Meghan’s Dragon

Tags

book cover, Cover Art, Dragon, E.M. Foner, Fantasy Art, illustration, Keith Draws, Magic, medieval, medieval girl, Meghan's Dragon, Mort Drucker, Todd Lockwood

I’ve been working with E. M. Foner for a few years now.

He writes science fiction and Fantasy with a light comedic twist. In this case the cover for “Meghan’s Dragon” was to feature a young girl and her Dragon (who happens to also be extremely hungry all the time). And I have to indicate the humor found in the story.

Comedic illustration is never the easiest thing to do but when it’s done well it can be hilarious.

Mort Drucker

For me there is nobody better at this than Mort Drucker (famous mainly for his work in Mad Magazine).

So when faced with this challenge I looked at what he does. And what he does is incredible, he sets up situations and then punctuates the joke using the characters facial expressions. I also looked at the Dragons  created by Todd Lockwood, which are all pretty scary and used that as a direction to avoid!  So with that in mind I set about working on ideas and after several roughs and some to and fro between the Author and I/we finally settled on this.

My indicator that it works is that my kids laugh at it and immediately make up stories about what’s going on.. Mind you, They are both under 9 years old and they laugh at my jokes too, so maybe that’s not the best guide.. Anyway..

It’s probably the first time ever that I’ve welcomed people laughing at my work! Maybe I’m dragoning this post out a bit so I’ll end it here.

Here’s where you can get this book: https://goo.gl/iuLvGb

And posters are available here: http://keithdraws.deviantart.com/gallery/

Swords Of The Imperium

Tags

book cover, Bryan Choi, Cover Art, Cover design, Erica Carson, Fantasy Art, Frank Frazetta, golden ratio, Horse, Horseback, illustration, Keith Draws, science Fiction, Science fiction art, Swords of the Imperium, Todd Lockwood, Warrior on horse back

The challenge of producing art for a series.

Working on a series of covers is always a challenge and it’s important to retain a strong identity and feel. So far so good I think.

This is the second cover for the new series of science fantasy/dark fantasy books by Brian Choi and Erica Carson.
If you want to buy the book or want to know more about the Authors :

Amazon/KDP sale site: https://goo.gl/M9bxyO

Author website: www.carsonchoi.com

Author facebook: www.facebook.com/Bryan-Choi-16…

Author twitter: @bchoiemdoc

Posters here: http://keithdraws.deviantart.com/gallery/

Twelve Foot Ninja – Outlier cover art

Tags

Comic, Comic Art, Cover design, DC, Fantasy Art, golden ratio, illustration, Keith Draws, Liam Sharp, Magic, Outlier, science Fiction, Silent Machine, Smoke Bomb, TFN, Twelve Foot Ninja, TwelveFootNinja, Wonder Woman, WonderWoman

Today “Twelve Foot Ninja” Release their New album “Outlier”

And I produced the cover art. Credit where credit is due though, TFN always have very strong ideas and without their direction this cover would not have worked half as well.

Outlier

You can get it here http://twelvefootninja.com/

And this is their new single which I also did the cover for:

I’ve been working with TFN since 2010 and in fact they were probably the main reason I was able to move my focus to illustration.
Initially they asked for artists to send a couple of comic panels as samples since they were intending to produce a comic and or graphic novel. I don’t normally do this, but for some reason I had a good feeling about this work and so I produced the following.

TFN sample P1

 

Two incredible things happened. First the amazing Liam Sharp (currently the lead artist on Wonder Woman for DC) and blew my mind with this comment on my deviant page and I have to say that is probably one of the most inspirational moments of my life. A moment when it felt like all the effort was worth it after what seemed like an eternity of losing battles. I’m happy to say that we also became friends (even if it is only on social media). If Liam had not left that message I suspect I would have gone down another path.

Me feeling awestruck. Liam Sharp

It only gets better… After I’d given up on hearing back about the samples, Stevic from TFN got in touch with me and told me I’d got the Job.

From that point on I worked with the band mainly through Stevic and Dave MacGregor (their manager who they work very closely with). things went well. I worked on a lot of concept with them, finally deciding on the look of the Twelve Foot Ninja and we produced the cover for their second CD

Now we moved on to the next major project. The album “Silent Machine”

Silent Machine Cover

It had 12 tracks and each would have it’s own 6 page comic making up a graphic novella to go with the album.

I produced all the art and wrote the adaptation from the original plot/novel. But I had to tie the stories in with the songs. They pretty much gave me a free hand so long as I stuck to the plot; and the songs are very inspiring which made it a lot easier. It was a hell of a job, on a tight deadline, but we did it!….And I’m very proud of this work. Here are some pages.

I’ve worked on lots of other projects with them over the years and they have done a lot to help me out through some difficult times. They are great people and I doubt I’d even be doing this if it wasn’t for them.
Oh and I’m also working on another new project with them right now so watch this space, it’s going to be awesome!

Twelve Foot Ninja

Outlier

 

All art produced for “Twelve Foot Ninja” is copyright “Twelve Foot Ninja” and is reproduced with permission.

Frank Frazetta Inspired

Tags

book cover, Cover Art, David A Brogdon, Fantasy Art, Forest, Frank Frazetta, Frazetta, illustration, Keith Draws, KeithDraws, Magic, Sword and Sorcery, The Dark Forest

Frank Frazetta has always been a hero of mine.

So when I get the chance to produce work in the genre of Sword and Sorcery Fantasy Art I jump at the opportunity.

Now I don’t want to just copy the style of Frank, no, I want to pay homage by creating a piece of work that is clearly inspired by him, while being essentially my work. And it also must sell the book it is painted for by reflecting the atmosphere, characters and excitement contained therein.
David A. Brogdon gave me that opportunity recently. I read the book and discussed the concepts with him and above is the result.
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to express my appreciation for the impact Frank has had on my life but this  kind of work goes someway toward that.

The Book is now up for sale here: www.amazon.com/dp/B01AQNRG7U
Posters are here:
http://keithdraws.deviantart.com/art/The-Dark-Forest-Landscape-613475874
and here:
http://keithdraws.deviantart.com/art/The-Dark-Forest-613477764

Alien Abduction

Tags

Alien Abduction, book cover, Cover Art, Cover design, Digital art, Fantasy Art, illustration, Keith Draws, Mason Dodd, Nash, science Fiction

Nash- the Abduction by Mason Dodd

Alien abduction is not a subject I’ve explored in art before. This project gave me the opportunity.
The book is available here: https://goo.gl/ad2G4O
Posters here: http://goo.gl/hggfPw

Science Fiction and Fantasy Dreaming.

Tags

book cover, Boris, Bruce Pennington, Chris Achilleos, Chris Foss, Cover Art, Cover design, Digital art, Dream, Fantasy Art, Frank Frazetta, illustration, Jim Burns, Julie Bell, Keith Draws, Peter A. Jones, Peter Elson, pursue your dreams, Richard Tongue, Sci Fi, science Fiction, Science fiction art, Todd Lockwood

And How Those Dreams Came True.

As a youth I spent hours in bookshops, looking for scifi and fantasy art on book covers. I’d find a few I liked, buy them and when I got home, I’d study the art and try to learn how to do it. I dreamed about doing that kind of art for a living.

Jim Burns, Todd Lockwood, Peter A. Jones,  Chris Foss, Chris Achilleos,  Frank Frazetta, Boris and Julie Bell, Bruce Pennington and Peter Elson (to name but a few) were major influences. In the past few years I’ve even been lucky enough to get to know a few of these people.

Even more amazing I actually now get paid to do work in that genre. I produce a lot of Sci fi images for the Great and Prolific Author Richard Tongue. In fact I’ve done more than twenty illustrations for him to date, and they just get more challenging every time.

Always pursue your dreams. It’s worth it.

Here are a few of the more recent covers I’ve done for Richard:

 

The Secret War Illustration

Tags

battle armour, Cover Art, Fantasy Art, illustration, Keith Draws, Sci Fi, science Fiction, Secret War, shade, Shades of Vengence

One more illustration from “The Secret War” from the amazing game “Era: The Consortium.”
Depicting a “Shade” in “stealth armour”, this image is my favorite from the series and ,of much of the work I have done, this has probably come closest to the image I had in my mind before I started work.

The game itself has received some amazing reviews  such as this one: 
http://rpgknights.com/era-the-consortium-a-review/
and the kickstarter for “The Secret War” Module is getting great reviews too:
http://www.gamingcypher.com/era-the-consortium-the-secret-war-kickstarter-launches-today/

The kickstarter itself is here :
https://goo.gl/AE9hou
All images are copyright Shades of Vengeance.

Magic Times

Tags

book cover, Fantasy Art, Harvey Click, illustration, Keith Draws, Magic, typography

This was something of a challenge

…and getting all the key element’s in place turned out to be a lot of fun.
Harvey Click always manages to overheat my brain cells in the best possible way!

I’m even thinking it might be cool to make a complete set of Tarot cards.. If only I had the time.

Dragons and Dwarfs-the puzzle.

Tags

A Gathering of Dwarfs, Ben Hammott, book cover, Dwarf, Fantasy, Fantasy Art, Fantasy illustration, golden ratio, Keith Draws, typography

Here is the solution and below is a description of how I came to it:

When I read Ben Hammott’s “Dead Dragon’s Gold Book 1, A Gathering of Dwarfs” I realized I was going to have to take a slightly different approach. The Book begins where the tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs left off. The Dwarfs have separated to find their way in the world but other forces are at work to bring them back together; to take on an epic quest.

In this Book we get a deep insight into their individual character and the powers at their disposal, as well as some hints of the powers that have begun to pull their strings; and this was what I decided to show by taking a similar approach to that of the great ‘Drew Struzan’ when he produces movie posters – such as those he created for Blade runner and  Star Wars.

I decided to paint a scene from each of the Dwarf’s stories and tie them all together using images representing the forces that manipulate them in the story (sorry this sounds vague but I don’t want to give spoilers). If you want to know more the book is right here.

For the composition I opted for sacred geometry. Each illustration was designed using Golden Ratio’s and the final composition was laid out using the same method, which though it looks complex actually simplified things for me since I had very specific areas where I could place the images and, because they were designed using sacred geometry, balance was much easier to achieve, and when positioning the images all I really had to consider was the color balance (The object being to draw the eye into the focus and then lead it on into the details,) since the positions and sizes were dictated by the grid.
Here is the image with some of the geometry laid over it (I’ve simplified it somewhat to make it clearer, but hopefully you’ll get the idea).

I feel it turned out well and Ben is very happy so overall it was a good result.

DEMONS are you scared yet?

Tags

book cover, Cover Art, Cover design, Demon, Demons, Fantasy Art, golden ratio, Harvey Click, illustration, Keith Draws, kindle, Magic

Well I Was!!

… after getting commissioned to produce the covers for the Demon Frenzy series by Harvey Click. He gave descriptions of Demons that were incredibly challenging, but lets face it. I love doing stuff like this so what really scared me was would I be able to stop!
Here are the first two. More to come soon