BRYNN METHENEY

Early this year I was approached by Keep A Breast to paint a chest cast for their upcoming show in Tokyo, Japan.  Keep A Breast is a non-profit organization that strives to eradicate breast cancer by exposing young people to methods of prevention, early detection and support. It was quite an honor (and a wonderful surprise) to be able to participate in such a wonderful show and for such an awesome cause. Participating artists were each given a cast of a survivor’s chest and torso to paint according to the theme. This year’s theme was love.

The cast showed up at my door and I began work:

I wanted to draw mother mammals for this project. To me, this really captured the word “love”. This instinct and profound feeling to care for our young is what connects all mammals and survival wouldn’t be possible without it. Nursing was the best way to show a mother’s devotion.

After the animals were drawn out I rendered them out in gouache.

After the gouache was painted, I sealed everything with acrylic washes and highlights. Here’s the views that Keep A Breast took for the show website:

This was such a honor to work on and I’m very excited for the show! All of the participating artists and incredible! You can learn more about the show and see the other amazing casts here: http://www.keep-a-breast.org/tokyoloveshow/

Special thanks to Yasha Young, Kelly Walsh and Sean Clark! :)

Early this year I was asked by comic book creator, writer and illustrator Ethan Nicolle if I’d like to collaborate on a cover for Axe Cop: President of the World #2.

Um, yes.

I was so thrilled to not only work with Ethan but to work on one of my favorite comic books! Dream job. Ethan quickly sent me an incredible pencil to work from:

He had sent me the description prior to see if I was up for it but I was even more pumped to start the cover when I got this sketch in my inbox! So I began work on it, sketching over the sketch a bit to get the proportions and anatomy to where I wanted them. Then I penciled in the final:

After hours of penciling and a few days of painting I sent off the final:

This was a blast to work on. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun painting the Apocalypse. Here’s the final with the book title and some final adjusting:

Special awesome thanks to Ethan for collaborating with me on the cover! It was an honor to work with such an amazing artist! Go checkout Ethan and Malachai’s Axe Cop here: http://www.axecop.com

Axe Cop: President of the World #2 will be available this August!

Axe Cop on Darkhorse

Axe Cop is © to Ethan Nicolle

Last year I was commissioned by Fantasy Flight Games to create illustrations for their card game, Call of Cthulhu. I had worked on the IP before and so I was excited to make more work with creepy creatures and such. My favorite card from the set was released last week so I thought I’d show some of the process that went into the card.

Out of the five cards I produced for the set, this card was surprisingly difficult to get across. I didn’t think I’d have so much trouble with drawing a dog but I was proved wrong. When I began the sketch I opted for something that would show the odd shadows being cast off from the dog. I wanted the card to be subtle:

The dog was supposed look like it was waiting for something but looking at the sketch now, It’s so totally boring! I ended up changing the point of view to show more expression from the dog and give it a more powerful stance.

This was getting closer. The composition was working better and the shadows were still present. This is where illustration is such a collaborative process between the artist and the Art Director. My AD really encouraged me to push the posture and expression of the dog, telling me to give it a more grizzled look and to add to the background a bit. The final sketch was so much better:

Every new job I work on teaches me so much and this job was no exception. I was very happy with the way the final came out in the end. I’ll be adding a few more of the cards to my site as they are published. Special thanks to Andy Christensen for really making this project a joy to work on!

I’ve been working lots on getting ready for Spectrum Art Live in May. The Red Valley is coming along slowly but I’m happy with taking my time with the project. This project is important to me, very important. However, while I’m more than excited to show more of my world, it has been a battle with every piece. Some images do come easier than others but it has been a struggle. This is always a good sign though. I thought I’d show some process for the sandstorm piece (above) I posted on The Red Valley in February. That piece alone took quite a few takes to get right.

I had roughly sketched out a few angles when I began the piece but the sketch I really took from was this. The first official post on The Red Valley was originally going to feature a small burrower. I thought this might play up the size of the storm. The format was always a problem. I’d go back and forth between horizontal and vertical. For whatever reason, I thought a vertical format would be unexpected and play up the size of the storm once a again.

I went back and forth a lot, trying to make the storm work with no luck. It kept looking too patterned or flat and the scale wasn’t working as well as I would have liked either. I probably tried to paint the storm itself a handful of times. Here’s another version:

It still wasn’t working for me. It still didn’t feel as massive as I would have liked so I even tried throwing in some rocky spires and plant life to try and push the scale. At this point I was also realizing that the little creature was not going to work out in this sort of composition.

Sooner or later you have to throw things away. I ended up trashing the vertical composition and trying out a few horizontal sketches:

These were a step closer. They were capturing some of the scale that I wanted but they still didn’t feel consuming. I wanted this storm to feel like it was really coming and was about to consume the land. The point of view was the problem. While I still like this bottom sketch, I wanted the viewer to be closer. I started this process in November of 2011 and I finished the final (the image up top) in January of this year.

I’m not entirely sure how the final came about but I did take a break from looking at this image and did more and more research. I watched every documentary I could find about deserts (there aren’t many) and watched videos people had taken of sandstorms in Australia, Jordan and the Middle East. I looked through tons of photos. Not that I hadn’t before, but I had lost sight of the reference.

Soon, I sat down and just started again with a clean canvas. Sometimes just starting over completely is the key. I didn’t look through the sketches I made or any of the art I created for the image. This helped tremendously and I was able to finish the image. It as quite a struggle but in the end it was fun and worth it.

Stay tuned for more updates and be sure to follow me on facebook and twitter for smaller, more frequent updates!