine province- confirming reports that pirates have been operating in the area. Dryad- Formerly HMS Swallow- was captured by pirates last Autumn while returning from a routine reconnaissance mission. Our sources in the intelligence service claim there’s rumours that the recent piracy “epidemic” in the Northern provinces are sponsored by foreign nation states.

Military forces have been deployed to the North including anti-airship missile batteries on-route from Edwinton. It is believed to be only a matter of time before Dryad is either sunk or back in Union hands.

Airships of Oberon

I recently completed some work for a lovely chap who’s putting together a new Steampunk-themed board game called “Airships of Oberon”.

I was originally commissioned to complete the above six card illustrations, which each represent an individual element in the game, from left to right: Autumn, Animal, Wind, Water, Metal and Grass.

After that, I was given the job of producing the box cover art for the game, based on a pretty complex brief. It had to include:

  • A happy couple in a steampunk Edwardian street
  • Airships flying overhead.
  • A steam-powered car or two
  • Clockwork dragons circling a tower in the distance.
  • Bright, happy colours. 

I’m still getting to grips with the best way to compose these complicated fantasy images with so much stuff going on, but myself and the client were both happy with how it turned out. Now, back to the last stretch of university work.

Tales from the wasteland – The Airship Docks

Today I’m uploading another brief walk-through of how I approached one of the images I produced for Smokey Bastard.

This time it’s an image of a steampunk airship dock, port of origin for the crew of the “Widow Garret” which you can see docked in the bottom left of the images.

The brief was very clear as to what the band wanted, I had to show them as they are inthe cover image painting, stood on front of their airship with the bustling industrial docks behind them. Initially I didn’t know how to approach such a complex image so to get the image under way I started with a rough pencil sketch on paper to try and get the image worked out in my head (the sketch below is actually the 3rd I think). At that stage I still wasn’t ready to approach the final image so I made a very rough google sketchup model to give me a solid understanding of all the perspective involved. I then exported the model  into photoshop and painted over it until I had the beginnings of my final image.The next stage was simply adding more detail to the already blocked out image You can see I messed about with the colour scheme a bit. It was looking a bit too serene in the second image.The final stages of an image are often the most enjoyable, and by the time I was up to the images below I had the fun job of simply adding little details and correcting small problems. The sky colour got changed once again to look more oppressive and industrial, and a handful of airships got added to the sky. along with the crowds below.The finished image:You can buy the album here, which you should because it looks lovely and you can get a limited edition poster that I also did for the band (as well as a poster of the image above)
… Also, the music is very good.

Listen to some of the Tracks
SmokeyBastard.com
Buy the album