The dread Inquisitor Nocteun's "avenging angel" is finally raised to the status of Inquisitor, but not all among the gathered servants of the Golden Throne are pleased by these events...

A painting I did for Aethel of these boards depicting the Inquisitor in her game and her retune. These characters were orriginaly a part of her war band in Inquisitor and have quite the rich history, some of which can be read about HERE .

A much larger version of the painting can be seen by clicking on it or going HERE .

Another painting done for Aethel, though this one technicaly probably shouldn't be here. I did post it to the WHFRP boards a while back, but since I'm putting up a bit of my art here, i figured it couldn't hurt. It's her play-group from WHFRP, a decadant cabal of dark elf siblings and heirs to the Black Heart legacy.

Again, a larger version can be found HERE as well as by clicking on the image.

This is an older one originally posted to the old boards. Medicae-Interrogator Sands from Edge of Darkness after being used as an NPC in my game for a good few months. His mental health started going down hill and didn't stop until after a year of gaming where he ended up being addicted to obscura, had only two modes of operation (high or insane), had a deep corruption which kept gnawing its way out of his belly, an unquenchable need to slice folks open and nibble at their flesh, and was, in all, a drug addicted insane corrupt and mutated shell of his former self. And what's worse? Not only did the acolytes which he regularly abused not do him in before his situation got so bad, but he eventually died when Slought came hunting the PC's and found him in a drug induced stupor and chose to nibble on his gray-matter instead. When the PC's found his body, it was quite the touching scene with his apprentice's player asking me after game why I killed him off.

"Well, it was bound t happen sooner or latter -besides, he was running out of ledges that looked like the rock bottom to fall to. If it matters at all, i didn't plan for him to die that way, it just sort of happened. I was actually hopping Cedric (the apprentice) would kill him." I responded.

"What?! That's terrible!" She responded looking a bit hurt that I would wish to torture her character so.

"Really, so continually stringing his life along in a sad mockery of what he had once been as he continually found new lows to sink to all so Cedric could have his security blanket isn't?"

"Uh..."

"And if Cedric had done him in, he might have salvaged a bit of respect for the man, he probably would have been remembered in a slightly better light, wouldn't have died in such a sad and pathetic way and, finally, Cedric would have lost his master because such was his duty and not because his master was too damned high to keep some worms from munching his brain."

"Well, when you put it that way..."

It was a good run with him and, in the end, I believe he did serve as a wonderful warning sign to the PC's of the danger of going too far out into the lala land of heresy for the greater good. It didn't end so well at all for poor old Sands.

As usual, you can click on the image or HERE to see a larger version.

This would be the first Dark Heresy or 40k type piece that I have done and was, likewise, originally posted to the old boards, but I figured a repost was in order. Depicted here is the almost original characters in my on-going game, none of which are active any more (which just goes to show that I really need to find the time to get another one done of my current DH group).

From left to right, the characters are: Trooper Starr who served Sands' insane plans for a bit of time hunting a strange relic from bygone days before it's hideous truth was revealed, though, thankfully, she never learned the truth and, as such, was able to be cycled back into regular active duty on Scintilla with only bad memories and a bad taste in her mouth from her brief stent with the Inquisition; Eli of Roomfall aka Eli the Scum who was "pulled up from the sewers" by Cerra the Witchfinder, a no-good dreg who didn't even know the name of St. Dersus much less how to spell his own name and ended up rising to the heights of The Bringer of Doom, scion to the accursed Haarlocks, and, to escape the curse, has accepted a parasitic mask from the Slought and took the first opportunity to skip out of Imperial space with a rogue psyker that he's fallen in love with (his story shall continue in Rogue Trader); and Cerra the Witchfinder, an incredibly strange psyker (and that's saying something considering your run of the mill psyker) who, despite the hells of Inquisitorial service, never lost her girlish joy and love of life... until the Slought ate her that is.

Again, click the image or HERE for a larger version.

More 40k images to come... sometime soonish... hopefully. If nothing else, I've really got to get a painting done of the current group and their ongoing mission.

And a fantastic job he did with both pieces too. Is this guy made of talent or what?

The world should throw money at you Graver.

(I really like your art)

Fideru said:

I couldn't agree more! If you were running for president of the world and that was your platform, I'd sure as heck vote for you. But, please, no silver dollars; those would probably leave a mark! ;-)

Graver said:

Well, we couldn't dare hurt your hands nor eyes, eh?

Have you got anything else on the get-go? Teasers? Hints? Eh, eh?

from france

**** my friend that what i call talent

Thanks, Spider!

And, Fideru, at present, I don't happen to have any work in the 40k vein being created. It's mostly just MMO characters though, some time soonish i hope to have some time freed up to do another painting for my group, perhaps in time for Christmas. Barring that, I'll have another one for aethel down the line.

from france

again that's talent please check your mail

and i wish to see more

You art, as usual, is absolutely stunning.

Graver:

Would you mind me asking what you use when making these pieces?

Do you sketch out with pencil and paper, scan it and then do the colouring with Photoshop and a Wacom Tablet or do you draw directly in photoshop?

Do you actually use photoshop or is there some other software you prefer?

Im practicing like crazy with my tablet (im really not used to using one), so I try to pick up as many tips and leads as I can to improve my digital artistry.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Those paintings were all done on the computer, from the beginning concept sketches to the very end.

I use an old 9x12 Intuos 1 tablet and a combination of Painter IX and Paint Shop Pro 7. Most of the work is done in Painter but occasionally I'll need to port the painting over to Paint Shop Pro for color correction or some such which Painter isn't all that good at. In Painter, I primarily use an Oil Brush set to size 10 and a Soft Blender set to size 10 for detail work; a Scratchboard Rake set to size 3.5 for added texture on surfaces that look too smooth and for hair, fur, and feathers; a Detail Airbrush set to varying sizes for block shading and atmospherics; an Oil Pastel set to sizes 21 and 50 for laying down initial color blocks; a Subtle Palate Knife set to sizes 21 and 70 for initial background work and blending initial color blocks; Water Drops and Salt for splatters of color and shade; and finally a Glow FX tool for glowing eyes and pen lights, bits of fire, etc.

I start by "ruining the canvas". That is, I lay down some colors and what not to get rid of the white of the canvas and to act as the main color that all other color will react with. For a while (and all the paintings here) I did this by flood filling the canvas with a dark version of the overriding color of the piece. I would then use Paint Shop pro's Lights feature to set up areas of illumination in the color I want the overriding light sources to have. Lately, however, I've been messing around with using photo's of the sky (messed up and mussed about) as the initial color layer and the results are much better then the flood fill method.

Once I have my base color layer set as a background, I sketch in the composition over that letting the colors variances of the background help dictate where elements need to be placed. I do this in Painter with an oil brush set to 10 and black selected as the color. Once I have the sketch done, I will create another layer and set it to multiply. On this layer, i will use the palate knives to hatch in the dark shadow forms of the background. Then a create another layer set to Screen and use the palate knives to hatch in light sources, light areas, and anything else that would have light somewhere in it's description. I'll then play with the transparency of these layers until I have a good atmospheric perspective kicking with the background.

Once i have the background roughed in, I rough in the foreground. This time, I use the oil pastels to block in the major colors and then go over that with the soft blender to start rough modeling of forms. I detail in the roughs by creating another layer and setting it to Luminance. I'll then use the blender and oil brush and black and white colors on the Luminance layer to define the blobs of color, shade and highlight them, etc. Another layer is then made and set to color. On this one, i use the air brush to add in subtle variances of color from multiple light sources and other such things that might be needed. On top of that, I will go in with anouther layer set to normal and tidy up solid forms painting in the direct color that I want finished areas to be.

From that point, i don't really have a set method of work as each piece will have different demands. I just start doing things to both the background and foreground until I feel the painting is just about done. This entails extra shading here and there, color corrections, 90 some odd layers of this and that as I tweak things endlessly, etc.

That's pretty much what i use and how i do it. The best tip I can give is to keep practicing. There was a time when I found the tablet a bit hard to use. Now, it's all i ever use. Hell, I actually use the damned thing as my mouse when I'm surfing the net or doing anything else on my computer. Use the tablet for everything and it will soon be your best friend.

I find it's easer to sketch things up on the computer now as I don't have to worry about anything at all. I can erase until my arm falls off without ruining my work surface. I can go as dark as I want and still know I can have it back to white with the flick of a wrist. If an element turns out to be too small or too big, I don't have to redraw it, I just resize it. If an element is in the wrong place, I don't have to erase and redraw, I just move it. And for all the tree-huggers out there, I'm saving trees (and money I would have to spend on sketchbooks and what-not).

Thank you for the detailed explaination.

I'll be sure to try out the softwares you mentioned sometime. Right now im just trying to find out which ones im feeling most comfortable with. Im in the process of trying out Paint.NET since open-source freeware is always nice on the wallet , I've also heard good things of GIMP, but I've yet to try it out.

The same goes for my Tablet. I kinda guessed you used an Intuos series, since they seem to be more intended for pro work. I thought of getting one myself but I started out with a humble Bamboo kind for practice. I figured that if I can grow comfortable with the little Bamboo, I could move up to an Intuos later on.

The thing is, im coming back from a long hiatus in drawing in general (lack of inspiration makes jack a dull boy, so to speak), so im currently at the process of relearning a lot of things I used to find really simple. And since im fiddeling around with this tablet of mine, the process is even harder.

But I have to say that being able to, at the very least do some colour work for pencil sketches that used to always be in black and white really gets the inspiration flowing. It might take some time before I do everything on my computer though, but I have a decent scanner so I'll be set for now.

The main problem for me right now is coming up with stuff to draw.

Those are some great artworks man. Congratulations to a remarkable talent:)

from france

more and more i think they should use your art to illustrate the books.

the 8 spider said:

That's part of my extended plans for 2010 ;-) Now, i just got to get them to play along with my plans...

Love it. Very very nice.

I like it, keep it up and you have a very bright future ahead...

Thankies muches!

Hello Graver, nice, grity, grimadark art, especialy the last picture.

May I ask you for permission of using one of your atworks? I´ve written a review/introduction for Dark Heresy for a fanmade free e-zine published on czech fantasy community server called DarkAge. As Dark Heresy will be a major article of the issue, I was thinking if the cover art couldn´t also fit 40k theme. During the writing I found this topic. Would you agree with using one of your pictures as cover art? I´m still chating with fanzin´s graphic editor and I wouldn´t dare to let it used without your permission, but I would be very happy if Inquisitor Ascesion of the Avening Angel or Cell decimated by Slaught would be featured on its frontpage.

Thank you at least for you attention,Torog

TorogTarkdacil said:

Thank you for the high interest in my work! :-D I'm really flattered!

Yes, you have my permission to use one of my paintings for the cover/front page art. I only ask that you credit me (Scott Turk) somewhere in the zine and, if at all possible, maybe a little plug for my Deviant Art site (graver13.deviantart.com). The last isn't necessary, but it'd be nice and, hell, I might as well seek as many plugs as I can ;-)

I can also send you a larger version of the image you would like to use, just let me know which one and I can email it to you.

Graver said:

For the record you have my vote :-)

Great stuff indeed! Very much something for FFG to look into.

Oh wow, just wow, those stuff is great, I especially love the last one.

Do you plan on doing any more 40k art for your group? It'd be lovely to see some more, you've got the grimdark art style down for sure, some real epic stuff on there, also, I'll be sure to watch ya deviant art gallery, although, I'm not sure if I have already.

Graver said:

Sorry for writing reply after so long, but at the end ezin get cover with Avatar theme (frakking Exodites! *shaking fist*). Still I ´m very thankful for your good-will and I look forward for more your posts inclouding art in this thread:-)

Very very nice artwork indeed. Keep up the good work. Your campaigns sound interesting as well. I hope to see more of your work.