sketches – unigon pics

Level Up! 2016 to 2018

I’ve wanted to go back to some of my older pieces and re-do, largely born out of both a dissatisfaction with my treatment of the subject and a desire to see if my skills are sufficiently “leveled up.” Ironically, I keep psyching myself out worried that maybe I have not grown enough to warrant the effort. Well, I stumbled on a post from May 2016 and realized I had inadvertently already done just this.

Dragon Doula

This piece is meant to be a part of a series of two portraits. One of myself as Dragon Warden, and the second as a portrait of my most beautiful and excellent partner. Both of these pictures were taken from a single reference photo of the two of use at NorwesCon 38 where George R. R. Martin attended as the guest speaker.

Dragon Warden

I’ve wanted to do a self-portrait for quite some time now, especially one that I could use as my avatar where I post as an artist. I’ve held off for a variety of reasons. One, it feels a wee bit vain. Second, it felt a tad bit boring as a theme. Three, I was pretty sure adding some face tattoos and elven ears would get lumped on the #beentheredonethat pile all to quickly. So when I started out to create a self-portrait, I really did not think it would go much further than a quick sketch.

Plains Walker, Wind Rider

As often happens, when I’m in longer meetings where I’m mostly listening to others, I will use “doodling” as a way of helping me stayed engaged and listen “more better”. While it’s in argubly strange to some, doodling indeed allows me to listen better, not worse, than if I just straight-up listened.

Sky Dragon

The last in the series of dragon concepts I did for C.R. Sandidge wines, I finally spent some time to do a rendering. While a little less painterly, I thought the balance of line and painterly approaches melded well together.