Justin Gerard posts
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#LETSDRAWMONSTERS Prompt for September
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 SpiritVery little is known about the elusive and mysterious Possum Spirit. What we do know is this: It is an ancient and otherworldly creature, that lives in mounds deep in the forest, and can go between our world, and the spirit world. When it is seen, which is rare, it i...
DISCORD LINK!
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/cBRFySWThe 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 community for practitioners and enthusiasts of imaginative realism, fantasy, narrative art, chocolate chip cookies, and of course, making monsters. :) We hope you'll stop in and join us.-jg
September Roadmap
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 The Gates of Hell Post And AnimaticAnd our Tutorial for the Month was one offering insight on Entering and getting accepted into art competitions from a judges perspective.What's in store for September:FIRST! ....WE HAVE A DISCORD! The Extra Fine Monsters Club!It started as a place for mentees from the mentorships tier and eventually grew into a larger group of artists sharing their work, inspiratio...
Process Guides Double Feature
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. And I also have a Bonus Process Guide for the Dwarven Hammer Smith:It shows the process I use when I work with an art director for character art, particularly when I worry tha...
Chaos Chimera Final Hi-Res and Brush Set
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 corner, we battled swarms of insect invaders, and then our house literally flooded, all in the span of 2 weeks. So this turned out to be...
"To the Gates of Hell" Final Color Hi-Res
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.Most importantly, the angle was placed beyond the fallen demons, and the horizon line was made to obscure the bottom of the angel's feet. This ...
#LETSDRAWMONSTERS GOLDEN SLUGLORD AWARDS
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 got prizes, so they are not eligible for the Golden Sluglord. Check them out!:CONGRATS to all our winners!SECOND! Here are your choices!:Lastly, If you spot any errors in the images, or I have forgotten your image, please message me right away! I will ma...
PRODUCT REVIEW: LEGION YUPO for DRAWING
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. (I know that it has a loyal fanbase for its role in wet media, so I am noting in advance, this review is purely for its performance as a drawing surface.)So what am I looking ...
"To the Gates of Hell" Hi Res Drawing
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 paperlater 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:I haven't had a chance to do this kind of imagery in a long time, so I am very much looking forward to diving into color on this one!
#LETSDRAWMONSTERS for August: "The Calico Calamander!"
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/justingerardillustrationHope to see you there!Awards today will be for: Most Slimy Most Ugdorable ...And Most Likely to Destroy Your CouchGood luck everyone!
The Chaos Chimera Hi-Res Drawing
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 the 5 hour challenge??? I don't know. We are down 1 hour so far! Livestream the color for it???
#Smaugust Roadmap + Discount Code
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 month was awesome! We actually finished these two new paintings for A Plague of Dragons:The Dragon Dance and Downfall. And also offered a process guide for them. We did most of the...
"The Dragon Dance" Hi-Res Wallpaper
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 in the sky there, but it was definitely a magical place and time, and is one of my...
Grumble Bee video and BRUSH SET
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. "Bee Striper" is an excellent oil brush and in combination with...
The Grumble Bee High-Res and VOD link!
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 from viewers.He started as a winged menace, a personification of my hatred of pestilential stinging insects, and by t...
"Downfall" Hi-Res Image and Process Guide
Downfall. A scene from A Plague of Dragons and ourClassic 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 I really like to paint over much larger drawings. However, in this case everything I needed was captured in the small drawing and it felt re...
#LETSDRAWMONSTERS GOLDEN SLUGLORD AWARDS
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 5 total award winners who are all excluded from the judging. (Marked with the🏆emoji.) It also means that we can do a normal poll style for the votes...
Monster of the Month Battle!
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: I already haaaaate the Grumble Bee. Not because I think it wouldn't be a cool monster, but rather because finishing the drawing for it was a gruesome slog...
July Roadmap
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!In honor of Annie's Birthday month, we decided to mash-up her two most favorite creatures in the world! Frogs and French Bulldogs! AND I...
"The Frog Necromancer" Hi Res Final and Process Animatic.
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 added in with the "Flattened Frog" brush. "Mist Control"...
"The Basilisk"
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 in the wide variety of textures I had planned for. Scales, scrub grass, fine moss, craggy rocks, water, fabric and...
"Frog Necromancer" Monster-of-the-Month for June
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 of miscreants. So last month was rats, this month is frogs!Hope you are safe and well! -jg
"The Basilisk" Classic Fantasy Illustration for June 2020: Drawing and Concept Art
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 sacrifices to this creature in the belief that it is a god and will give them a plentiful harvest or stave off natural calamities. So there will be a lot of allusions to that civilization and this practice i...
Patron's Choice Votes 🏆 for the Golden Sluglord Award 🏆 for Best "Scowl"
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 ineligible for this prize. Congrats to our category winners! :DSO! Which is your favorite version of the Grea...
"The Great Horned Scowl" #LETSDRDAWMONSTERS for June 2020
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 here for at least a few months.Also, we raised a total of $325 on stream for charity! Thank you everyone for the donations and support! It isn't much, but we are proud to do what we can....
#LETSDRAWMONSTERS June Creature Prompt!
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, and do not like to be watched. They reportedly have the face of an owl, with all its knowing and nob...
Patreon Poll for June Illustration!
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 Classic Fantasy Illustration for the month as well as the work subject for a few Twitch livestreams! The poll is open until Friday the 12th! You can select as many as you want, but I will only be painting the one with the most votes this month. (Hopefully we will get to the runner's up in...
It's Sketchbook-ception! A Sketchbook of 40 Sketches in 40 Sketchbooks
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 putting up with the slower than usual content recently while I got these wrapped up. Thanks again eve...
Elle of Yorn and the Dragon Kiln: Wrap-around Back Cover Illustration!
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" brushes from the Were-Lizard Monster Set to get all th...
#LETSDRAWMONSTERS Stream Postponed
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! -Justin and Annie
