Today's #LETSDRAWMONSTERS Challenge is a MYSTERY creature! This month, we are delving into PARANORMAL CRYPTOZOOLOGY. There are no photos of this creature, and barely any descriptions. This month, I am counting on you to help me visualize... a spirit!
THE PROMPT: The Possum Spirit
Very little is known about the elusive and mysterious Possum Spirit. What we do know is this: It is an ancient and otherworldly creatur...
2020-09-02 11:59:59 +0000 UTC
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This week we are pleased to announce the New Discord Channel!
You are cordially invited to join us! To join in, the invitation link is: https://discord.gg/cBRFySW
The Extra Fine Monsters Club is a place for artists and art fans to exchange ideas, encouragement, share knowledge and resources, and grow. It is meant to offer a positive art...
2020-09-01 16:10:18 +0000 UTC
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Welcome to September!
In case you missed it, here is what was on offer in August:
The Chimera August Monster of the Month Hi-Res and Brush Set.
To T...
2020-09-01 13:01:08 +0000 UTC
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This month I have an Animatic of To the Gates of Hell, showing how the development of the image went. The initial areas were a bit of a slog, but once we got to the figures, it was a ton of fun. The details in this one were every bit as fun as I'd hoped they'd be. I just needed to get over that initial hurdle of laying in some base color and value over my linework.
2020-08-27 11:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Here is this month's Monster of the Month, The Chaos Chimera, Hi-Res and Brush Set!
To start out, I have to say, this one DID NOT go well. It was no fault of the chimera, life just wouldn't let me paint this one for more than 5 minutes at a time. After we livestreamed the first part of this, our robot vacuum cleaner went rogue and covered our floors in an even coating of something horrible it found in a cor...
2020-08-26 12:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Today, I have the final color for our Classic Fantasy Illustration for August for you! To The Gates of Hell.
First though: We're postponing this morning's Twitch Stream to tonight at 7PM EST! I'll tell the story about why during the stream. Now back to the image:
The image had a lot of changes as we moved through the process of painting it. In the drawing you can see a lot of these changes.
2020-08-19 14:06:14 +0000 UTC
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Here are the entries for this month's #LETSDRDAWMONSTER creature challenge, The Calico Calamander! THESE WERE AWESOME EVERYBODY!! NOW, You must choose the Golden Sluglord Award Winner for the month!
But FIRST, here are our category award winners from last week's stream! They've already ...
2020-08-09 14:50:40 +0000 UTC
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It's been awhile since we've done a proper product review, so this month I decided to try a new drawing paper for my projects and share the results here! The subject was this month's Monster of the Month, The Chaos Chimera!
The product is YUPO Medium from Legion Paper. To begin, this review is for this paper as a drawing surface, and not as a multi-media paper....
2020-08-07 11:00:04 +0000 UTC
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As with this month's Monster of the Month "the Chimera," I used the YUPO MEDIUM paper for this drawing.
I love the quality of line you can get on it! I'll be doing a review on the paper later this week going over the pros and cons. I hope you like this one, can't wait to dive into color on it!!
Here is the color comp:
2020-08-06 14:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Today's Creature challenge is the Calico Calamander! Will it be a slimy amphibian crossed with a beloved family cat? Or a neighborhood menace mixed with an adorable baby stream dragon? Let's find out!
The fun starts 10AM ESTS on https://twitch.tv/justingerardillustration
Hope to see you there!
Awards today will be for:
- Most Slimy&...
2020-08-05 12:01:01 +0000 UTC
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This month for #Smaugust, you probably could have guessed we are going to be taking on a dragon! But since I already have so many classic dragons lined up this month, let's try something a little different!: A Chimera!!!
I am using a new paper for this one that I have been wanting to work with for a while: YUPO MEDIUM from LEGION. It was a lot of fun and I will be writing a review for the paper and sharing that later this month.
Will we make ...
2020-08-04 13:52:28 +0000 UTC
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Welcome to August! As you might can guess by the title, we are going to be sharing A LOT of dragons this month!
Subs can expect a few bonus high-res wallpapers of some of my classic dragon images this month and I will be creating and sharing some new toothy terrors as the month progresses.
But what else can we expect???
For the Classic Fantasy Art Tier: First off, Last ...
2020-08-01 11:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Today, I have a BONUS Classic Fantasy Illustration for you! The Dragon Dance is a new landscape in the Plague of Dragons series and was painted from a drawing in the new 2019 Sketchbook.
The image is a personal piece in a lot of ways (I guess like most of these from this series). The landscape is a specific place along the southern coast of England where Annie and I stayed for a time during our last visit to Europe. I can't be *certain* that there were dragons ...
2020-07-26 12:40:37 +0000 UTC
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First, I should say that this video isn't the best since this is a time-lapse directly from our Twitch stream, and I am TERRIBLE about zooming in and out too much. So I apologize for the somewhat jarring viewing experience. (We will do better in the future) Still, it gives a good idea of how I was working and using the brushes. If you'd like to see it in real time please check out the VOD section on the Twitch channel.
The Brush set contains some really fun new ones...
2020-07-22 12:00:00 +0000 UTC
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Meet the Grumble Bee! Our Monster of the Month for July!
On our Twitch livestream last Wednesday we made our way through about 99% of the figure, making the total time spent on the Grumble Bee only about 5 and a half hours! Pretty incredible since we blew more than half of that in the drawing reworking the face a dozen times. The stream was a ton of fun. We had a great deal of Bee related puns, and also some great backstory ideas...
2020-07-17 17:46:42 +0000 UTC
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Downfall. A scene from A Plague of Dragons and our Classic Fantasy Illustration for June.
Traditional Drawing with Digital Color.
For the size: I worked a little bit differently on this one. The original drawing for was quite small, (only 4"x6" inches!) and then the entire file was blown up to 24"x30" inches by scanning the image in at a super high resolution.) I almost never work like this as...
2020-07-13 12:00:00 +0000 UTC
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Here are the entries for this month's #LETSDRDAWMONSTER creature challenge, The French Bullfrog!
FIRST!: An announcement: I'm streaming oil painting on Twitch today at 10AM EST! Stop in and say hello!
SECOND!: You must CHOOOOOOOOSE the Golden Sluglord Award Winner for the month. This will be tough! During the stream, many of the award winners donated their awards to others, leaving us with
2020-07-08 12:00:00 +0000 UTC
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It's a battle between some of my most hated creatures of summer!! Here in Georgia, it is an unending plague of stinging insects who attack me the second I step outside, and then creepy crawlers simply breaking and entering our home. We found a centipede running laps in our ceiling light a few weeks ago! (...the inspiration for the Chatterpillar.)
Note: Before you vote, you should know...
2020-07-06 13:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Welcome to July! The hottest, most gruesomely humid month in the year here in the swamps of Georgia, a time when I can most likely to be found either drawing monsters in cool, dry, dimly lit places, or deep in a pool of clear water, avoiding direct sunlight at all costs.
Here's what you can expect this month!
#LETSDRAWMONSTERS STARTS TODAY!! RIGHT NOW! And today's monster is....
The French Bullfrog...
2020-07-01 12:00:05 +0000 UTC
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The Monster of the Month for June 2020 is the Frog Necromancer! Raising Skelefrogs to do his evil bidding using power channelled from imprisoned fairy creatures. While not all the monsters thus far have really felt like slimy bad guys, I think our frog here definitely is.
The figure came together fairly fast and used a lot of the brushes included in the set. The heavy lifting was done by the brushes "Necromancer Light" and "Necromancer Dark" with some texture adde...
2020-06-26 19:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Our Classic Fantasy Illustration for June is The Basilisk!
From A Plague of Dragons, this painting is 11"x14" inches traditional graphite drawing on Strathmore Bristol, with color in Photoshop.
The image offered a lot of fun possibilities with lighting, particularly since I had it set down in this little canyon with only patches of light trickling down. That was the fun part. It also had some harder visual problems to tackle...
2020-06-24 12:18:33 +0000 UTC
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For this month's monster I decided to finally discover what creature has been summoning all these Skelefrogs! The Frog Necromancer.
If there is time we may have another of the frogs join in. (I have 5 other variations already sketched out!) For this month and the coming months I am focusing on rounding out the collections of each our disparate little bands o...
2020-06-22 13:20:32 +0000 UTC
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Thank you to everyone who voted in our poll for this month's Classic Fantasy Illustration! The Basilisk narrowly edged out the competition by just one vote! So that will be this month's illustration.
Here is my concept art for the image thus far:
Story-wise, this image is loosely related to the St. George legend. A village is offering sacr...
2020-06-15 14:00:06 +0000 UTC
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We are back with another #LETSDRAWMONSTERS vote! As with last time, our creature submissions exceeded the number of slots I am allowed for voting on Patreon, so you will need to enter your top pick in the comments and I will do the tallying manually. (and as with last time if you'd prefer to PM me your vote that is fine too!)
To VOTE: Enter the number row and the letter column of your pick.
The ones with a 🏆have already won and are inelig...
2020-06-13 13:30:03 +0000 UTC
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From yesterday's #LETSDRAWMONSTERS community event! We had a lot of great ideas from the chat, and I am really pleased with where we ended up with the design. Thank you everyone who submitted their own! Their will be a community choice vote coming soon to pick the winner.
If you missed the stream, and want to check out the Twitch VOD it will be available 2020-06-12 12:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Welcome to the #LETSDRAWMONSTERS creature design challenge for June 2020!
This month's creature:
"THE GREAT HORNED SCOWL"
LORE: The Scowl is one of the little people. Often mistaken for a gnome or garden elves, they are more like mischievous imps based on their peculiar behavior and shape-shifting appearances. They are rarely seen, and then only at night, or in the very early morning before the sun rises. They are elusive, ill-tempered...
2020-06-10 11:55:23 +0000 UTC
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This month's Classic Fantasy Illustration is going to be based on an image from the Plague of Dragons sketchbook. But which one should it be???
Here are a few options for your consideration:
Which is your favorite?
Whichever gets the top vote will be the Class...
2020-06-08 12:12:49 +0000 UTC
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Today, I've got 40 sketches in 40 sketchbooks for you! We finally finished our Collector's Editions and they will be shipping out later this week! 🔥As a Patreon exclusive I am posting the full line-up here!
We've got a lot of familiar faces and some fun variations of paintings I've done before. A few of these will be making it into our upcoming poll as candidates for this month's Classic Fantasy Illustration.
Thank you for...
2020-06-06 13:00:00 +0000 UTC
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This is back cover for Jonathan K. Williams book, Elle of Yorn and the Dragon Kiln! Like the front cover, this illustration offered a lot of great lighting opportunities as well as some fun atmospheric effects and of course, a fire-breathing mythical beast. It was a lot of fun to work on. I also had a chance to do some gilding on the kiln for this one, something I haven't had a chance to do in a while. I forgot how much I love GOLD! :D I went all out using the "Smooth Crocodile...
2020-06-04 19:00:00 +0000 UTC
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In light of current events, and in solidarity with everyone who is suffering here right now, we have decided to postpone today's community event.
We hate to cancel, it just feels like the wrong time for it. We are very excited about drawing with everyone this month, but we don't want to take away from the struggle people are having right now.
So June's #LETSDRAWMONSTERS is being rescheduling for next Wednesday, June 10, 10AM. We hope to see you then! -Just...
2020-06-03 12:00:01 +0000 UTC
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