Pathfinder - Agents of Evil!

A few more of my illustrations for Pathfinder have released in their latest Player Companion, Agents of Evil. They printed really well, honestly. Here are the drawings and (potato-quality) photos of them in the book. Enjoy!

Legend of the Five Rings - newly released!

Another batch of L5R work was published - check em out! The first two are for the Lion Clan, the third is the Lane of Immortality (a seedy market in the Shadowlands), and the fourth is Kyoso No Oni - a super evil, naga-like demon.

Matsu Hideyuki

Razorfang

Lane of Immortality

Kyoso no Oni

And here they are in their layouts:

Mmm I love the smell of fiery demon magic in the morning.

-Kez

The Nervine demon

This demon - known as a Nervine - thrives in violently irritated nerves, eating its host's pain for food. In an odd symbiotic relationship, having this parasitic demon can be both good and bad. There's no way to know if one lives with you - while in a host, it looks like any other nerve in your body, except that it slithers around freely.

In rare cases, when the host organism dies the demon takes over the creature's mind and reawakens it as its own vessel. Only in this instance is the Nervine's true appearance revealed. In order to continue living, they extend the decaying organism's nerves outward, distort the skeletal structure, and use its newfound mobility to seek out other creatures and find more pain to eat.

-Kez

The Ampersand - concept thumbnail

The Ampersand is a neutral but Martian-run space station: the largest one between Mars and the asteroid belt. Originally designed as an inter-planetary freighter, high fuel costs and low efficiency forced her to decommission. The station became the second non-planetary orbital city ever in the year 103, and is the also second-biggest human structure ever built.

She is equipped with some of the most powerful Prismic engines and gravity wells in the entire solar system. If a rogue asteroid strays too close, she can at least avoid or deflect it.

In her retirement, she offers haven for all travelers. Ships can now dock at modified cargo holds along her four wing-like protrusions.

The name Ampersand came from her curvy figure and inclusive nature.

-Kez

Dream sketch - the path beyond the back door

Very quick color overlay - a place where even midday is dark. This is basically a thumbnail sketch from a recent dream.

-Kez

Searching everywhere

"-because there must be someone else out there," they mulled. Their ship, the Beckon, flied frantically deeper into the Milky Way.

They are now known to us as the Height Colder, named after their frigid home and... air-headed ways. Don't ask me why the name is weird. It's the first thing we could come up with apparently.

-Kez

Pathfinder illustrations!

The first few artworks I made for Paizo's Pathfinder recently published. More to come!

WWML underway

The code is complete, the world is ripe, and the time is right- What Wonders May Lie is happening. Here's a mockup of the very first page (the final book will be in full-color):

I've been poking at the code language for a while now, but it has solidified to about what you see. The illustrations will tell the story enough so that translation isn't necessary - but the code still enhances the experience.

This endeavor is heavily inspired by the Voynich Manuscript, a book shrouded by confounding language and strange assortments of artwork. I want to capture that weirdness in a cohesive way.

Indy PopCon sketches

This weekend, I helped Kathryn Silver with her booth at Indy PopCon. The artist alley was extensive- filled to the brim with all manner of skill-sets and talents. While there I sketched up a few things. Highly random, in-the-moment things..

(Rather fond of this lady...)

And finally, the Demon of Wisdom!

I thought I'd have to live with this handsome beast forever...

...but thankfully, he's been drawn out. May remake this image in digital, to match my other two demons.

Got to meet contestants from Face Off, the makeup-fx contest show on SyFy. Very cool guys! It's striking just how similar we think, us monster-makers..

At any rate, more art will percolate soon.
-Kez

Skulls

Fun for the whole family!

The Tyrannosaurus Rex skull from the AMNH:

A cat skull I own which features a loose, unattached mandible. I like having the two parts separate rather than glued together; recreating a bite-action showcases how rigid a cat's jaw movements are. It's a highly specialized kind of power.

3D sketching

Made some 3D sketches based on a couple of my creature concepts. First off, that recent Helicoprion.

But that proved to be too simple so I also tackled the Wendigo I'd drawn a while back..

..which is a retouched version of this drawing (from a previous sketchbook):

I'd like to add more details, but my computer cannot handle it. Perhaps I'll get an updated graphics card and really push these things to the limit.

Helicoprion!

Helicoprion is such a mysterious creature and I'm completely enamored by it. After watching the recent episode of River Monsters featuring a variety of prehistoric fish, I had to try my own rendition of this strange beast.

Man, can you imagine? These organisms really existed! They ate and hunted and breathed the waters of an Earth we will never see again. It's crazy how much of an alien world our own home is, but the only distance between them and us is a hell of a lot of time. Thinking about it keeps me up at night, in a good way.

So at any rate, I went with some sailfish features here. Seeing as Helicoprion likely ate squid, they needed to be FAST, slicing at high speed through their prey then just.. sucking them up like noodles! Who needs to chew? Why waste the effort, right? This one's also got a streamlined body, its eyes and nose protected by a hard cartilage ridge, while its long, fleshy snout and jaw focused the target into the saw blade teeth it's famous for. What a celebrity. Just look at that face, a regular Adonis, even with the various scars.

Thanks for reading!
-Kez

HRRRRK

Spring???

 

?????

spring pls

sincerely,

-koz

Space battle

"As if space itself was torn apart, a gaping wound of red vac-mist rushed around the merchants’ ships. It cloaked them in confusion and fear… ripe for a vicious attack from the Flared Pirates."

An all-too-common scenario in the world of Sapona. Pirates, driven by freedom and desperation, fly around the System unchallenged. This is a quick thumbnail of such a scene.

Global Game Jam - Dino Rampage

A quick antagonist made for the Global Game Jam. Since my team ran out of time, he was hardly even seen in the final game file - so here’s the work I did that went down the toilet! Modeling, rigging, and (bad) animation was all done in 6 hours. To save time, he was designed to be a silhouette with bright teeth, rather than be UVed and textured. Not gonna lie, this was a lot of fun to make.

If you're curious to see the game, Dino Rampage, check out its GGJ Page. The game itself had too high a scope and wasn't taken to the completion we wanted, but hey. Experience points.

Leaf - Speedbike Vehicle concepts

Recently, Amanda asked me to generate concepts for an illustration project she was working on. A music artist called Leaf wanted an album cover featuring his persona speeding by on a fast, sick ride, but he wanted the motorcycle to be a permanent addition to his character - so it couldn't be just any bike.

Amanda decided to refer him to me for this task. He gave us the details and design ideas he had in mind at first, so I started broad and ended up with something specific and to his liking. It's not the final illustration, but it helped Amanda complete hers.

Here are the first explorations, batches A and B:

Some of these ended up with interesting forms that I may use for my own projects someday, so even though they never ended up as the final design, they'll still be useful.

For the first two batches, I went with as much variety as possible within his parameters. He then added that this bike shouldn't envelop the driver so he can remain visible for the most part. Thus A4 ended up being the first step for the next phase.

He specified that this bike should closely resemble those in Tron (which are awesome, but very much iconic), so for phase C everything began rounding out:

Among his favorite features were the overall shape of 2, the details on 1 and 6, and the minimalist wheel structure on 4. I added all these parts together and ended up with this basic concept:

The bike is meant to match the character's colors and overall design aesthetic. This was the first (and final) color arrangement and construction for Leaf's speedbike, with only minor adjustments to make it perfect for the music artist. It was fun and challenging to find the sweet spot for his character, and I'm glad to have worked on it.

-Kez

Pokeddexy December Challenge - 2014

Gameshrimp and I collaborated again for the 2014 POKEDDEXY challenge! This time, we decided to do Pokemon fusions just for the fun of it.

A little bit about how we did this challenge:

We took turns drawing each day. Amanda had the odd number days while I took the even days, with a couple of the last ones switched or done by both of us. On our day to draw, the person not drawing would tell the other what their Pokemon selection was for the day. The drawing artist's Pokemon would be kept secret until the fusion was finished and posted on tumblr.

For the individual, high-res posts of each Pokemon, visit either gameshrimp.tumblr.com or kezrekade.tumblr.com.