At the Edge: Art of the Fantastic

 Beauty and the Beast by Thomas Blackshear II

©Thomas Blackshear II

It's a tremendous honor to announce that a painting of mine, The Battle Under the Mountain, will be included in the At the Edge:Art of the Fantastic show at the Allentown Art Museum. The show will be the most comprehensive exhibition of fantasy art ever. Not only will it include present day masterpieces, but work from throughout the 20th and 19th centuries. And in a museum setting, it's great to see that art from this genre is finally getting some of the respect it deserves. A good deal of the credit for this new found respect has to go to the curators of the show, Pat and Jeannie Wilshire.  Can't wait to see the show!!

Saints of the Apocalypse

 Saints of the Apocalypse

oil on panel, 25" x 40" ©SDN Creations

Rounding out the raft of work that came out from under NDA in the past few weeks is this piece I painted last summer. It's called Saints of the Apocalypse, and it's for any upcoming RPG. Thanks to Rian for letting me show it a little early. The zombie looking humanoids are actually demons who are shedding their human forms as the attack the band of good guys in the middle. It's still referred to by my wife and I as "the zombie piece" though. 

I enjoyed working on it because it let me try something not in my high fantasy/Magic: The Gathering comfort zone. Maybe I'll try something Sci-Fi at some point too :) 

And some detail shots...

Mana Crypt

I had a request to post this one. It's alternate art for a classic Magic:the Gathering card. It was used for a special promo card. I didn't know it was released until a few months after it was published, which was some time last year. Anyway, here ya go.

The Spell Thief #3

 

 The Spell Thief #3, oil on board, 16" x 24"

© 2012 Idea and Design Works, LLC. Magic: The Gathering TM & © 2012 Wizards of the Coast LLC.

I just finished this not too long ago, and I'm able to show now. It's for The Spell Thief #3 for the Magic:The Gathering comic, featuring the planeswalkers Sorin Markov and Dack Fayden. The issue will be available in July.

Eric Wilkerson's Mech Racer

 Mech Racer, by Eric Wilkerson, 

oil on paper mounted to MDF, 13" x 19"©Eric Wilkerson

 A little while back, my friend and extremely talented artist Eric Wilkerson helped me out on a card illustration called Echo Mage. This lead to an agreement that we trade paintings-He would get Echo Mage, and I would get a portrait he would paint of me. Above is the fantastic result. You can read more about Eric and this piece here on his blog . The painting itself will be on display at Eric's booth the upcoming Spectrum Live show.

Echo Mage, Oil on paper mounted to MDF, 10 3/4" x 16 1/4", ©Wizards of the Coast

Aggravate

 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.

Amass the Components

Amass the Components, oil on paper mounted to MDF, 12" x 16"

Another piece for Avacyn Restored.  Painting someone more or less unhinged was fun. I was worried that she would come of as just happy and not crazy, but I think I got the expression right. I also enjoyed painting the different colors and degrees of viscosity of the liquids in the jars.