Category Archives: illustration

Ardee and Caurib

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I was sort of amazed it took so long to get more female characters into Joe Abercrombie’s first book of The First Law trilogy, The Blade Itself.

Ardee is pretty darn worth the wait, and I just liked Caurib’s nasty description, not to mention the way Bayaz entirely subdued her, but then later gave her a wee more credence. I find myself waiting excitedly for the Ardee parts more and more…

Now of course, I’m about less than a hundred pages from finishing the first book and we have a couple more ladies. The deadly Ferro, vicious Terez, wimpy Ardiss (Ardiss doesn’t really count but she sounds amusing to draw)…

Characters are from The First Law trilogy and belong to Joe Abercrombie.

poor Jorah…

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I had to draw this A Clash of Kings scene after weeks of hunky Iain Glen’s performances on A Game of Thrones.  I can literally see him burying his undying love painfully every time he’s about to speak to Dany.  It’s marvelous.

This, however, is book Jorah.  Jorah in his stocky, dark, hairy fineness.  Poor Jorah. As if to pour salt in his wounds, in the books Qartheen gowns left one breast exposed.  A man can only last so long.

Concept and characters © George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series and HBO’s A Game of Thrones.

asoiaf ladies

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Left to right, top to bottom: Asha Greyjoy, Daenerys Targaryen, Ygritte, Margaery Tyrell, Meera Reed, Catelyn Tully, Brienne of Tarth, Melisandre of Asshai, Cersei Lannister, Arianne Martell

Characters belong to George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO’s A Game of Thrones. I just love drawing them.

supper and cards

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I’ve been screwing around with this image for a long enough time that having not posted any progress is shockingly bad behavior.  Consider this my pet project after the Blackwater scene, which may henceforth be periodically referred to as “the scene”, following several other pet projects which never really became pets.  They were more like strays.

Tudors.  I like them.  Can you guess who each person is?

I’m playing around with what exact year I’m deciding this scene took place.  It is possible the French king may disappear, which would take me back to my original intentions.  But I’m just not sure if this is 1522 that we can justify William Carey’s presence.  Maybe we can?  If this is 1520 he’s feeling kind of paranoid.  Here’s the same with some texture and fun curtains added.

Please pardon Percy’s thunder thighs and epic calves.  They will be fixed at a later date.

Throwing down some initial color strictly for fun, which is naughty of me since the sketch is incomplete.  It looks kind of neon to me now.

HINT: Characters are (in no specific order, ha) William Carey, Margaret Wyatt, Percy, Miss Anne Boleyn herself, a minstrel who is by no means Mark Smeaton, the ever delightful Jane Parker, Thomas Wyatt, Mary, George and then some various royal personages.  A possible Wolsey and Françoise de Foix are being obscured by all this texturing, but you can see them in the top sketch.

musing on fanart….

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So, I haven’t been using this blog quite as often as before, apologies, but I’m still working quite a bit!  :)

I had a recent reevaluation of the meaning of fanart, after becoming obsessed with HBO’s A Game of Thrones, and then reading and RE-reading the entire ASOIAF series.  No, really…I’m on book five again, about a third through.  Completely off topic, A Dance with Dragons is so much more enjoyable the second time around, for those who felt it wasn’t quite up to their expectations.  I spent a lot of the first read being confused about which Reznak was which, and keeping Yunkai’i commanders and sellsword captains straight.  Not so now!  You realize there aren’t quite so many of them as previously thought.

Anyway, back on track here.  After really seeing how much incredible artwork the series has inspired, I decided to join in the fun.  Fanart, fanfic…it has a scary connotation, right?  It brings poorly written, alt endings to the Twilight saga to mind, or something.  But in reality, getting your art skills up by messing around with fanarts is a great way to practice interpreting client requests, since it starts your work out with a specific set of parameters.  And who hasn’t noticed the artbooks that are often the result of cult media?  With the right attention, suddenly fanart becomes licensed art!

This may have some slight spoilage if you are still on book one or only watching the tv show, FYI.  But little can really be gleaned from the image as to what all is going on (ie, no one is getting their head chopped off in this pic).

 

Leaving some extra space for you to decide, if you’re reading…

 

Here’s the link on my deviantART too:
http://courtneytrowbridge.deviantart.com/#/d4cgy0q\

Dark Moon: new book out!

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I just got copies of a recent children’s book collaboration with an author, and I’m pleased as punch!  The design turned out so nice, my images look vibrant, and my client is super excited.  What a happy ending.  Except, maybe not an ending since she’d like to work together on a sequel.

The book is currently available here on the publisher’s website, and I’ll post the Amazon link as soon as it’s up!

Here are some preview images:

Dark Moon1

Dark Moon2

Dark Moon3

Dark Moon 1

Dark Moon 12

It’s awesome that the author, Elizabeth Kass chose one of my favorite images from the series as the cover!  Let’s hope the book is a success!

*All book images copyrighted.

children’s books: to stylize or not stylize.

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Sometimes I have a problem with being a little too literal. I did a sample for a publisher recently that took me more time than I would have liked and in the end had an illustration that was bright and engaging, but perhaps not exactly for children. The character in it was a girl who in fact wasn’t a character at all. Instead, she was a real girl that perhaps kids could identify with but not necessarily get into reading about and aspire to be. Design fail.

Likewise, clients often want something they constantly refer to as “cartooney” which I take to mean they want something stylized and less realistic. My personal work can’t really be referred to as cartooney, but I love other illustrator’s more stylized approaches and have recently vowed to take notice as I think my work for clients would greatly benefit from it! A few months ago I did this rough for a client. The colors are basically thrown in since it is just a rough and all wrong and the perspective is totally messed up, but I really like the base drawing and approach. I have a brand new client and the word “cartooney” is being thrown around and I feel inspired!
Le Magique Shoppe

Pickett’s Trail! new book out!

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Last year I was working on a set of 13 illustrations for a Western novel called Pickett’s Trail.  The author is named Jon Lantz, but sadly the book was published posthumously by his uncle, Ron Lantz, who is a delight to work with.  Ron and I are collaborating on some other projects as well.

The book is now available on his publisher’s website as well as Amazon.com.

Here’s a peek at some of the illustrations:

el-lobo

gold-wagon1

leaving-missouri

twin-towers

quannah1

All images © Jon R. Lantz.

Rapunzel sneak peek

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I’ve been working on my own children’s book for about a year and a half, in between other book projects I’ve been doing for clients.  Rapunzel was one of my favorite fairy tales as a kid, augmented by the Peck Gandre Rapunzel paper doll I had then!  My reason for wanting to retell the tale, aside from my love of it, was that the original (as with most fairy tales) really smoothes over a bunch of complications!  My idea was to create something a little bit more epic…and I’m really hoping to finish it this year (since I’ve learned after beginning the project that Disney is coming out with Rapunzel Unbraided next year).

Here is a sneak peek!  For secrecy, I’m not going to explain the drawing.  It’s only concept anyway.

 

This is a ballpoint pen sketch that's then messed around with in Photoshop.

This is a ballpoint pen sketch that's then messed around with in Photoshop.

ink

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I have been posting a lot of pencil work but I also enjoy working in ink.  Sometimes I grab my extra fine ink pens….sometimes I really just want a cheap ballpoint pen.  I can really achieve a much sketchier effect with the ballpoint, but both have nice results.  Here are some examples.  Some are colored a bit as well.

This was done with different Micron pens. Since they go all the way down to a .005 point they are really up my alley (detail, detail, detail)!

This was done with different Micron pens. Since they go all the way down to a .005 point they are really up my alley (detail, detail, detail)!

A pretty nymph gazes into the water. This was hand inked but cleaned up a bit in Photoshop.

A pretty nymph gazes into the water. This was hand inked but cleaned up a bit in Photoshop.

This was inspired by the classic fairy tale, The Snow Queen but also the children's book I have been working on, which will be a retelling of the classic Rapunzel.

This was inspired by the classic fairy tale, The Snow Queen but also the children's book I have been working on, which will be a retelling of the classic Rapunzel.

Here's an example of working in ballpoint pen. The hand drawn image was brought into Photoshop where I added a few extras - like the shine in her hair.

Here's an example of working in ballpoint pen. The hand drawn image was brought into Photoshop where I added a few extras - like the shine in her hair.

 

Here is something with a much less realistic looking approach, plus I added in some pencil, color pencil and marker.

Here is something with a much less realistic looking approach, plus I added in some pencil, color pencil and marker.

I love this goofy drawing of the smurf village done on the fly in a notebook.

I love this goofy drawing of the smurf village done on the fly in a notebook.