Justin Gerard posts
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"The Zombrog" Monster of the Month for October 2023
Our first monster this month is a zombie frog, controlled by the Frog Necromancer! Where is it going? Are there more?? What is its unholy mission? Can we eat them?I had hoped to have the other minions from the Sunken Dungeon Denizen poster ready as well, but the month is still young! I am still missing the Vampole, the Barnacle Oddity, and the Tiny Toad minions before this one can be called complete. Here is where it stands today in my rough layout:(Please ignore all the uneven tones, these are all the lo-res files I am using just for placement...
October Roadmap
Welcome to October! My favorite month of the year! Last month, we released several monsters, our first Denizens collection of monsters, a halloween 2023 preview, a tutorial on color, while also exhibiting at Dragoncon!:It was a wild month and October will be just as busy... We have monsters, martians, tutorials, guides, Illuxcon, and of course, Halloween! This month we will be adding color to the Scarrot, writing a tutorial on the how, when and where I apply details, as well as working to finish the drawing for our Halloween Spiderwolf image du...
Bonus Monsters! "The Cyclopian Cerberus" and more
As October approaches, I've got a little bonus pack of monsters for you! First, is the Cyclopian Cerberus, who was the lone remaining figure on the Denizens of the Banisher's Library poster.I love painting little maniac dogs!!Next, is an axe-wielding Unicorn for FANSTRATICS:And finally, our illustration for Halloween 2023:We streamed a first pass of this one today on Twitch. During the livestream I talked a bit about the inspirations behind this image, (as well as my children's visceral and intense dislike for seeing bunnies about t...
"The Peculiar Denizens" Monster of the Month Series
We are back from Dragoncon! It was awesome and inspiring, and I have returned with refocused goals, maniacal plans and burning obsessions! And today I'd like to share them all with you in this Monster of the Month Update post.First, Dragoncon was incredible and we had such a good show!While there, I got so much great feedback and super positive encouragement about the monster series at the show. It got me really excited to dive back into the series. So many of you asked, when will it be finished? where is the next sketchbook? What about the...
"The Miscreant Rhinomander" Monster of the Month, Plus an October Preview!
We are back from Dragoncon!! It was an awesome show with a lot of great energy and amazing people. We had a blast meeting and hanging out with a lot of you who were there and who came out to our panels. Annie and I both really excited to dive back into painting, especially with Halloween almost upon us!!Now, to business.... While at the show, I got a ton of encouragement and positive feedback on the monsters series. So many people asking, when am I going to finish it? Where is the next sketch book? Where is the field guide? What is happening ne...
September Roadmap
Happy September everybody! I am at DragonCon this weekend! At the show, Annie and I will both be doing demos and talking at panels. So if you are there, come say hi!Here is our event schedule at the show: Title: Mythical Creatures with Justin! Time: Fri 05:30 pm Grand Hall C Hyatt Title: Painting Demo with Annie! Time: Sat 11:30 am Grand Hall D Hyatt Title: Mythology and Folklore in Fantasy Art Time: Sun 02:30 pm Grand Hall C HyattOur booth is in the same spot as usual, on the right after you walk in:We are really looking forward to the show! W...
DragonCon Preview 3 of 3: "Ents!"
For our final preview, I bring you the Ents! The beings responsible for the destruction of my backyard and roof recently...I'm not sure what I did to offend them, wether it was chopping down some oak tree sprouts in my yard, or the hellish orc forges underneath the house; whatever it was it angered them, and they came through and smashed up my house and my car, which is ILLEGAL. That's illegal!! You can't do that!So not wanting them to escape justice I did a few drawings of them as Wanted Posters."Old Mother Willow""The ...
Dragoncon Preview 2 of 3 "Dragons!"
Today's DragonCon preview is of dragons, and the lunatics who set out to slay them, or ride them, or keep them in their basement..."What could possibly go wrong?"A shot of a group of dragonslayers from a recent client project (that I can't mention the name of yet...) I would love to do a painting of this one someday!A Thornbeast and rider for Trudvang."Things that go 'bump' in the basement."This flight of dragons is from a chapter book Annie and I recently illustrated. (I can't mention the name of this one ye...
Dragoncon Preview 1 of 3: Monsters!
Dragoncon is just a few days away, and we have been busy boxing, packing, panicking and getting ready for setup! So I thought it was high time for some previews! For the next 3 days I will be doing daily posts of the new originals I will be bringing to the show. I will also post some pictures of the final setup on our discord channel when we finally get set up. We are looking forward to the show!So without further preamble, here are some monsters:A future #MonsteroftheMonth contender...I can't say much about the previous 2 as the client has...
August Roadmap
Welcome to August! July started off awesome. We did a ton of Martian sketches, a poll, some full color characters, released a new brush set… aaaand then a huge storm came through and smashed our house with a tree. (5 trees actually...) We were just outside on the porch watching the storm roll in under a greenish sky and saw the trees bend in half in the high winds. "Woweee that is crazy!" we thought. And then they just kept bending...We ran inside just as things started to go completely to pieces outside...The power got knocked out fo...
Starflayers, Jellyfangs, and CHAOS!
Recently, we ran a poll for which martian creatures to paint next. "The Starflayer, Flying Starfish, and Jellyfangs," were all at the top of the list.After the poll closed I dove right in and had a blast painting these monstrosities, all of which were based on their delightful little real-world counterparts.While painting them, I put together a new brush set! You can download it here:STARFLAYER BRUSH SET DOWNLOADThe set contains an updated version of the Viper's Fang brush for drawing, (Called the "Frogfoot" in honor of the ...
POLL! A page of Sea Martians
Today I have a page creatures, inspired by studies of crabs, jellyfish, cuttlefish and stingrays, and I need your help! CHOOSE which of these is the most interesting (and terrifying) invasive species. We will be painting the top picks this month on Twitch for the Martian of the Month series.Choose as many as you like, poll ends on Wednesday the 5th. If you want to see the drawing in greater detail a Hi-res download has been attached below!
July Roadmap
Welcome to July! June was a crazy month filled with wild animals, kids out of school, danger on the high seas, road-tripping with giraffes, tornadoes, life drawing, a boatload of NDA work.July is looking to be much the same. I accepted a very large NDA job (which has been awesome! Can't wait to share the work with you later this year when the NDA lifts!)In the meantime though, I still have some big plans for the month, starting with a good old-old-fashoined POLL that will be going up later today for Classic Illustration Subs on what martian...
Wild Animal Safari
Quick report from the road!: As I mentioned last week on Discord, I have been away on vacation doing some on-location drawing. Today I wanted to share a few shots from the last leg of our trip, where we have found all the hoofed mammal reference an artist could ever possibly ask for.Look at those faces!! I love them. Whiskers and horns and weird tongues. These are going to be outstanding reference for monsters!!Most of these friendly herbivores didn't hold still long enough for any kind of proper sketching, but we were able to capture the e...
Martian of the Month Double Feature! Plus Process Guide
This month I have 2 new martians to share with you! And as usual with this Martian of the Month series, I have had some fun making some variations on them. These iterations on the characters are both narrative and game-related. Narratively, they give a chance for us to show what happens to characters we've encountered previously as the game progresses. A straight-laced ship's officer in act 1 might be a desperate mercenary with wielding an illegal particle canon in act 4. From a game perspective, these variations allow us to re-introduc...
Artists and AI Twitch Ted Talk
Yesterday we did a brief Ted Talk going over some of the issues with AI generated art, and how artists should respond to it.As promised, here is the VOD for any of you who missed it!https://youtu.be/WqRzbeOoANc
May Roadmap
Quick post today because May is going to be a month of pure chaos. (I can't explain why, I am NDA'd on an amazing project which I can't wait to share with you later this summer!) While the posts may be a bit lighter, I am still planning on livestreaming on Twitch this month on our usual Wednesday 10AM EST schedule and I want to keep it pretty traditional-focused this month.We've got a new creature we'll be drawing for FANSTRATICS as well as some more traditional watercolors for ENTS&ORCS that I'd like to dive into. Other...
"The Frogtopus Keymaker" Hi-res, Process Guide, and Brush Set!
As many of you know from our recent streams, this month we tackled the "Frogtopus Keymaker!" Today I'm pleased to finally release the brush set and process guide for this tradesman of very fine specialty locks and keys.The process for painting this one followed my usual format, with the drawing doing most of the heavy lifting of the underpainting. For color and lighting I went through "the cycle" about 3 times to add push the nuance and subtlety of the rendering. Overall I feel like it turned out very close to how I had imag...
Fanstratics and Auranith Illustrations for April!
Today I have some new client-related artwork for you! I wanted to stream these, but life caught on fire and the month got away from me.First is Fanstratics! "The Cultist" was a lot of fun to work on, especially all the little hatchings and fun opportunities it presented for pencil-work. For anyone wondering, "what is even happening here?" She has pulled her own heart out and lit it on fire in order to complete this terrible spell.Next, I have 2 previously promised battle scenes from the Auranith project to share with you:The Fin...
Monsters and Martians of the Month
This month I have a new pair of creatures from the long-lost Martian of the Month series to share with you! Contrary to popular opinion, the project is in fact, NOT DEAD. I have just been tinkering, a lot. Most recently on the layout for the guide book, and today am pleased to be able to share a pair of monsters from a spread of the martian bestiary with you!AN UPDATE FORM MARS: Most of the work these past few months has been on UI developments, inventory and weapon design, and have not been as exciting as far as the art and gameplay goes. But ...
"Ents and Orcs" New 2023 Watercolors
Some of you may remember a project I started in 2012 called "Ents & Orcs," which was dedicated to both my love of gnarled old trees, and of JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. The project found its core inspiration in Tolkien's stories of the Ents and their battle against the orcs of Saruman. While he was often sparse on details about their conflicts, what he did say so intrigued me that is set in motion a series of paintings investigating what their feud may have looked like. After a while, the project drifted away from the core t...
April Roadmap
Well folks, it's been fun, but as you can see, art is a losing game and anyway my illustration career has clearly reached its dismal and inevitable end. But we still need money here, so WE ARE CHANGING THIS PATREON TO DOG POSTS ONLY.It's the only thing that sells! My normal art gets me blacklisted on a daily basis, and after crunching the numbers and doing a deep, complex analysis of the algorithms and using predictive, AI-generative futuristic technologies, (in other words, a 2 minute search on Google) I have determined that friendly, ...
FREE POST! The "Frog Bard" & Huion Kamvas 24" 4K Review
In this article I will be reviewing the Huion Kamvas 24" 4K Monitor Tablet, which Huion was kind enough to send to try out. I will also be sharing the process for the painting I made with it. Special thanks to Huion for sponsoring this crazy little painting!The painting is of the "Frog Bard" a character chosen by the Twitch chat in a recent livestream where we tried out the tablet. For the demo I was working in Photoshop and using my own pencils and brushes from my two most recent sets (which you can download here on this Patreon if...
"Temple of the Serpent" Color Final Hi-res!
Today I have a finished painting and Process Guide from the Dungeon Master Series for you. The image was drawn in traditional pencil and then colorized in Photoshop using a Wacom Intuos tablet. I used the "Cycle" method on the painting, which I have covered over the past several months in the Tutorial Tier PDFs. In the above Process Guide, you can see that it all began with all transparent layers, first to add value over the drawing, then to establish color. In stage 1 I use multiply layers to add warm value to the shapes. In stage 2 I ...
"The Ifriline Firecat" Monster of the Month for February 2023
This month I went back the "Miscreant" faction of the Monster of the Month series to bring you THIS devilish little creature!Had so much fun working on the expression for this one. Cats have such great, evil faces!This character was originally designed as an alternate version of our LETSDRAWMONSTERS firecat. I loved both takes on the idea, and could decide which version of the character I preferred. Make it anthropromorphic, or the giant Manticore? So I did both.I have no process guide this month for the Ifriline Firecat because the pro...
Illustrations for February! Temple of the Serpent, Fanstratics, and Hoodoo Village Illustrations
Today I have a selection of works from the past month to share with you. These are all from ongoing projects, some of which we are currently streaming on our Wednesday Twitch streams.First, the final tight drawing for "Temple of the Serpent" from the Dungeon Master Series:Next, the "Mandrill Berserker" from the Fanstratics Project:I also did a brief write-up with a VOD link on Muddycolors for this one, which you can find here.And finally, "The Hoodoo Village," an illustration from a current publishing commission, Magic o...
February Roadmap
Welcome to February! Last month was a big month. We dropped a new Tutorial and a new Texture Brush set, a Process Guide as well as 3 new monsters and 2 new martians.So what's in store for February? This month we focusing heavily on the new Dungeon Master Series image, Temple of the Serpent, which we will be drawing and painting live on Twitch throughout the month:I also plan to share the finished Dark Souls oil painting and a new Fanstratics design later this month as well. Last month we finished the Reaper for Fanstratics:Likely, you will ...
Monster of the Month Triple-Feature, Brush Set, and Process Guide!
This month we are getting 2023 off to a good start! I have 2 new monsters and 2 new Martians to share with you today. Both were made using the new DANGER BEEF brush set textures. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD BRUSH SET No.2301For the Monster of the Month Series, we have "Joanna" (A very dangerous beef indeed) and the Kobold Maniac.For the Martian of the Month series we have the "Trhinocerous" and the "Hobo Fly."The pair of these were made in about 3 hours total, which feels like some kind of crazy record for me. (Now let's ...
VOTE for the Next Monster of the Month!
Earlier this month, we posted "the WereBear" as the monster of the month for January 2023. Today, I need your help deciding who to tackle next! I have 4 new monster drawings I've been working on for you to choose from:"Granny Crow": An Ancient Witch and her Feathered Messenger."Joanna" and a Kobold Maniac. Our first heavy cavalry unit in the series featuring a return to the Kobold line-up."Brimstone" and "Gall". Two castle guard dogs, who aren't looking quite right these days...Ifriline Firecat. A...
The "Were-Bear" Monster of the Month for January 2023
We are kicking off 2023 with this cuddly fellow! "The Were-Bear". Definitely not to be confused with a Care Bear, the Were-Bear is less known for friendship and kindness, and more known for mauling and horrible rage. Still, he is fluffy and probably gives good hugs.With him I also have a new, and very large, process guide. (All these years and I still can't find a standardized layout I am happy with...)I hope the extra detail and notes in the guide makes up for the size. I like being able to show the progress from the drawing to the...
