Hey all.. Gene here. I have the priviledge of kicking off the Robot ArtBlog's Theme... Monsters!... hope you enjoy...

I read the Wheel of Time Series of Fantasy novels by Robert Jordan during my college years. Ok... I made it to Book 5 or 6 of the series... I luv’d the characters, the world, the intricate detail, etc that Robert created but the books are just soooo looong winded. I eventually threw in the towel BUT... I found the world, characters, creatures, and the lore very artistically inspiring and interesting. One of the main creatures that always stuck in my noggin were the Shadowspawn's Trollocs. These creatures made up the bulk of the Shadowspawn's mainline infantry type units. Animal DNA magically fused with human... Trollocs were very cool creatures to read about and inspired me to create my own versions while in college and here today.

This Trolloc would be Man fused with Ram. A lower level mix version... more Beast than Man... this creature cares little (or even fathoms) rank adornment, vanity items, braids, etc etc... his armor is picked up from the victims it slays... and even then a higher ranking\ higher intelligence Trolloc has to put it on for him.

All this creature knows is torment creating a furiosity to kill.

Hope you enjoy the Lineart and Color versions! The color version was inspired by the art style of the game Borderlands. This style naturally matches my own graphic style.  Once I started playing the game I immediately was fired up to put some color, with heavy black outline, on my entry into this Robot ArtBlog’s Theme.

Btw... my son is an aspiring video game artist. His feedback on this Trolloc was a great help... his best recommendation being the flies you see buzzing around this Trolloc.  This is the perfect touch in implying that this guy has a nasty animal~like stench about him. Thanks Jake!

Hey all... over the past few months my fellow artists have been kicking out some really inspiring images based on themes selected by our staff. Our newest addition is “Saturday Morning Cartoons”. I selected Skeletor from The Masters of the Universe. I have an affinity for the Fantasy genre so this seemed like a natural fit.

I have fond memories of watching the series with my brother while growing up. Even fonder memories of collecting all kind of Masters of the Universe action figures. They would stay in tact for about a week before they’d meet their demise via our BB guns and M-80’s. Ahhh good times!

My memories of Skeletor are of this cheesy powder blue muscled out dude with a skull head wrapped in a purple cloak. I always thought it was kind of silly that this guy was all buff yet had a skull head. But it never mattered because this character oozed a cool kind of evil (not Darth Vader level cool… but close). If anyone can pull off cheesy it’s a charcater with the tagline “Evil Lord of Destruction.” While gathering reference of Skeletor I stumbled upon A LOT of very inspiring illustrations and action figures that artists have created over the years. If my finished piece is even half as inspiring as most of the work I’ve seen I’d be one happy guy.

I decided to execute my version of Skeletor as a line art spot illustration. The type of illustration that can be found in many older D&D Monster Manuals, Fantasy novels (The Dragonlance Chronicles come to mind), etc. While growing up, and all through art school, my goal was to create spot illustrations for Fantasy publications. I finally received my chance while working at my first video game development house, DreamForge Intertainment. I had the opportunity to create the spot illustrations for the entire Anvil of Dawn (PC game ’95) clue book. To this day creating the illustrations for this book is the achievement I am most proud of.

Although I have a strong appreciation for line art it doesn’t have quite the visual eyecatching “WOW!” impact as something in color (which is part of its functionality actually) … so I decided to roll up my sleeves, crop my illustration, and put some color to it. Color theory and lighting has always been a welcome challenge that takes a great deal of practice, talent, color and material understanding to master. I have a long way to go until I feel as if I have it mastered but as with anything that is worth getting great at… it takes time and practice.

Hope you enjoy my 1st addition to the Art Staff’s Theme blog!

Gene