As I’ve been working on the illustrations for Gellini, I’ve also been trying to improve my core digital painting skills and more thoroughly developed my impressionistic style. To do so I’ve developed sketches and speed paintings. At some point I looked around and was like “Crap”, these paintings are cool and everything, but in spite of the fact that they are helpful learning exercises; they aren’t building towards anything conceptually. So I pulled out my stack of old sketchbooks, stuffed full with drawings from numerous other sketchbooks whose bindings have long since crumbled away. What I’m looking for now is inspiration! I need an over all concept, a foundation I can build on, so even while working on developing skills I’m also developing an idea. Then, … I find it. In a large sketch pad I’ve drawn a hollow circle with another circle inside of it with what looks like small rock satellites orbiting it. This is an old concept of mine. A world I developed for my fantasy concepts that I’ve reinvented many times. This is the answer. A world with dragons, and orcs, sky ships and sea monsters, villains and heroes. I call it “Sol’Ashe’”
In this world, present day is a steampunk style intermixing of magic and machine. The Wars that shaped the world are long past and the battles over industry are just beginning. Aside from the fact that this world is one of my favorite concepts, I now have a mythos to work on. When I sketch out a battle between a dragon and a classic, chain mail clad warrior, it’s no longer an isolated incident. It’s a mythic battle, from the storybooks of Sol’Ashe’ that helped shape the foundations of modern territories. Landscape practice speed paintings become an opportunity to develop different areas of a world I’m building. As I work on a painting of a dwarf clad in leather with an axe, He’s not just a dwarf, He’s a legend. Prawn the dwarf king during the great war who turned back the horde of dragons over running dwarven territories. A whole region of the world is named for him.
To some people this greater mythos may seem like a distraction. But it allows me to explore why a character dresses the way he does, where he came from, and what the story of the illustration is. I will be posting more about the development of Sol’Ashe’ as I work on the stories that shaped it. Look for it one day when I develop these original works into an art book or a series of art books.