Deathstalker's Stuff, sketches, drawings and other renderings Options

[DeathStalker]

Okay, it's important to note that all artists would love to put a disclaimer in front of everything that they do. I will try to spare you the disclaimer if you keep the criticism constructive. That's the rule. I will only provide dates and some loose information about what these are, not making excuses. (Other than the early work, in my opinion, is not as good... )

Thanks to broigami for the photobucket recommendation. This is my test of said service.

Here is a picture of a lion head I did in 1998.

Hope that worked.

[DeathStalker]

Okay, and because I believe in process, I want to show mine. Here is a sketch of a new Mech I have dubbed the Artemis. I may post the battletech stats later, but lets just say it has many missiles. This is the first stage sketch,
and I see something on the screen I never noticed on paper. It appears that the torso is offset a bit, so I do mean to move it over. (Photoshop rules) After I do that movement, I will print it and redraw it with more detail and a more finished look. I like to hand draw everything. I do not have the patience to draw electronically. I will use photoshop to help in some instances.
I am eventually going for a 'tech readout' look for this, and that will be only linework and heavy ink-blot shading if any at all.

[DeathStalker]

Okay, so I was fooling around with photoshop and put some of my stuff together. This is an assortment of individual pieces I have done.... most are still kind of old. (Probably from 1998 to 2005) This stuff is easiest to get at because I already have it scanned in. Enjoy!

Assorted Graphics

[DeathStalker]

Okay! Did anyone notice I started the last three messges with "Okay"? hehehe
More to come, I have to pull stuff off of some disks...

[Wildcard]

Looks really interesting. You have a very clean style. Are you planning to post some of your more recent work?

[Thunderbolt]

Yeah. what he said.


You ever consider trying Comic book hero art?

[DeathStalker]

Too many fanboys crowding the market. Not that I don't like comics, they were one of my first influences. Besides that, my next avenue is roleplaying book art or bust. I've got a few nice ones in the works, give me a few days and I'll post them. Also working on a (can you believe this?) illustrating a children's book. The "Meet the Creators" page is going to scare the kids.

For more recent examples, pan down in this thread.. bunches coming.

[Xiomburg]

Too many fanboys crowding the market. Not that I don't like comics, they were one of my first influences. Besides that, my next avenue is roleplaying book art or bust. I've got a few nice ones in the works, give me a few days and I'll post them. Also working on a (can you believe this?) illustrating a children's book. The "Meet the Creators" page is going to scare the kids.

Currently we are in development of a Fantasy Collectable Card game...we are looking for artists who are not in it for large sums of money. If you want to send some sample work my way I can have some people here review it.

We will not have any sets out til the middle of next year, so we are currently just compiling artwork.

[DeathStalker]

For those wondering where my coming artwork is, here's the situation. I am currently preparing a portfolio for review in Indy in two weeks. Since I want to fill it with mostly new stuff, I have been busy making said stuff. Between now and next friday, 'the plaster is flying' as we used to say in sculpture class.

I am submitting these for general reaction and enjoyment, and while I appreciate criticism, I have no time to change any of these except in the most minor way with photoshop. I am trying to put together 7- 10 really good examples of my work that match the genre art of some of the games made by Palladium books. It is likely, in the UNLIKELY off-chance that they want to use these, that these links are only temporary.. so view them while you can.

Without further ado, disclaimers, etc.. here is the first one:

Loaded for Bear!
Kind of a dimensional being crossed with Rambo. Enjoy the chaos!

More to come tomorrow and hopefully I can get some one-adays for youse guys.

[DeathStalker]

Today's release is a Glitter Boy.. this is a power-armor from the game 'Rifts'. It is uber-powerful and quite popular to play considering hom many damage dice are involved with it's rail gun. The armor is chromed, as in the description.
Behind we have as piece of red tribal, that has many symetrical qualities but is not symetrical.

Glitter Boy!

[Fury]

That's a great glitterboy head (longtime Rifts player here). I wish you luck with your Palladium review- so far your work is pretty dead on with their style.

[DeathStalker]

Thanks Fury, coming from a talented artist (with "artist dead-eye") that means a lot to me to pass inspection.


Edit: Good God I just spent 15 hours strapped to my drawing tablet and photoshop. I believe I am wearing the E, B, and Z keys off of my keyboard. *YAWN* I'll post the next one when I wake.. good night, er good morning.

[DeathStalker]

Next up is another Rifts piece, this time a custom coalition 'bot of my design. I call it the "Shelley Bot" because it looks like a frankenstein-esque lumbering monster of a bot. I really enjoy color work more, but I know the vast majority of interior work is in B&W, so I am being realistic. It was originally a battletech design concept I scrapped in favor of palladium flavor. I am proud of the hands especially.

Shelley - Bot!

This picture was quite the pain.. I still may go back and do the lower torso darker around the numbers, and a few other little nothings... I'm just glad, for the most part, this drawing is over. (Does PTSD apply to illustration?) Literally over 16 hours in this one drawing, over the course of 2 days.

[DeathStalker]

Next up is a unit insignia, possibly something for their new game. Dead Reign. (Which is a "what if?" the night of living dead happened and the zombies won!) Anyhow, I have another 2 unit insignias coming as well for the same game.

89th Armored Skull Division!

[Hammer]

Damn, dude...that's some pretty neat stuff, imo.

*saved*

[DeathStalker]

Too kind, Hammer. Remember, creative property is cherished, not sold. You saw it here first... if any gets published, I'll make sure to keep you guys informed as to their final destination source.

Here's a dragon head with some tribal... Kevin seemed to like this stuff, so I am throwing a few items like it at him.
This is pic #3 finished today, and suddenly I feel prolific.

Draconis Verde!

Up next: Here there be more dragons, with cyberarms and plasma rifles. Or... dog days wth guns....

[DeathStalker]

I know i was talking about dragons and dogs, but first here is a unit insignia for a group called "The Hangmen" or something like that. Its a more graphic thing this time, as unit insignias should be.

The Hangmen!

Must... keep.. going...3... more... to... finish... but SO tired... *snore*

[Kid Origami]

Nice stuff. I don't have a very good scanner or I would load up some colored stuff. Of course I don't have anything to color with. Oh, wait, Grandma just got me some oil pastels...

...

Hm... I'm going to have to go play for a while.

Anyways, great look for your stuff, Deathy. You have a very clean style that looks superb. I don't have any crit for you, since I'm all amateur and stuff, just keep up the good work and remember to show off for us some more in the future.

[DeathStalker]

ARMAGEDDON!

I just lost 6 hours of photoshop work today because my fat hand grazed the S key while CTRL was depressed, not Z for cancel. What was I cancelling? I was TRYING to cancel accidentally clearing my screen. CTRL Z cancels, while CTRL S saves.. and does so without even asking if you are sure. So instead of cancelling my foul up, it saved it. Worst part is I saved l;ike 4 minutes beforehand, but it saved over it. I am quite angry.

I somewhat luckily printed a copy last night, but alas the work I did today is not there, as well as scanning a printed picture takes the crisp detail out of it.

So I am starting over, from scratch on this picture, which is one of my three best. Now I have to cancel on at least one I was preparing to draw, I am just running out of time.

NO ... SLEEP... TIL FRIDAY!!!!!!!

[DeathStalker]

The Dragon picture can stay in the Hell it went to... after 3 redraws, I put that one up fo a while. Tired of looking at it.

Instead, I release the hounds!

This is the 4th in my Rifts series. It is a rogue Dog Packer, based on my mutt. (part Jack Russel) I used the C21 laser pistol and Deadboy armor to keep it rifts-y. The cyberdragon was canon, too, but alas...

3 more coming for the Zombie Game and I am out the door for Gen Con.

[Ghostrider]

Full Conversion Borgs eat GBs for lunch.

...and then there's the Cosmic Knight...who eats whatever he wants.



Seriously though, your style fits very well with Rifts/Palladium art. GL!

[DeathStalker]

I truly do not know nearly as much about Rifts as I do Battletech, so I guess you are right. I always wanted to play a dog pack dog myself, but all the power gamers i played with wanted to be juicers and uber-aliens. I also wanted to run a Coalition game BADLY, but never found anyone who wanted to play.

Palladium's complex character creation always scared me away from playing.. you would put 3-5 hours into creating a character for a "campaign" you KNEW would not last longer than 3 games. Most of my old GMs were bunk.

And thanks!

[DeathStalker]

Second to last (Maybe third to last if I want to do a marathon session tonight.. and I may.)

Devilish Hearts

[DeathStalker]

Final Release before Gen Con Saturday. This is kind of a throw in for Dead Reign, so this is a Zombie pic. I wish I had a day or two more with this one, but I still plan on showing it. I think an Art Director would like to have a crack at any of my pics for revision or alteration, so hopefully this is the "starting gun" to my RPG art career.


Zombie with Gunshot

Well that's it. After a week everything you have seen previously was put together. I need a lot of luck, so cross your toes. I'll update everyone in about a day to tell you guys how it went. I don't expect jubilant victory, but it sure would be nice for once.

12 hours or so and I'll be getting shot at by Xiomburg on the simulators. Good times.

[DeathStalker]

Well I might get 2 hours sleep!

Check it out.. Aberrant Mechanoid Runner!

Im out!

[Thunderbolt]

Wow. Very well done, Lad. Would you consider doing some pin up art of some comic heroes for inclusion in Trade Paperback versions of a comic I am working on? I have a regular artist to draw the book, which we are then going to shop to IMAGE comics first, but failing that or another comic indy picking us up ( I refuse to see our work prostituted by Marvel or DC) we will webpublish and then sell TPBs as the issues pile up.

[Ghostrider]

Yeah, "game balance" isn't really a valid or known concept in Rifts.

I was in some of the original play-testing (god, that's depressing), and I've played on and off ever since. My long standing complaint, even within just the base book, is that you go from the Vagabond OCC (worthless) to Dragons, 'Borgs and other MDC characters. SO, while the Vagabond's attempting to stab you with his spork, you're taking his head off with your Mega-Damage bite/claw/plasma cannon. GMing is tough because things that are a challenge to one or two of your characters aren't anything to your GB, 'Borg or Dragon while things they need to fight will obliterate everyone not sporting 400+ points of MDC armor... Add in the 9,000 supplemental books, and it just gets more asinine and out of whack.

And yeah, for some reason, "campaigns" don't last.

However, I DID run a Coalition campaign that we played on and off for over a year. It was fun, with a solid concept and good players. It eventually died off as people moved. But, the times we played were memorable--especially after all the anti-coalition 'standard' games.

I never played a dog boy, but I played in another game where the party was all escapees from the Coaltion's Texas facility (detailed in a sourcebook). So, the party was mostly Dog Boys, I was a Battle Cat, and we had two Battle Bears (all variants of the dog boy rules). It was amusing. At least until the Spider Skull Walker and DH Transport found us and rained MegaDamage death upon us...dog boy 35MDC armor really isn't much, and with Rift's stupid called shot system, it's not too hard to shoot where the armor isn't...so...dead dog pack...and only 15min into the game.

Yay. That means in 4hrs we can make new characters and try again...

No wonder no one plays.

Ah well, enjoy GenCON! Wish I was going! Good Luck!

I truly do not know nearly as much about Rifts as I do Battletech, so I guess you are right. I always wanted to play a dog pack dog myself, but all the power gamers i played with wanted to be juicers and uber-aliens. I also wanted to run a Coalition game BADLY, but never found anyone who wanted to play.

Palladium's complex character creation always scared me away from playing.. you would put 3-5 hours into creating a character for a "campaign" you KNEW would not last longer than 3 games. Most of my old GMs were bunk.

And thanks!

[DeathStalker]

DEFEAT! (Albeit temporary)

You know, because of his daughters wedding, I never heard back from Kevin last week. (My guess, really.) Anyhow, one little detail was overlooked, Palladium books did not show up to Gen Con.

I can only laugh.

Kind of a wasted trip. However, I did get to meet up with Xiomburg. He's a smart ass, so I think we got on well. We checked out his booth and oggled my portfolio for a minute, then we went down to the sims to check them out, but the lines were long and the play time was way short. (And expensive) Instead we stood watching the large flat screen, making snarky tactic comments, as everyone who was playing closed into a giant clusterf**k and exploded at once. No real skills were used, and Xiom noted many players were deadfiring LRMs, and missing quite often.

Note: It was late on the 3rd day, and those sims were in a sunny hallway. I cannot imagine how funky those things were inside.. I was sweating in the A/C. And then all the cheeto crumbs... Besides, Xiom had to be back at his booth at 6, so we would never have made it anyway. No good war stories this time.

Anyhow, this is certainly not the end of this graphics update, but I do not expect to be so prolific in the future, for lack of deadline more than anything else. I am not distressed, I will just send my work in to Palladium instead... I just really like Kevin so I wanted to talk to him again.

[DeathStalker]

Wow. Very well done, Lad. Would you consider doing some pin up art of some comic heroes for inclusion in Trade Paperback versions of a comic I am working on? I have a regular artist to draw the book, which we are then going to shop to IMAGE comics first, but failing that or another comic indy picking us up ( I refuse to see our work prostituted by Marvel or DC) we will webpublish and then sell TPBs as the issues pile up.

Send me a PM with more details

[Xiomburg]

It was very nice to meet you and your wife. To bad about the Mechwarrior pods being crammed full of people who kept running into each other...We would have fun blowing them apart.

[DeathStalker]

NOTE: All previous links to pictures in this thread are now GONE. If you want to see the pretty pictures, go here:

Deathstalker's Online Portfolios


If you look on the left, there are different albums for different artwork types. Feel free to peruse any of the public galleries, that's why they are there. The last gallery is by far the fullest and is alot of what I have been doing for the last 12 years. The Palladium and Battletech galleries will be filling up, and I am likely to add more galleries as time goes on.. so keep an eye out.

[DeathStalker]

And it's out! Since I had less of a deadline, I used the last couple of weeks to add a few more pics and refine what I had some more for my RPG portfolio. As of today it's in the mail and on the way. And if my review goes poorly.. IN THE RIVER IT GOES! Just kidding, I do know someone who did that. What a fool.. threw away his portfolio after one bad job review. Then he joined the air force and as far as I know, the only thing he has drawn lately is latrine cleaning duty.

*fingers crossed* I want this more than my next breath... and if it don't work out, there's already work going into Xiom's card game, so at least I will be occupied and not suicidal.