Caesars Palace Roman Centurion Murals (WIP)!

Dear Blog,

Usually don't take photos of the mural work in progress that we do for Celebrations/ Jubilations Dinner theatres (Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary)...

...So here are some!

This first Roman Centurion  type fella shown here in a couple stages (painted by Yours Truly), wasn't quite finalized at the time, but I thought it may give some fun insight into the process for all those who very rarely catch a glimpse of the room between shows.

As I may have mentioned in previous posts, we use digital projectors to first place, arrange, and otherwise "block in" or outline the paintings throughout the room.  Different techniques are used depending on the art style of the particular show, but most are started with projectors and finalized without, using photo/image references (shown taped to the walls beside the murals).

This soldier was projected, blocked-in with the main solid colours, and using a light brown ("Red Brick") paint, the outline of the details and facial features are traced onto the base coats.

 It was later decided that we would paint the faces of the centurions and show girls with likenesses of our crew and staff...

So here are the middle staged of repainting his face to resemble none other than our theatre's Music Director, The Fantastic Greg Dunstan!

 

From this point on, several more passes were made to tighten up the painting and details, but when we finished painting, it was followed immediately by clean-up, get-the-heck-out, and enjoy beverage and Folklarama (Caribbean/African and Israel Pavilions [Both amazing!]) time, so I will be posting the final photos in the future!

Some other works-in-progress by myself, one of a Statue of Caesar overlooking the main entrance (below), and, at the time of these photos, I had painted the whole fraction of the pillar above the cupboards on the right (Bottom)! Hahah.

The red inside edge was "cut-in" by the Lovely and Multi-talented Gillian Moon, later to be filled in around the other images as the room's background, the other pillars by The Fabulous Karen Turnbull, and the large white gap in the second image was filled with a rather large centurion the following day by myself and our Set Designer, The Magical Rom Fantini...

 

...And that's all for this one, but stay tuned for more and don't forget to leave a comment!

This blog has been mostly a base website for my art and other fun things, but feel free to let me know if you'd like to see more or less of certain things, articles, links, exciting and inspiring info etc...

I want to make this blog as entertaining and worthwhile to all those who continue to read and support!

Thank you for all the amazing comments and feedback so far and take care till next time!

Upcoming Ganster Card Game "Slingin'" Sketches!

Dear Blog,

Here are some more Sketches for a card game I'm co-producing with a gentleman by the name of Richard Hart....

...So far, a creative and thorough game designer, and a wonderful person to work with!

Richard has designed Slingin' -a Drug-War-Gangster-Hip-Hop style card game- with an easy to understand, yet incredibly deep and immersive gameplay style. 

The game comes ready to pick up and play as one "Full" game deck comprised of several smaller game decks, like:

Uptown and Downtown Cards with cards designed around
           Weapons (From Baseball bats to Shotguns),
           "Whips"(Sexy Cars),
           And all manner of crazy characters from Cops and Lawyers
           to Shorties and O.G.'s (Girlfriends and Original Gangstas)!

And of course there'll be

"Go to Jail" style cards and

Background Cards for playable characters, each with their own unique stats

...Just to name a few!

You start with a character and draw cards from the decks, attempting to gain more money, rep, smarts, and dead bodies than your enemies...drawing a new character from the backgrounds if you're killed (and you most likely will be!

Though Slingin' will deal with adult themes and contain graphic content, it's still intended to do so with a tongue-in-cheek approach, parodizing the culture rather than glorifying it.

Of course, that isn't to say it isn't going to have awesome art and gameplay!

Here are a few sketches of some card art so far...

 

These (above) are the Victory Cards - Won at the end of the game for the Most Bodies, Rep, and Money, respectively...

 

We've since decided that the lady friend in "Run This Town" will now be "toned down" a little and will share centre with the her male counterpart, as we want to encourage female gamers to play and win just as much as male gamers!

That's all for now, only another 120 or so more card designs to go... And then to clean and colour them!

But it'll all be worth it, cause this game is gonna to be Off The Heezy!

Stay tuned for more updates and our upcoming Kickstarer Campaign! (Start savin' up yer nickles! :) )

Take care till next time & don't forget to leave a comment!

We'd love to know what you think of Slingin' so far!

Dungeons and Randomness Limited Edition Art Prints!

Dear Blog,

More great news!

Got contacted a few weeks ago by a gentleman by the name of Erik "Tyson" Spindler from the popular D&D Podcast Dungeons and Randomness about some commissioned art prints!

D&R has recently beat out one of, if not, the largest fantasy company in the world, Wizards of the Coast for iTunes Downloads (Last I heard, 44,000 on their "Mailbag 4 Episode"!!!).

Congrats to the entire team!

The Dungeons and Randomness Podcast is a what you would expect from the title- An entertaining and often hilarious combination of two groups (alternating occasionally from cast to cast) of truly down-to-earth, relatable people, from various places, who just like to have a good time talking about the most random of subjects, and equally playing some in-depth and character driven D&D!

Truly a fun time!

They started posting their games on Podbean and the casts started to snowball...

Their followers and fan base continue to grow, even to the surprise of Erik -

"I honestly don't know how it blew up so fast, but it's been a super cool project."...

 and the team has begun to receive requests to bring their world to life.

As a fan of conventions, art and local artists, Erik, being from Winnipeg, came across my Freelanced.com profile while searching for some artists!

We are currently working together on a character portrait of Malchus Grimnas - A Tiefling Warlock played by Rob Wiesehan.

So far the preliminary sketches have been approved and I am continuing to conceptualize and solidify Malchus' look and design as we move forward!

It's been a blast!

As there will be a set of exclusive, limited edition prints being made, I won't be posting any Sketch-work of the portrait until the finals are complete and released to their collectors.

There may be more to come yet and I'll be posting updates on our progress!

In the meantime, you can check out the Dungeons and Randomness Podcast here, or you can find a link to their Podbean on the left of this Blog in "My Friends' Sites!".

And here's the Mailbag 4 episode where Erik and the gang first mention the art project-

(Name drop around 79:00 min! ;p )

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Check back in the next few days for some more updates on my other Projects- Champions of Haven, Slingin', Chronos, and Hi-Fi!

Cheers!