Our Guest Artist Series is a non-profit online gallery created to inspire artists and creative audiences. Every month a new video highlights the work and process of a featured Guest Artist.
A bounty-hunter's aircraft burns through the exosphere of a sentient planet and out into the glittering sky.
After the war, Alessandro dedicated his life to helping people with their common daily tasks and returned to Italy to open a small shoe repair shop. He slowly built a reputation for his kindness and craftsmanship to become one of the best shoemakers in town.
Alessandro sends a portion of the money he makes to his new love, Camilla, who resides in France for now. They both hope to finish their lives together here in this sweet Italian village.
As the fisherman stood by the hot spring pools, he found himself greeted by a rather peculiar village in the middle of a lake. The houses were stacked on each other, forming a monolithic structure that shoots upwards towards the sky.
Conversation is based on Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's Baby, a short story about a group of astronauts who join a mission to terraform a seemingly sterile planet in order to populate it with a race of intelligent beings. However, the planet turns out to be inhabited by beings of no particular shape or size who live within its bowels, only occasionally revealing themselves in the form of huge antennae that emerge over the mountains.
Near their campsite at the pole of the planet, the group meets a human child who crash-landed on the planet and has been raised from infancy by the planet's intelligent inhabitants. The child's body has been altered and endowed with abilities to make its survival possible.
The illustration depicts the first conversation between the Baby and the head of the group, Gennady Komov.
Originally inspired by the concept of a poisonous forest, Serpent Ritual is a character design of many influences. Its primary design elements reference the mouth, fangs, and venom of a poisonous snake, while its personality is imagined to be that of a magician from Dungeons and Dragons in the role of a priest. Having signed a contract with an evil snake god, she now collects souls to present at its altar.
The setting of the Darksiders universe also served as key inspiration during the development process, while the dynamic pose is influenced by the work of illustrator and former art director of the Korean Wuxia-themed MMO Blade & Soul, Kim Hyung-tae.
Far off in the mountains, this village adorns its houses with ancient bells and windchimes to ward off monsters and guide people toward their town with music.
Suspended in the high orbit of the colony-planet Tui Prime sits the Brecht gateway, one of many port stations that provide refueling and repairs to traveling starships. The workers - most of whom are natives to the planet - constantly watch the days pass in their home from far away, separated by 30,000 kilometers of deep space. Many of them wonder when, or if, they can ever afford to return.
A small task force of law enforcement ships speeds off towards Tui, sent by the corporation that owns the colony-planet in a rush to fulfill an unknown mission. The planet belongs to them now, and they do as they will.
It had been over 50 years since the vessel disappeared beneath the icy waters and no one had been able to locate it until now. There was a package of great interest inside, the result of an experiment that was being moved to the continent for study.
After weeks of exhaustive exploration, a small team spotted a glint of metal in a distant small bay. The crew's excitement soared as they closed in on the stranded wreckage. But excitement quickly turned to fear as the team realized that they were in the presence of something they could not understand. It was like the wreckage was trying to whisper.
There was something inside. The package was alive.
Shilpakara was the name given to the ancient extraterrestrial culture that drew inspiration from Indian architectural traditions. Legend had it that the Shilpakarans were descended from a race of celestial beings who had journeyed across the cosmos in search of knowledge and wisdom. Along the way, they had encountered countless civilizations, each with its own unique culture and traditions.
For centuries, the Shilpakarans had been revered throughout the universe for their mastery of design and craftsmanship. That mastery is perhaps best reflected in the awe-inspiring structures they created in the city of Divyasthala. Inspired by what they had seen and experienced, the Shilpakarans had blended these diverse influences into a style that was both distinctive and visionary.
Slash is a piece that's part of a larger personal project called Comic Marauder. In it, the original character Jazper is slicing through the meteor rain to begin their exploration of this planet.