Some new bits and pieces.

First, for arcane reasons that only Google know about, I have tried to answer some more of the comments made about my last blog relating how Ian [Livingstone] and I met but without success ... so here is what I tried to 'say'...

"In regard to the film "Death" I contacted Martin the director, who at present is in Cannes at the festival, who told me it will be sub-titled if it sells well, so fingers crossed in that regard.
Apparently it will be appearing at several Film Festivals around the world .... so do look out for it.

As for 'your' comments in regard to Ian and I meeting, I can only say thank you for your kind words, which are sincerely appreciated!"

Now, as promised last post, here are are a few new pieces of work for you to look at.

First, some new work for for Goodman Games.... who has just published his Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game with some of my previous work.

 http://www.goodman-games.com/5070artpreviewnicholson.html

For Kobold Quarterly [Issue 21] Magazine's Spring issue ... here are a couple of pieces.

http://www.koboldquarterly.com/

Now here is some work for French Clients, including Le Grimoire ... The first were put into the Le Grimoire shop for sale including a new version of the Warlock of Firetop Mountain and Balthus Dire and some of which have now sold ...

The next two pictures relate The Lone Wolf series published through Le Grimoire

http://www.legrimoire.net/store/en/15-galerie-des-artistes

Occasionally clients get the unexpected .... I'll publish a couple more next post, then it's back to the past. I recently found print versions of work I did based on The Hobbit  many years ago and long before Warlock. I had thought al the copies I had left had all been destroyed when I had a roof collapse with accompanying rain flood, which damaged a lot of stuff, including artwork, in a back room. But low and behold ... two survive ...so they too, if I can take a decent photograph, along with an unprinted White Dwarf piece {it is very big] will feature in a future post. 

Should there have been a roll of drums?

Well, as mentioned last post, went to see the film 'Death' , at BAFTA, a small independent piece by the excellent Martin Gooch who wrote, directed and did all the jobs that nobody else was available for, and we had a good time, both watching the film, which features my work in the titles and in a couple of scenes, and meeting others.

Now this is where I was wondering if there might have been a roll of drums, or at least a crack of thunder [it rained enough] when I introduced myself to that doyen of gaming Ian Livingstone. Who, along with Steve Jackson, created the Fighting Fantasy series and launched a lot of happy people into the world of roll playing gaming certainly in this country.

As it turned out there was no roll of drums, or thunder, but in the ensuing din around we had a nice conversation, in which he voiced his surprise that we'd never spoken to each other face to face. I had intended to start with a quip about, 'Dr. Livingstone I presume',  but in all the turmoil of reaching him through the packed room .... forgot. I also met his lovely wife, and lad, and she very kindly took our photograph, which Ian has passed on and I post below.

So for all those that wanted to see us together.... there you have it, and who knows maybe we'll work together again in the future.

As mentioned, it was good evening, and day, for caught a 'free' rehearsal of Beethoven's 1812 Overture at the local church of St. James. Most interesting to see how the conductor chose what to emphasis and of course there was the flying baton.... But we're only now recovered from travelling under London, via Piccadilly, would you believe ... Never again on the underground. It's too much walking and climbing for two old dears.

Now I cannot go without posting a couple of other pictures, thanks to the incomparable Andy these come from Blacksand Advanced Fighting Fantasy.

 Also a couple of old White Dwarf magazine pieces [ If I've posted these before my apologies].

Right that's it for now. Next time, some new work.

The Trolltooth Wars.... during April Showers.

I wrote before that I would be posting some pictures, thanks to Andy and others, that I did for The Trolltooth Wars, which was the first in a series of written stories in the Fighting Fantasy mythos. It was written by Steve Jackson, then the last two, Demonstealer, and Shadowmaster [as far as my work is concerned] were written by Marc Gascoigne.

The first was the most interesting in that I was given the opportunity to choose the scenes to illustrate, after reading the galley manuscript, and this also included me selecting the layout of where, and how, the pictures would appear from its double page frontispiece and title page to the split illustrations and the double page spread, which in hindsight, I think was let down by the gutter 'split'.
Below are the two 'wings' of the frontispiece and title page [though I had nothing to do with the typography or text layout].

When I was offered the job I had to also do a sample to see what 'they' at Penguin, and I assume, Steve thought. My first drawing was apparently rejected because the shading I used was thought too 'real' and not as stylised as the work I was 'known' for. It taught me a lesson, stick to what you're considered good at. lol. Mind you, on occasion I still try to vary what I do. 

Below see the final 'split' picture, which is the same layout as the one rejected, just stylised with less 'shading' [ cross hatching] to the inks. The idea was these two pictures would frame the text and hopefully add to the scene.

OK. Now onto a few more examples from the original book.

I 're-worked' our friend above recently for the Le Grimoire 'shop'. I'll post more about this at a later date.

The book finished with a scene that showed all that had gone on had been but a game of greater gods. Steve, I remember, remarked that a lot of his script never saw print.

Sorry for the poor quality of these but they were 'lifted' and scanned by that infamous collector of images a.n.other.

To my mind, the whole project was a lot of fun, but in the end it was let down by the fact that the print paper selected did not do justice to the drawings. This is even more apparent if we look at one of the pictures scanned from the title 'Shadowmaster'.

Finally, a couple of other pictures from other titles, such as Blacksand, to round of this post.

Till the next time .... and after I've been to the première of the movie Death! , by Martin Gooch, this coming Saturday, and it is so good to hear the film has been selected to open the SCI-FI-Film Festival, London, in May.

Besides that I'm fairly busy, which is nice [grin] even if I'm recovering from an annoying bronchial infection. No worries though .. bye for the now.

Dicing with Dragons

As the last scans of my work used in Dicing with Dragons have just been posted in http://adventuresandshopping.blogspot.co.uk/ an excellent Blog by Billiam Babble who has, among other things, written a very nice piece about me in his latest post. See the side bar, or use the link, for those who would like to read it. 

But for those others, here are the pictures. Yes I know I promised a 'Trolltooth War' post next, and I haven't forgotten. It will be coming soon.

Here I imagined one of my own drawings as a Citadel figure. I never saw this one made but Citadel did base a few of their figures on my drawings, and thanks to being sent examples I even have a few 'somewhere'.
I have so much 'stuff' that 'somewhere' is becoming the plaintive cry of the lesser spotted Russ. Squawk!

 Where do ideas come from is an often asked question, and with this chapter head I show a few iconic film images that I've always found inspirational, certainly as mood if not story. i love movies sad that so few of the old black and white classics are shown anymore on TV.

 The following pictures all appeared to illustrate the game that was part of the original book. The game itself was later printed as a solo book itself called 'Eye of the Dragon', but my work was 'dumped', and does not, as far as I can see, appear. Instead it features [I understand] the work of that excellent Fantasy artist Martin McKenna. But thanks to Will and his diligent work you have the chance to see the original drawings, which themselves might seem familiar because such pictorial themes used often appear in the FF series.

 One characteristic that I've been accused of, by a few in the past, is of being boring [fair enough] in my simplistic compositional viewpoint by the use of the 'square' room type picture that you, the viewer, look into. Such a picture formula was much used in the early books.

Can I say, for the record, that was not by choice, but because of my instructions, given from the authors, and I made every attempt to break out of that formulaic format at every opportunity. Occasionally I succeeded, and occasionally I did not.

My experience was to be given a series of illustrative descriptive tasks to work from and not the whole manuscript.There were a couple of exceptions, 'The Trolltoth Wars' being one, but they were rare.

                                 How do I start ... well, at the finish of course :)

So there you have it a peek into the past. Hope it brought back some happy memories.