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[Rexfelum]

I wanted to create something of an old-school pen and paper RPG rulebook feel, with a modern twist.

Absolutely.  I somehow missed this sentence when I first looked at your post, and then was surprised by those (mostly) black-and-white pieces that looked like all the gaming imagery around me growing up.  I'd say: successful experiment.

My personal favorite is the very first one.  "You step into the room.  On the far side is a short stair leading to a wooden door.  In front of you stands a dwarf, short and surly, glowering at you from beneath his helmet.  What do you do?"

--Rexfelum

[Urist McScoopbeard]

You sir are a god, a dwarven god, perhaps you are even armok himself?

[Lee72]

Really nice line-work & cross hatching.
Reminds me a little of John Blanche's work, the artist that used to illustrate for the Steve Jackson Fantasy books I read as a kid (see below)



Nice to see pictures done the old fashioned way using pencil and ink, which is what I like to work with 

[KharBevNor]

Very perceptive; the artwork of artists like John Blanche, Ian Miller and Jes Goodwin in 80's and 90's Games Workshop publications was a big influence on my interest in drawing.

Digital painting has really been a double-edged sword for fantasy and science fiction art. On one hand, it's increased the general quality of work, giving more artists the ability to create finished stuff that would have been very tricky, time consuming and technical to execute back in the days of airbrush. Unfortunately, it's also driven a move towards fantasy and science fiction artists becoming very indistinct and style-less. Same thing with the popularity of manga; though there's a little Japanese influence in my stuff, it's not too obvious.

[bombzero]

I'm not sure if it's an issue of them becoming "style-less" so much as every single conceivable "style" being inundated with an absolute flood of content.

[KharBevNor]

Aye, style-less is a poor choice of words, after all, it's impossible for a picture to exist outside of the context of style; total photographic realism is a definite stylistic choice. What I was trying to get at was the sort of art that's promoted by magazines like imaginefx, and is often seen as an ideal to work towards in online communities; a sort of semi-realistic, detailed, very technical digital painting, very competently done, but often lacking a certain something...particularly, it can be difficult to tell one artist making this sort of art from another. It's very much a commercially aimed product. Part of this probably has to do with similarity of tools (there's a fairly limited range of software and hardware you'd use to make digital art of this sort), part of it to do with the prevalence of tutorials on how to render smoke, stars, hair etc. and part of it to do with people's conscious emulation. It's not to say that there aren't fantasy and sci-fi illustrators working in unique, distinctive styles, but they seem to be increasingly marginalised.

[bombzero]

Aye, style-less is a poor choice of words, after all, it's impossible for a picture to exist outside of the context of style; total photographic realism is a definite stylistic choice. What I was trying to get at was the sort of art that's promoted by magazines like imaginefx, and is often seen as an ideal to work towards in online communities; a sort of semi-realistic, detailed, very technical digital painting, very competently done, but often lacking a certain something...particularly, it can be difficult to tell one artist making this sort of art from another. It's very much a commercially aimed product. Part of this probably has to do with similarity of tools (there's a fairly limited range of software and hardware you'd use to make digital art of this sort), part of it to do with the prevalence of tutorials on how to render smoke, stars, hair etc. and part of it to do with people's conscious emulation. It's not to say that there aren't fantasy and sci-fi illustrators working in unique, distinctive styles, but they seem to be increasingly marginalised.

Well rest assured that I aim to stay away from detailed written tutorials, magazines, instructional videos, and anything else that does more than teach the basics, then learn on my own through experimentation.

Come to think of it, your thoughts there kinda express the exact reason I am choosing to quite literally "self teach", I don't want to learn how to draw this "perfect ideal" that always looks exactly the same and lacks... what would you call it? individuality? personality? that "this was made by an individual, not a borderline automaton" feel?

[Vattic]

Cheers for uploading the higher quality copies. Will go nicely with my collection.

Aye, style-less is a poor choice of words, after all, it's impossible for a picture to exist outside of the context of style; total photographic realism is a definite stylistic choice. What I was trying to get at was the sort of art that's promoted by magazines like imaginefx, and is often seen as an ideal to work towards in online communities; a sort of semi-realistic, detailed, very technical digital painting, very competently done, but often lacking a certain something...particularly, it can be difficult to tell one artist making this sort of art from another. It's very much a commercially aimed product. Part of this probably has to do with similarity of tools (there's a fairly limited range of software and hardware you'd use to make digital art of this sort), part of it to do with the prevalence of tutorials on how to render smoke, stars, hair etc. and part of it to do with people's conscious emulation. It's not to say that there aren't fantasy and sci-fi illustrators working in unique, distinctive styles, but they seem to be increasingly marginalised.

Not an artist myself but I grew up in a house full of fantasy art books so I know what you mean.

On the topic of Games Workshop publications I'm a real fan of Paul Bonner in general but especially his black and white orks (Link, Link). I can't find that decent copies online. Perhaps I should raid my dad's collection and get them scanned.

[mendonca]

Really beautiful artwork.

Favourites are probably: Double Ambush, and The Dwarf Queen. Also love that sky in Portal.

Thanks for posting. 

[Rexfelum]

Reminds me a little of John Blanche's work, the artist that used to illustrate for the Steve Jackson Fantasy books I read as a kid

On the topic of Games Workshop publications I'm a real fan of Paul Bonner in general but especially his black and white orks (Link, Link).

There, exactly.  There's some of the stuff I loved growing up.  Then you add Gary Chalk's Lone Wolf and Redwall illustrations, plus similar work in other books.  I saw a webcomic in recent years that started off in a similar quality, and it arrested my attention.  Same with KharBevNor's art here.

--Rexfelum

[PlutoniumApe]

this is amazing!
I'm a bit jealous ,) and I especially love the coloring, really sets the mood.

I hope there are more of them coming!
A lot of thanks for the download pack, too 

[KharBevNor]

Having critiqued digital art quite a bit, I thought it might be interesting to post an example of my graphics tablet work for contrast. Generally the stuff I'm doing on my computer has been my academic work, but I recently acquired both a laptop actually powerful enough to run Photoshop and a small Bamboo tablet (replacing my old Intuos, dead after 11 years), making my digital drawing portable. I do a lot of tabletop RPG gaming, and I'm always drawing little sketches and doodles of people's characters and shit that happens in the game. Taking my laptop to my current Friday night D&Dcraft 4e game, I've spent the last couple of weeks idly banging out this picture of one of the characters, desperately trying (and failing) to use powerful elemental sorcery to destroy a level 1 rat.

[MrWillsauce]

You are extremely talented.

[AxeLOORD]

You are skilled at adding personality to your sketches. Especially the colored ones.

[hostergaard]

Love it, fantastic work! By the way, the dwarf baby looks like baby heavy (TF2) in a big shoe, which is kind of hilarious. Great work, doing it with pencil gives it a really old, dark texture feel.