Justin Gerard posts
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August Roadmap and LETSDRAWMONSTERS Returns!
#LETSDRAWMONSTERS SEASON 2.We are BACK! New schedule, more streams, more traditional art, and more monsters. COME JOIN US!Here's the details:WHAT:LETSDRAWMONSTERS is a community event where I provide a prompt for a newly discovered imaginary creature and then we as a community try to design and illustrate them live in a timed challenge. At the end of the event we share all of work live on stream. The event is open to all ages and all skill levels, (so kids can join in too!).WHERE:twitch.tv/j...
Sketchbook Pages for Cichlidian Scavengers and Scorpidile Marauders
This month for the Martian of the MonthI have a couple of new pages of a raider faction made up of scavengers and marauding pirates. These opportunistic hunters are designed with a blend of crocodiles, scorpions, piranhas and angler fish. A wide variety of creatures, all cold-blooded killers patiently waiting in ambush. The Cichlidian Scavengers, with their angler fish lights and sharp teeth, are framed in rough, bolted plates, fashioned from the hulls of looted ships. Some are suspended in di...
"Dawn's Truce" Card for Magic
Recently, several of my Magic the Gatheringcards were released! I have secretly been working on the Bloomburrow project for Magic for almost a year now, and it has been KILLING me not to be able to share them. It has been such a great experience working on this one! So today, I'm going to start sharing these cards with you here, as well as my traditional drawings and some behind-the-scenes commentary on their creation process. THE CONCEPT ART:In this redacted comp, you can see 2 of these opt...
July Roadmap and A Mid-Year Direction Shift
June brought about a number of truly unsettling developments in the art world, and like many other artists, I didn't feel like posting much throughout the month. I spent much of that time reconsidering my relationship with the technology that I have taken for granted as being a natural part of my career all this time. After thinking about it for a month, I've decided that I am taking a break from digital art for a while, and going back to analog.Mostly, this is in response to Adobe's...
Pencil Pests, Bounty Hunters and Terrible Betrayals
Recently, I have had a bit of a crisis in regards to my digital work. For anyone who has missed it, Adobe has betrayedthe art community by first launching its own AI art software, then changing its Terms of Service to allow it to train that AI art software off of its user's data without their consent. Essentially, they are stealing our work to build a set of AI tools with the goal of making human artists obsolete. While Adobe eventually walked back some of the more egregious aspects of this ...
A Hippo Hero, A Wizard, and a Manticore Step into a Bar.... Traditional Work for May 2024!
This month I have 3 characters to share with you! The first is from the Monster of the Month series, and for the first time in the series, one painted traditionally.The Hippo Hero started primarily as a warm-up study for the next Dungeon Master Series image "The Dragonslayers". I only meant to paint the face, and then the warhammer, and then treasure chest, but one interesting thing lead to another, until I accidentally finished the whole figure. In the process seriesabove you can follow...
Martian Brush Set and Hi-Res Creature Layout
Today I have a few creatures from our recent poll! The Barnacle Spike(#5) took first prize with 8 votes, and so is the first to get the color treatment. He felt too alone on the spread here, so I ended up finishing 2 others to aid him in his pestilential quests, "The Hermitwormand theBumbleclops." To paint these characters over the pencil drawings, I developed an entirely newcollection of watercolor-themed brushes. The new "Bumbleclops Sable Brush" is one of my favorites for...
"The Dragonslayers" Hi-Res Drawings and Color comps
Today I have some drawings and previews for you for some upcoming traditionally painted work I have on the easel right now. The first is "the Dragonslayers" for the Dungeon Master Series, which I will be painting in watercolor starting next week. Above is the very simple color comp, and below is the tight drawing. We went through a LOT of iterations on the drawing during our Twitch streams, and did a lot of workshopping on the characters. We primarily focused on the hostess, who is takin...
CREATURE POLL for May! Choose your favorite design:
This month we are back with a new polland a pile of martian pest creatures. Unlike last time though, we are being a bit more selective in our number options this time. (Patreon has a limit, so not every creature is on the menu!) While there are a variety of inspirations behind these creatures, most of these designs started out as either rats or scorpions during the free-wheeling sketching that brought these drawings into being. The Crabrat, from the first spread above, was our Martian-of-the-Mon...
MAY ROADMAP
Welcome to May! FIRST! A POLLis going up in an hour to choose which monster will be next for the May Martian-of-the-Month.These creatures and drawings will be the big feature here on the Patreon and on the Twitch streams throughout this month. I am still neck-deep in NDA work, and that is HEAVILY cutting into our Dungeon Master Seriesplans. I have a new figure painting from it that I need to get started on, and with any luck I'll be able to share some concept images for that later this month...
"Crabrat" hi-res Spread & Process Guide
Since I began work on the Martian of the Monthseries, I have worked to try and find a purely digital way to concept, sketch, draw, and paint the characters. This decision, to make the whole Martian series without the help of any traditional materials such as graphite pencils, was done with the idea that it would lead to an increase in the overall speedof production. It would also make corrections and alterations easier while eliminating the need to cut out any VILE masks. Importantly, it would a...
Martian of the Month Sketchbook Spread Hi-Res Download
Today I have the hi-res spread to share with you from our recent drawing streams on Twitch! These feature a menagerie of pestilential martian miscreants drawn purely from imagination. Like the previous spreads from this series, these are for the upcoming sketchbook and creature guide from the Martian of the Month project. Most of these monsters started out simply as rats, but as I drew them, I slowly let go of the idea of "rat" and replaced it with other pest creatures, (grubs, scorpion...
Monsters and Martians Hi-Res Double-Feature
Today I have a pair of creatures to share with you, each painted in very different ways (which I will cover later). First though, I'd like to share the Kobold Murmillo warrior! It has donned some classic gladiatorial armor, (and a somewhat anachronistic shield) and is for mayhem. I had a lot of fun with this one, diving into a ton of different materials and textures:It also wasn't meant to be so complicated, but in the end we ended up adding patina'd bronze, battered metal, smooth le...
"Eye of the Beholder" Dungeon Master Illustration and Animatic Hi-Res
Today, I have a hi-res final for you for the Beholder image we have been working on all month! The drawing for this one went very smoothly, ...but the illustration process was quite chaotic! Rather than try to explain how messy the painting was, I decided to make an animatic, to see for myself how it went. (forgive the colors, it's but a humble GIF!) Overall, I really like where it ended up, it just took longer than expected! The truth is that I listened too long to the siren song of Hard Li...
March Roadmap
This month, I'm excited to share a preview for the new Dungeon Master Series image we will be working on for the month: #43: "Eyes of the Beholder."It's got a lot of figures, a lot of chaos, and a really strange antagonist to work with. Here's a color comp for the overall tone I am going for:Half our party took one look at this thing and bailed. Will the others stand and fight, or look out for number one as well? Are your friends the treasure, or is the treasure the treasure?...
Martians and Monsters for February 2024!
This month I have a few horrible little villains to share with you, one from the Monster of the Month, and four from the Martian series! The Monster for this month is the Trundlefoot, which should have been a nice, easy little lay-up. It somehow ended up being a slog where I got stuck in a loop. I think it was all because I tried to dive in without really nailing down my shadows first. I think I got cocky and was still riding high on previous successes, and took for granted just how important it...
February Roadmap
Welcome to February! Last month we shared a ton of new work from the Martian series, along with a tutorial on how I create the backgrounds for the game, as well as a new Dungeon Master Series painting "The Dungeons of Death". This month I will be following that up with Part 2 of the Tutorial describing my process for painting, detailing and animating the Martian backgrounds.Along with that, there will be another hi-res Monster of the Month characters from "The Shattered Keep":And...
"Bloorguhl has uhhpgrades, if yoou have coooin..."
Today I have a fun little trader from the Martian of the Month series to share with you. These would be the characters you would encounter in game that might upgrade your gear, sell you illegal plasma canons, or scam you out of all your credits.There are about 12 of these planned, but this was the one I was looking forward to the most. It's been a while since I had a chance to do a finished illustration from the Martian series, and it was a lot of fun to go in and detail the broken down robo...
"King Rat" Martian of the Month #22 and #27 Spread, Brush Set, and Bonus Previews!
This month I've got a pair of little horrors for you! First, "King Rat, lord of the space fleas!" which was top pick in our poll this month. While painting his horrible coat of matted fur, I kept wondering what on earth must live in that? So I added #27, the Malignant Space Flea into this month's spread to give him some more support. I am really looking forward to seeing how these characters play together in game!We also painted #28 "The Baragnat" on our twitch stream tod...
POLL: Choose the Next Martians Creatures!
Last month I shared the "Station Pests" spread from the Martian Series. This faction has creatures who are a genetic mash-up of rats, roaches, grubs and spiders. (Ahhhh! What a lovely bunch!!) While they form the lowest tier of baddie found in the game, but they make up for their lack of villain prestige with extra teeth and sheer quantity.Now some of you may be wondering, what happened to the pencil concept art? As I mentioned in my martian update post last month, I have switched to doi...
"Dungeons of Death" Dungeon Master Series #16 Hi-Res
Today I am happy to finally release the "Dungeons of Death" Illustration! This has been in the works for far too long, but I was having a lot of fun with it, so I ended up spending longer than I should adding details to every last little nook and cranny.As with my other illustrations in the series, it began as a traditional piece, before being scanned in and painted in Photoshop. It was a commissioned image and will be appearing in a fantasy cover soon, as well as a 2025 Dungeon Master S...
Roadmap 2024
Happy New Year everyone! 2023 didn't go *exactly* as planned, (it never does...) but overall, I'd still say it was an amazing year! Apart from getting to work with a few dream clients this year and getting to paint some really rewarding images, I also feel like I made several personal breakthroughs in terms of new tricks and techniques. I am going into 2024 with a pretty clear slate and a lot of big plans. This year, the goals for 2024 revolve around 4 major projects, (3 you already know...
The Long-Promised Year-End Martian of the Month Update
"Eventually, you do plan to have Martians in your Martian tour, right?"Today is the long-promised update on the Martian of the Month! So... why has it taken so long??The truth is that the project has been on the back-burner while other pressing issues (like the various NDA projects this year) have been cooking. It is only recently that I've had a chance to come back and reconnect with the project.=!As is often the case after time away from a project, I have returned to it and decided...
December Roadmap
Well folks, November got away from me. I had a lot of BIG plans involving zombie minotaurs and legions of the undead. But sadly, the new DungeonMaster Series image remains languishing on the easel...But December is a new month! And even with the impending mayhem of Christmas and New Years I have high hopes that our adventurers will prevail against the forces of darkness this month. (Particularly this undead Minotaur, which I am very much looking forward to working on...)Amidst the carnage of las...
Happy Thanksgiving! Bonus Monster
I've got a bonus entree for you this Thanksgiving! The "Undigestible Gruel," which lost out to "Chef Surprise" by 1, still managed to slime its way into our line-up this month.While this one seemed really simple, it actually turned out to be a real fight. I think part of it was that, instead of working on this one in a single sitting, it was done piecemeal over a period of weeks, in a series of little 15-minute chunks. It ended up being a really fractured process, which meant...
Monster of the Month: "Chef Surprise!"
Today, I have finished art from our poll earlier this month! "Chef Surprise and Mushroom Stew" took top place, bumping out "Undigestible Gruel" by only 1 vote. (It was so close in fact that I may still try to get some gruel served up by Thanksgiving...) For now, here is Chef Surprise!..and here is a look at where our poster stands at the moment:Thank you to everyone who voted in our poll earlier this month!
November Roadmap & a Holiday Feast Poll
Welcome to November! This month (and hopefully more often going forward) we are going back to an old tradition of conducting a POLL at the start of the month to choose what we will be working on during the month. And since November is the start of a season where we serve mysterious and disgusting foods under the guise of "Holiday traditions," (many of which still haunt my dreams,) we are returning to the "Feasting Halls" poster to continue rounding out our collection of nightmare...
Happy Halloween Hi-Res Images!
Happy Halloween! Tonight I have a hi-res final for you of "the Scarrot," hunter of the Fanged Crabbit!But before we get to that, it is the night before Halloween and it seems fitting to also share this recent image a Banshee for Fanstratics:I loved working on this one! (The livestream for it was great too, and the VOD should be up on my Twitch for a couple weeks if you missed it and want to see how it developed.)The Scarrot is my take on something that would haunt a rabbit's worst ni...
Monster Drawings: "Dancing Marionettes", Ents & Orcs, and a Banshee
Today, I have a final drawing to share with you for "Dancing Marionettes," which we have been streaming on Twitch this month.The wolfspider was a ton of fun to work on, but I also had a lot of fun working on the little rabbit Marionettes. They started off as merely an afterthought in the sketch butI ended up developing them out much more here, and adding many more than I first intended. They really need to stay murky, as a bit of a surprise to anyone who lingers on the image for a while,...
Frog Minions and Denizens Poster Update!
Today I have Update #2 for the month on our Denizens poster series! And for this one we turn now to the Sunken Dungeons and three little minions who will be filling the last few awkward spaces on the poster.The first is the Toadguard:He was a blast to paint. I wish I could make a whole army of these little guys!With these final frog minions complete, we have finished the art for the Sunken Dungeons poster. Now I need to update my template with all the hi-res characters, add the italics for all t...
