# A sampling of my fantasy art



## ThomasCardin (Mar 27, 2013)

I do computer graphics and animation for my day job. It is pretty dry stuff, but when I have some time on my own where I am not writing, I love do draw and paint fantasy art! These are all labors of love.







 quick drawing of a dragon from an upcoming book







 a digitally drawn map (closeup here) for my fantasy trilogy







 and here is what happens when I spend WAY too much time on a map...this was for my dungeons and dragons campaign...and I sold the image for way too cheap to a game company that never did anything with it.







 a creature design for a weekly contest on conceptart.org - I need to write a short story that goes with this!


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## ThomasCardin (Mar 27, 2013)

a doodle on lined notebook paper that I scanned in and did some magic cleanup on and added some quick textures..,this became one of my favorite avatars to use around the webs.







 I will close for now on a bit of Lovecraftian horror. I actually did a number of Lovecraft images, a Deep One and and many more. I was in a tentacle phase


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## Jabrosky (Mar 27, 2013)

The dragons and maps are my favorites, though the Kraken-type monster creeps me out (I hate Krakens).


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## Philip Overby (Mar 27, 2013)

Really cool stuff, Thomas!  I like the multiple-limbed "Come at me!" things.


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## Subcreator (Mar 27, 2013)

I love it all. I'm a very visual person, but I've never gotten good at drawing at all, so it's kind of frustrating when I have my own ideas, but fantastic when I see someone else's. I love the centipede creatures at the end of the first book. When I saw that there was more than one, I envisioned that they'd be sentient lifeforms with a culture not unlike meercats.


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## Meyer (Mar 28, 2013)

The dragon seems quite happy.  I love maps and I wish I could create ones as good as your own, they're very impressive.


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## AVCortez (Mar 28, 2013)

I really like the maps. They're reminiscent of nineties role-playing games: Hands down the golden-era of PC-RPG's.


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## ThomasCardin (Mar 29, 2013)

Thanks so much for all your wonderful comments! What a great community this is!

I had a spare hour after work and got bitten by the dragon activist bug.


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## Ireth (Mar 29, 2013)

That's awesome. ^^


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## Lunaairis (Mar 29, 2013)

I love your dragons and that weird creature with the tube arms and legs. Your really good at painting!


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## JoseVega (Mar 31, 2013)

Great dragons and really like the map!
Cool stuff!!!


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## ThomasCardin (Apr 4, 2013)

No shortage of dragon lovers here! I am in good company! Thank you all for your kind words. 

I am working on a video trailer for my trilogy. It is going to be a blend of moving stills, animating text, and motion graphics. Here are two stills I have painted so far:






I am trying to capture a lot of atmosphere in this image, the scene is a cold dawn.






A tight shot on the mysterious artifact, a dull silvery sphere which the protagonist carries.


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## JoseVega (Apr 5, 2013)

heheheee dragon lovers....
looks great!!! i really like the beach scene. keep it up!


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## Deleted member 2508 (Apr 6, 2013)

I must echo everyone else in love for the dragon; I love the design itself, slim face with the horns, and how you executed it. But my favourite is the shore with the cliff. I would love to read stories going along with this artwork.

I'm very jealous of your talents! I have no drawing ability, I'm limited to a few utilitarian maps.


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## ThomasCardin (Apr 9, 2013)

Thanks! It's practice, lots of practice. The beach scene is drawn from my mind, but the words that describe it are in chapter three.


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## ThomasCardin (Apr 16, 2013)

Another graphic that will be part of my Video Trailer for The Final Warden.

It was raining hard today on the way into work. It may have been the rain that inspired me to paint this image of Lorace in a stormtossed sea. This went together surprisingly fast. No references used for the water, though a slew of fine anime films were running through my mind while I just let my hand move. If this is a disturbing image for anyone that's ok. Lorace is sleeping, held safe in the grip of the Lady, the Goddess of Destiny --she protected him while the storm raged over the Vestral Sea.


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## ThomasCardin (Apr 25, 2013)

I am happy with this piece...Lorace dreams of chasing a golden butterfly that bursts into bright gold sparks.







This was an hour start to finish. I was quite surprised it went so fast, mostly due to my getting the hand and arm down "just right" in just a few strokes of color. 75% of that hour was spent drawing the sparks.


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## Jabrosky (Apr 25, 2013)

^ Lovely glow effects on those yellow sparks! How do you pull those off?


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## ThomasCardin (Apr 25, 2013)

A big round soft edged brush, tap tap tap. An input device with pressure sensitivity is key. The squiggles are are with a small hard edged brush with transparency set to pressure.. I did a layer of orange then an tighter layer of yellow dots and streaks on top.


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## J. S. Elliot (Apr 25, 2013)

This is beautiful. It's hard to believe that only took an hour. ^^


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## ThomasCardin (May 8, 2013)

Here's an ongoing project of mine. This is about at the 6 or 7 hour mark. This still a WIP, just have the face done really, the rest is blocked in.


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## ThomasCardin (May 17, 2013)

Here is the same image at the 22 hour mark. Not much has remained unchanged.


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## ecdavis (May 17, 2013)

Nice, I love beautiful women who accessorize with swords!


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