Illustration & Concept Art by Lee Smith

ART: King of Kings

2011-08-23T03:59:00.000-07:00

My blog has been neglected for far to long, so just to prove to any doubters that I am still alive here are a couple of new pieces!

First up is a promotional poster for a Warhammer Fantasy Campaign called King of Kings:

Also a quick fan art sketch of Hellboy for the OzComics weekly draw off challenge. If you're an aussie working in or with an interest in comics you should definitely check this out, or even if you just want a look at some of the great talent working down under!

Thanks for looking! :)

ART: Malice - Tiefling Warlock

2011-05-23T22:20:00.000-07:00

Malice is part of a new series of character illustrations I will be producing for people to use as character illustrations for their Dungeons & Dragons or other RPG's.

Prints are available for purchase and private use as player characters or NPC's for your favourite campaign.

I would love to hear any thoughts or comments you have, and also out of interest in you opinion what you think your average gamer would consider a fair price fir such an illustration or for a print of an existing character for their use?

If you are interested in having your own character illustrated please send me an email at lee@shawawa.com to discuss the commission.

ART: Decay - Issue 7

2011-05-09T18:58:00.000-07:00

Dark Oz is an Adelaide based publishing and graphic design company, publishing a growing line of uniquely Australian comic books. The flagship comic book is DECAY, a horror anthology showcasing many of Australia’s best established and new independent creators. Issue 7 is now available and features my cover art 'Invoke the Reaper'.

If you wanna see the artwork without all the trade dressing you can find it at DeviantArt or on my website.

I also have a couple of small black and white pieces in Decay called 'hosts' which introduce the stories within the issue. First up is 'HeadCase' who appeared in issue #5...

and PinCushion who will appear in upcoming issue #8

If you still want more Decay, I also have a short comic called 'Strange Alchemy' written by Darren Koziol in progress which will be included in a future issue (once I get it finished!). You can see the first page here. Also look out for future cover art from me as I am keen to be involved and support this great project :)

Thanks for reading, and please if you enjoy seeing my art then follow the blog or check me out on Twitter @LeethalSmith.

ART: Black Bag Jobs

2011-05-05T04:33:00.000-07:00

I am feeling very guilty that I have neglected my blog so much of late. I had started with the intention of regularly updating with new work and updates of what I am working on but as usual life and work keep getting in the way.

Well, enough is enough I say. From now on I will update my blog at least once a week. If I slip up, please send me hate mail saying how disappointed you are in my lack of discipline!

So first up I have a couple of new black and white illustrations from Black Bag Jobs by Cubicle 7 Entertainment. This was a great opportunity to work with the talented Art Director Jon Hodgson, one of the nicest guys in the industry!

Thanks for taking the time to look, feel free to comment if you feel so inclined. I will be back again next week, I promise! So stay tuned for more updates.

Roaring Skies: The Nokk

2011-02-06T14:18:00.000-08:00

My entry for the ArtOrder Concept Tuesday challenge...

Strange Alchemy - Page 1

2011-02-01T05:00:00.000-08:00

This is the first page of a short comic story I am working on at the moment called Strange Alchemy by Darren Koziol. It is likely to be the first of a bunch of similar work coming up for me and as such am am trying to nail down a process for working on these pages that looks good but also will allow me to complete them in a reasonable time frame. I would love any feedback you have to offer so that I can take your advice on for the rest of the pages to come!

Thanks for looking!

Dungeon Delve Finished

2010-12-14T04:09:00.000-08:00

I think I'll call this one done :)

Dungeon Delve continued

2010-12-10T06:29:00.000-08:00

Following on from my previous post on the ArtOrder Dungeon Delve challenge, my entry is nearing the final stages. I have really felt like this piece has been a struggle for me and hasn't really ended up where I was hoping it would be. I think it has taught me to be more thorough in concidering my tones and colour composition from the beginning as it would save alot of time aimlessly moving around the canvas waiting for inspiration to strike!

Anyway, at worst case I think I have been able to learn a bit about my process and am looking forward to starting the next piece to act on what I have learnt.

enough words, now pictures!

Dungeon Delve

2010-11-06T04:39:00.000-07:00

The current challenge for ArtOrder is a great assignment to illustrate a hapless adventurer lost in a dungeon. The specifics can be seen here.

I thought it might be interesting to post the progress on my entry here, so if you're interested please read on. After a round of thumbnails, I chose an idea and composition that I liked and worked up a rough sketch:

As you can see from the rough I liked the idea of our adventurer being completely unaware of his impending doom!

after thinking about the idea some more and ironing out some of the perspective issues I refined the sketch to better show how the final composition will look. As was pointed out to me, it will be important to show that our adventurer seems lost and hopeless even without the knowledge of the spider lurking below. I hope to achieve this through the lighting, with the lantern bringing the focus above the collapsed bridge and the spider elements being secondry to the story.

here is the finished sketch:

Stay tuned to see how the painting stage progresses!

New Work - Apostle of War

2010-10-12T21:14:00.000-07:00

Just a little update as things have been a bit quiet from me lately. I have been working away though and have a couple of new things I can show. First up is a concept movie poster to try and pitch a screenplay. This piece was fun to work on, I was given alot of creative freedom and also involved the logo design and some concept design for the characters from the script.

Here is the finished result:

I've also done a little more character concept work, this time for a Sci-Fi/Western miniatures game in production. This is the latest character, The Black Rose:

On the same project, it has been awesome to see my previous concept work being turned into a miniature. Check this out, you can't tell me it's not full of awesome!

I'll be back with more to show soon!

Mystik Monster Mayhem

2010-08-26T20:50:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share some creature designs I have been working on lately. These are all monsters I created which which feature in the online game Algadon by Mystik Media.

The reason for sharing is that I found the project to be a really valuable challenge. By restricting the images to only 200x240px (the size they appear in game) it forced me to simplify the design and concentrate on the important characteristics of the creature. It was also more important to look at the overall silhouette and shapes of the design to make sure they read easily and quickly at such a small scale.

Anyway have a look at what I've come up with so far, obviously some designs are more successful than others but I do feel like I have steadily improved while working on these. I would recommend that you try something similar if you want to develop your concept/design skills!

Please feel free to let me know which you like or don't like and why or show me what you come up with!

Mentors and Sketchies!

2010-08-16T15:10:00.000-07:00

This blog post by Mike Vaillancourt recently got me thinking about mentorship in the fantasy illustration field. I think it is something that seems to have become neglected in the modern age I think to people having so many commitments to so many people via forums, blogs, networks, email groups etc. It seems a huge investment of time to dedicate your full attention to helping one individual try and reach their potential. However it alsmost seems that it is required to be able to grow and develop as an artist. Almost every successful artist/illustrator I know can attribute some giant steps in their career to some kind person further along the road taking the time to guide them on the path.

It also made me think about where I stand in the chain? I know I could definitely benefit from some guidance from those above, but at what point should you start volunteering your advice to others? I'm not sure if I am there yet, but maybe all artists have that sense of self doubt and explains the reluctance to put their hand up for the task.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter, please comment. If you would like to discuss a specific mentoring relationship further, I'm open to the discussion either here or via email as lee@shawawa.com.

And just for fun, here are some quick sketches I did while chatting to friends in the ArtOrder Community. Some reference used...

First post on my shiny new blog!

2010-08-14T16:21:00.000-07:00

Welocome to my blog, I plan on using this page to post news and updates relating to my illustration and concept art and hopefully as a motivational tool to encourage me to be more productive and network with the many other Artists and Art Directors out there!

While I am here I might aswell show off a couple of new pieces of art: first up is my entry for the 'Gotta Have A Hook' challenge at ArtOrder. Also a cover for an upcoming horror comic anthology from Dark Oz called 'Decay'.