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ere we have various illustrations for the Midnight Realms. Adam Black, Tipop, and Rich Wallace have all contributed their time and talents to this project.
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Here we have a Brood Slaver wielding a living weapon.I had a lot of fun painting this one. Note the glowing eyes and the oily-black skin. I think I am most pleased with how the layers of leather came out on his kilt-like garb. Several times I submitted different versions of this one, and each time everyone said "Make it darker, DARKER!"- Tipop This is draft six of the Brood Slaver, and it doesn't look very much like the original sketch Steve gave me. I decided right off the bat that I was really gonna let my hair down for this piece. No matter what I did, however, I couldn't get him looking creepy enough. So I took a break for the day. Flipped through a book of Brom paintings, and saw a picture of some dude with four eyes. "Kinda different," I said to myself. Later that day, I was watching TV, and saw the ad for the new Shinobi video game. "Cool mask," I thought,"looks like he has four eyes." And, before I went to bed, I stayed up to watch a cartoon where soldiers wore helmets that make them look like they had four eyes. "Okay! I get it!" And that was that. I think he turned out great painted, but he should probably be a little darker. ;) - Adam Black
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A female Tarteran demon-hunter lands on a polished balcony at sunset.Subtlety was called for here. I wanted to accentuate her smooth curves (as opposed to the harsh lighting on the Brood above.) Later, after the entire painting was done, I went back and made her clothing transluscent.- Tipop I told Steve that I thought the Tarterans should be sensual. When you read about their history, you'll see why. Well, he thought that was a good idea, and here she is! This is the first time anyone's gotten to see a Tarteran woman, and I get a kick out of that. You would too, if you were me. :-D - Adam Black
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A Sepharan cultist recieves a new symbol in return for her devotion.I enjoyed this one a lot too, and not just for the two obvious reasons. For the first time since I started colorizing line drawings I actually felt like what I was doing was an art form itself. This was more than just "coloring inside the lines", I was blending the drawn line with the paints I was laying down, creating an amalgam of the original artist's work and my own.I had to make some fairly dramatic changes to this one, because Steve got it into his head that they looked too human in the original drawing. After all, these are denizens of the lower planes... the "hells" according to Talislantan lore. So the hair became tentacles and a third eye was added, along with the background material to explain it all. A lot of work, but I think the results are worth it. - Tipop I'm always excited to watch other people color my crappy artwork. It's like getting a surprise birthday party or something. This was the first one Tipop colored, and when he showed it to me, I had to walk across the room to pick my socks back up. The funky hairstyle is from a woman I've been drawing since 1985 or so. Which got turned into tentacles real quick. Those tentacles...I dig 'em. - Adam Black
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A wealthy Zoab trader discusses business over a light snack.I wanted something really creepy and gross so I went online and looked for maggot pictures. After several minutes I came across some sort of close up shot of a fruit fly maggot and said, "Oh, Yeah!" I just wanted to do a quick sketch to get a feel for the race but my obsessive detail disorder kicked in and here he...er..she...um...it is. I wanted the Zoab corpulent, greedy and evil but with a strange touch of grace, befitting nobility.- Rich Wallace This is a great drawing, beyond the artistic merit, because it inspired Stephan and I. After looking at this picture we got all sorts of ideas regarding Zoab culture and physiology. Their predilection for body-piercing, for example, was definitely inspired by this drawing. This is also the toughest one to paint, though, due to all the detail on the skin surface. Since this one is only about a quarter finished, you can contrast the left and right sides of the Zoab's chest and see a little bit of how I work. Note that his skin will probably be darker when I'm finished... I just use a light tone when I'm doing the detailed shading. - Tipop
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The map of the Midnight Realm.When Stephan sent me the original sketch of the Midnight Realm, I was floored. I had thought we were going to be using the map from the 3rd edition Talislanta Worldbook. However, as I looked at it more and more, I realised that this one had more potential.I don't think he was expecting me to paint it... in fact, at that time all we were going to do was organize the notes he sent me and put them on a website. I was quite pleased by his suprised reaction when I did, though. This was the first painting I did for the Midnight Realm project. - Tipop
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New night demon sketchThis is simply a concept sketch: a "facelift" for the Night Demon, if you will.- Adam Black
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Gellid sketchA quick concept sketch of the Gellid. The final art for this monster will have someone fighting with it, just to give a sense of how large this thing is. Arachnophobes beware.- Adam Black
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