Silas Lamprey

"F### me! I'm all out of enemies!"
-Spit it Out. Slipknot

In January of this year I got the opportunity to play a Mörk Borg adventure online. And this is the illustration for the character I played.

Die Geschichte vom wilden Jäger

When I first read Struwwelpeter, for whatever reason, I became immediately invested in the story about the Hare and the Hunter. Unlike the other tales in that book this one didn't have a strong and drastic moral lesson. It was on the lighter side...

So I thought to myself: what if I redraw this one but the hare is more anthropomorphic? (just for fun)

The illustrations by Dr Heinrich Hoffmann are very fun to look at! And they are very inspiring!
But rather than just redo the same drawings in my style, I decided to make my own composition and tell the story from a different angle.

This project served as a warm-up for another one I have coming.

About the text being in German: Do I have any German-speaking readers?
I considered making a version with the English translation, but I think that version is copyright protected. So I'm only posting a German version.

Enjoy!

 

Hitoshi Yoneda

 This post is the answer to the question:
Who is your favourite Artist?

   I'm always out of sorts when asked about "my favourite" anything. I have so much love for all things that I love that this type of question makes me feel like a Parent whose kids asked who is the favorite one... you know well enough that there is enough love to go around, but that's not an compelling answer.

So if you ask me who is my favourite artist, I could certainly geek out on several people I admire. But for many special reasons I'm going to say Hitoshi Yoneda [米田仁士].

In 2017 (I think) two friends who knew that retro games are a minor hobby of mine gave me an original copy of the Japanese version of Phantasy Star 3 for Mega Drive. Which made me the owner of the First and Third games of the series. So I googled about Phantasy Star 2 and that was when the art of Hitoshi Yoneda struck me for the first time!

セガさんからメガドライブミニが届きました。(^w^)
私が描いた『ファンタシースター 〜千年紀の終わりに〜』も収録されてます。

カートリッジ ミニも入ってました。こんな感じです。#メガドライブミニ #ファンタシースター #米田仁士 pic.twitter.com/PaaHZ5Adq6

— 米田仁士 Hitoshi Yoneda (@Brise_Marine) September 27, 2019

And I quickly became fascinated with his art style!♥

Being that my main media is watercolour I felt (for a while) a bit distraught because most modern Fantasy illustrators that I liked seemed to either work in oil or digital. So when I found a fantasy artist that had watercolour as his main media and made an exquisite use of it I was thrilled! It vindicated my own path as a fantasy artist.  

However at that time the information and images of his work were scarce on the internet. But my search led me to discover that he had published two Art Books in the 90s. One named Qvinta Essentia and another named E-nu-ma e-lish So I set out to buy them both because I just needed to scrutinize his technique. :P

In my search for more of his works I also found out that he currently (at the time) was illustrating the covers of a Japanese RPG magazine called Warlock Magazine (ウォーロックマガジン, formerly TtT Magazine). Which in turn led me to discover the amazing  website EntropicDreams that talks about everything TRPG and Board-Game related from Japan.

I found Hitoshi Yoneda's blog (last updated in 2017 as of this post). And a Twitter account @Brise_Marine where he posts fairly regularly with new and old work. He also posts plenty of nice pictures of the Nara Park and urban Japan by him. So I followed.

Then in 2020 when he posted his artwork cover for the book E-nu-ma e-lish I replied with a photo of my copy of the book. He did reply it in 2020. But he once again replied to me this year:

2020年のTweetだけど見逃してました。（＾ω＾）

YOU MADE ME HAPPY !!
THANK YOU VERY MUCH INDEED !! https://t.co/IEdzjRDQgQ

— 米田仁士 Hitoshi Yoneda (@Brise_Marine) July 1, 2022

So we had a nice exchange and I told him how much I admire his work and that I wish to be a great illustrator like him. He responded me with nice words of encouragement:

And now I have a nice Motivational Poster in my Studio!

Still Life Exercise

 

I have been exploring more and more with gouache and to celebrate June 2nd* I'm sharing this still life exercise idea I worked on in April. If you're a painter you can give it a go too!
The exercise consists of setting up objects and painting them from observation (No Photos!). The three elemental challenges in your setup are:

• 1st Is Color in nature which consists of painting a flower of bright natural colour. Unfortunately when I did this there were no noteworthy flowers blooming in my garden, so I went with a Bloodleaf (Iresine Herbstii) specimen I had. It is not a flower but the fact that the leafs are of intense carmine colour made it a fine substitute. 
  
  
• 2nd Is a Black Object the purpose here is to paint something that Is black in real life without using black paint. That is definitely one of the more challenging things, for it requires you to see that black things aren't black, but a dark shade of a certain colour. I managed to achieve mine using Ultramarine Blue + Orange and White. Don't mind my reflection on the vase.
   
• 3rd A Human Skull for its complex and yet recognizable shape. Which leaves little to no room for subtle abstractions. And yes one of my many skull models is Orange and about the size of an apple. A white one could have made for a better exercise but I wanted something that would fit best in the colour composition. 
  

*My B-day!!!

Being mentioned on the WIYQ Podcast

 My friend from the Muspelhell project, Drew Cochran (of Epic of Dreams fame) has a podcast named What Is Your Quest (WIYQ) weekly which is among the few podcasts I hear while drawing and on episode 8 he and his co-host where talking about the project I worked with him. And this new experience happened to me where I was listening to a show talking about me while I draw. Around the 35:50 mark Drew goes on to talk about how we met and how we got to work together. You can listen to the podcast on youtube on the link bellow:

This is a great show. I really enjoy Drew's outlandishly creative ideas and Cam's passion for magic the Gathering!
Keep it up you guys!

Saint George and the Dragon

 

Watercolor, Ink and Poster Color on paper
29cm x 40cm

 "S. George was upon his horse,
and drew out his sword
and garnished him with the sign of the cross,
and rode hardily against the dragon which came towards him,
and smote him with his spear and hurt him sore
and threw him to the ground."
-The Golden Legend: St. George

 About the painting:

Youtube Channel - Viny deWonderful

 I finally debuted a Youtube Channel !!!

  For now I'm uploading time-lapses, but I also intend to use the platform to create more original content. You can see the introduction card bellow and some of the videos that are already up.