Hi Everybody,

Time for a new art blog (okay, technically 12 hours ago was time for the new blog).

Today’s preview is another awesome piece from Steve Prescott, the Templar splat from the Disparates. I really love this piece… makes me really wish he had time to work on Hunter the Vigil back in the day.

On the last post I added the sketch image in order to give everyone an idea of “the process“… how the piece evolved from the preliminary sketch to the final piece. Every artist has their own style of sketches. I have some artists who turn in a basic thumbnail that basically lays out the composition of the piece and I have some who turn in really tight pencil sketches that show about 90% of the detail that will go into the final piece. As you can see, Steve tends to do really, really tight pencils.

But there is another part of the process that happens well before the artist or I get involved and that is the “art notes“. These are typed up by the developer and can range anywhere from just underlined passages of text to specific scenes and images. For the Templar, Phil’s notes were:

“A clean-cut yet battle-hardened white dude, early 40s, whose craggy face reflects a combination of spiritual devotion and war-fatigue. His severe razor-cropped hairstyle makes him seem all but bald, and he stands in the ruins of some occult den of atrocities. Dressed in current-issue military fatigues (urban camo pattern), he bears a variety of weapons including an unusually long knife. He is NOT a member of the U.S. military, as a number of variations in the uniform and gear can tell us. His insignia patches include a glowing sword, a “Holy Grail” chalice, a geometric design that features a hexagram inside a circle, and – of course – a white cross. Around his neck hangs a second cross, and he inclines his head slightly skyward, as if to see Jesus finally descending from the clouds. (There might even be a “God-cloud” sending a sunbeam down, although that may be overdoing things a bit…) Until God sends word, of course, this dude will do whatever he needs to do. This is a badass for the Lord, and don’t you ever forget it! “

No matter how specific the notes are, we always try to give the artist the freedom to interpret that description in their own way. These variations are made to improve upon the piece and still deliver the gist of the descriptions.

Check back next week as I’ll be showing off more art.