Fangs of K'aath - August 3rd

I was tapped recently to do a cover for a re-printing of the Fangs of K'aath novel by Paul Kidd.  I haven't done a full wrap style image for a book cover before (previously I only did a front cover) so my image composition had to be shifted from my normal left-to-right style to accommodate that the right side of the image would comprise of the front of the cover.

I wanted Sandhri (the bat girl storyteller) to stand out as the focus and ended up constructing the whole scene in sketchup to get an idea for how the light through an archway could hit her in the scene while leaving most everyone else in the shadows.

This one was chosen as the final composition for the book, and will be painted over the next month.

In other news, I'll be picking the next person on the list for their sketch this month on the 15th as usual.  I'm just finishing off the sketch for last month now, and will be working on putting some of the sketchwork of planned paintings up over the next couple of weeks.  I've resigned that some images will have linework left in, giving a more comic book style to the colour projects, but its a matter of time being very crunched right now with life-things as well as work things piling up.

speaking of the comic, I (clearly) wasn't able to get the next page finished last month.  The plan is to hopefully get it finished this month.  Currently I'm dealing with some work being done on the house which sometimes means I can't defer or put off the contractor's need to talk with them about their plans.

I was noodling with the idea of doing some sort of 'doofy fun' images as well after reading some old D&D adventure modules from the 70's/80's era.  But I won't really go into that until I can solidify my schedule this month.

busy days ahead.

As always, thank all of you for the support.  Because of your generosity I've been able to set up an actual honest-to-Jim-Varney studio space with honest-to-Garfield-the-Cat tools that have made things a hell of a lot easier both to get work done, and on my health (artist back problems are heaps of fun).  Its also helped me deflect some of the cost of the contract work I've had to get done on this house.  Its greatly appreciated more than I can put into words.

So truly, Thank you.

-T.J.