Aggravate, 12" x 16" oils on paper mounted to MDF
Here's the fourth and final illustration I did for Avacyn Restored. The story here is that a vampire hunter has put a vampires's manor house to the torch in order to flush them out. This is the second card for the Innistrad set where I was asked to paint vampires, the first being Vampiric Fury. The most interesting thing about the vampires for me was their clothing- opulent, decadent, and unusual. A good opportunity for historical research without the constraints of historical accuracy. When I think about it, I could say this about the whole set.
Innistrad has been my favorite set to work on to date. Kudos the guys who worked on the concept design for Innistrad . These are the artists who nail down the general design guidelines of the set before the card illustrations are commissioned. They did a spectacular job of taking a genre like Gothic horror, that has pretty established visual conventions (some of it shopworn and cliched in my opinion) and making it fresh, interesting, and new.
Wow man, this one kills. As usual the clothing and architecture are amazing. I agree about Innistrad too, it was fresh and classic in all the right ways.
ReplyDeleteThose weapons and how well you sold that dude on fire are my favorite details. Not that I don't like the other parts, mind you. I just keep coming back to those elements. I'll miss Innistrad, too, but it was awful fun while it lasted. You never know, maybe in 10 years they'll return. At the very least, a man can dream...
ReplyDeleteWow! You are quickly becomming one of my favourit fantasy artists! :)
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