Storn's art for swipin'!

Iron Sky · Jul 24, 2010

I just looked through all 30 pages. I'm not much for superhero or "pulp" games, so much of it I skimmed through despite its quality, but your fantasy portraits were great and your maps and the few oriental-themed "backgrounds" blew me away.

This is my new desktop background, first time I've changed it this year.

Hunter · Sep 7, 2010

Hey Storn! All of these pics rocks but I really dig Turtle Armor!

Cheers,

Hunter

Storn · Sep 9, 2010

Iron Sky said:
I just looked through all 30 pages. I'm not much for superhero or "pulp" games, so much of it I skimmed through despite its quality, but your fantasy portraits were great and your maps and the few oriental-themed "backgrounds" blew me away.

This is my new desktop background, first time I've changed it this year.

Thanks, that piece was a fun experiment, I did a watercolor wash on illustration board, with sepia tones...but the color was done in Painter... I really like how that turned out.

I actually prefer doing fantasy portraits over the superheroes (although, don't get me wrong, i love doing supers too). But I get called upon to do more superhero artwork than fantasy.

Spread the word! I LOVE doing the fantasy stuff.

...
Hi folks, sorry for the long absence. I've had a few things on my plate, but I've been cranking away. One choke point is that I'm switching computers... but my scanner and a lot (hundreds!) of files are still on the old computer. New computer won't run my scanner, Windows 7 issues with my SCSI card.... yup, my massive scanner is THAT old.

While I've had some of Death Tribble's commissions to put up, I've been lazy about getting them off the old computer, up on to my photobucket and posted in the various threads I've got around.

Anyway, here are some of those commissions...

First up is the Terrible Terrapin, a concept from over on the Mutants and Masterminds boards...

Next we have one of Death Tribble's contest entries, Acylla. I am always excited to tackle a "national" hero that seems to be a bit out of the norm. She is Peruvian and it was fun doing the research to put this one together.

Lastly in our trio of ladies is another of Death Tribble's, his concept of a Super Drow. Somehow, the theme to Shaft is rattling around in my head. 'nuff said.

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Storn · Sep 24, 2010

This is Achilles. He was the PC of Andy Matthews, art director for Hero Games. Andy passed awhile back. His great friend Jack B. commissioned this picture in Andy's honor.

I didn't know Andy super well.... but I enjoyed working for him. I was honored to do this tribute. Just in case you are interested, Jack's art brief it is below.

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This commission is a special one for me. This is for Achilles. He was the primary player character of the late, great Andy Mathews (of whom I am sure you are familiar). Andy was one of my best friends; he quite literally saved my life, and was there when I needed someone to be there more times than I could ever count. He was as close to a brother to me as he could get without actually sharing a parent. He was a long-time player in the Guardians universe, and this was the guy he played: Achilles.

Achilles is a combination of Batman and Captain America. He is the leader of the Global Guardians team, and is the son of Lord Doom, one of the world-beater level villains (naturally he rejected his father's plan for world domination and works to oppose it... something that hasn't actually spoiled his father's opinion of him, to be honest). He's been genetically engineered to be at the peak of human physical and mental condition, and is a highly trained. He is an intense, goal-oriented person who rarely if ever let's emotion get in the way of what he sees as his "job", which is protecting the innocent and repaying what he sees as a "Karma debt" owed through the actions of his father. He is 6’6" tall and weighs about 230 pounds. He is in near perfect physical condition. He has black hair and blue eyes that seem to move almost constantly. In costume, he wears a silver body suit with red boots and gloves. Over this, he wears a red hooded tunic, that is belted with a "utility belt". I've attached an early picture of him, produced by painting over a piece of comic art I scanned.

Powers-wise, he's basically the ultimate in "trained supernormal", He's hyperaware of his surroundings, is naturally intimidating, and a frighteningly effective hand-to-hand fighter. As I said, he's got the best of both Batman and Captain America's abilities. While an action shot would be cool, I'd think I'd prefer a standing shot... something of him just standing there, being intimidating.

snotling · Dec 3, 2010

Heart Girl rocks! I love that a 6 year old's vision has come to life like that. Awesome job!

Storn · Dec 15, 2010

snotling said:
Heart Girl rocks! I love that a 6 year old's vision has come to life like that. Awesome job!

Thank you!

Let's see. I took some time off after a long NDA project, just to turn around and enter into another long NDA project, which I still am in the middle of. But I have been lazy and have not been putting up the artwork that I could of late. And the last couple of weeks, I've been fighting a cold. Despite that, the artwork has been produced. Including some multiple figure fantasy commissions, which I treated as full blow paintings.

So here come a couple of posts with a bit of artwork. Enjoy.

1st up, Death Tribble's Crossword and VoidWalker.

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Storn · Dec 15, 2010

So, like I said elsewhere, long absence from posting up artwork. Colds, large NDA projects, laziness etc etc. But the other significant thing that happened (besides setting a date for my upcoming re-nuptials) is that I got a new monitor for my birthday. My old one was really starting to go. And I've been dumbstruck at the art that I produced on the old monitor. My Art Directors must think I have no sense of value. My new monitor has been calibrated and the artwork done on the old monitor looks AWFUL to me.

But let's have an experiment. Let's see if the new monitor is actually doing its job.... or do I have to tweak its settings even more.

So. I'm posting up some recent artwork, some of the last done on the old monitor... and then a version of the same artwork "tweaked" on my new monitor. I tried to get version 2 as close as I could to version 1 on the new monitor. Which is better, versions 1 or versions 2. Versions 1 are old monitor, V2's are new monitor. Let my public speak and chime in on what works on all the aggregate monitors out there on the intrawebs!

So first up, we have Neko in Hell. I did a pic of Neko many years ago as a private commission.... and as a bigger Xmas commission, now we have Neko going down into hell to rescue her betrothed.

version 1

version 2

Next we have Dehna, a shadowy rogue.

version 1

version 2

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The_Warlock · Dec 15, 2010

Well, the 2nd versions have much better saturation of color, and the shadows are stronger, providing an overall better contrast between regions of the images.

But they are also darker overall, which isn't necessarily an inherently good thing...as many painterly touches and fine details, like the hex pattern on the shadow rogue's armor, start to get lost in the dark.

On the other hand, that might just be because the subject matter has a lot of shadows, and the strength of the hues wouldn't seem so overcome by dark regions in a generally brighter composition.

That said, the second versions simply don't suffer from washout, which, in my opinion is a good thing. The colors overall seem truer to what you'd expect of the subjects.

Storn · Dec 16, 2010

My search for getting my new monitor's settings to something that works well has been ongoing. But thanks to help from Aledin over on the ArtOrder site that I started a wee little blog on this particular problem, I think I've gotten much closer to getting it nailed.

So, let's revisit Neko in Hell, now under the NEWER settings... I tweaked it to look good on my monitor and as close to what I originally wanted on the old monitor.

And here is a private commission that was done completely under the newer settings.

And here is a piece that was tweaked under the new settings, but was done completely on the new monitor. This one I spent some time on, multi figures do eat up the time!

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The_Warlock · Dec 16, 2010

These newer version are strikingly improved over the prior post. Hues, tones, contrast all look much much more controlled, and intentional.

And awesome art to boot...

Storn's art for swipin'!

Iron Sky

Procedurally Generated

Hunter

First Post

Storn

Explorer

Storn

Explorer

snotling

Explorer

Storn

Explorer

Storn

Explorer

The_Warlock

Explorer

Storn

Explorer

The_Warlock

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