I thought I would share the results of a commission I finished in July,2017 for Fireside Creations. I met them at last year’s Gary Con. Here is Eddie Jonas / Stephen Lee’s description for the Blue Dragon Cover artwork:
“The background is a pale blue sky with white clouds. There is a turning young male blue dragon that is using his lightning breath weapon upon a typical D&D party who are looking out from a floating oval portal that is suspended in the sky.
How we got there:
The room the party is in is a bedroom. They had just walked in, surprising the mage, who leapt through his stand-up oval mirror portal, changing to his true form, who has quickly turned and is attacking.”
I put a tremendous amount of loving detail into the scales and am proud of the result. I hope the art worked out for them well. Thanks, boys, for the opportunity to serve…
This is by far your best work yet. A masterpiece for sure
DM: “Roll your Reflex save.”
*die rolling*
PLAYER 1: “Arrgh!”
DM: “Coincidentally, that’s what your character says too.”
I like it, particularly the look of startlement on the face of the leading character, he seems to be much more than simply surprised, I might even say “shocked”.
(heheh)
For the characters and such of the room as can be seen through the portal, did you use photographic reference(s)?
I am asking because of the slight tonality difference inside and outside of the portal, some of it being because of indoor vs outdoor environments of course, but there seems to be a differential depth of focus that you may have had while working on the piece, one that is actually pretty neat.
The draconid “pops” out against either the portal or the vast space behind it, and has a small degree of almost a heraldic stylization to it’s form, one that almost murmurs “There are different rules here…”.
I suspect that it is because whenever rendering a still of a dragon, etc, we are having to break the laws of physics (and biology as we know it, I get a strange amusement from the fact that a wyvern is more plausible biomechanically than a dragon) and…
Actually, just while writing this I figured it out: the “magic user” that the party in the description would have had to be turning even while entering the portal (effectively already almost turned so as to be throwing themselves backward) in order to get that snap (crackle, and pop) shot off without having to do a long turn back around or come back climbing hard.
I can run it pretty clearly in my mind as a cinematic sequence, and it would be pretty quick and take some deft video editing to convey properly to viewers, and I suspect that Would in large part explain why the client wanted to commorate the scene.
Choosing to do so with the artist whose very Classical depiction of a mixed party in a forest opposite the page describing turning radiai of winged creatures during combat in the 1e AD&D DMG is just too awesome (at least I believe that to be the page, or maybe it is the page on getting lost, I know it has a diagram with hexes and arrows and either way I feel as though I am on the “same page” as the client or at least the correct book)
Has the customer already taken delivery, or would it be possible to see high resolution close ups of select portions of the picture?
(Personally I would love a closer look at the wings of the dragon, there is some action going on in them that would be nicer to take a closer look at, and please accept my apologies for the puns, it is very unusual for me to use more than one in a single comment anywhere)
Thanks, Darryl, for your thoughtful comments.
The artwork was delivered to the client in July, 2017. They intended it as a cover, which is why there is so much sky overhead. If you want to see the art up close, you will have to contact Fireside Creations, llc (Eddie Jonas / Stephen Lee).
Again, thanks for your interest. Smiles, Darlene
Lovely work!
Thank you, Kevin