Pete Venters – Blog

…This time it’s personal!

Like most anyone with an internet presence I will occasionally search my own name to see what comes up. Tucked in between the pages (and pages!) of card lists there’s the occasional mention in a forum (and it’s 50/50 on whether the mention is complimentary) and once in a blue moon I find something really surprising.

This would be one of those latter occasions because I found a picture I know is my handiwork, but have no recollection of ever painting. The shock was sufficient that when I first saw it my immediate reaction was “WTF?” rather than “oh hey, haven’t seen that in forever”.

That’s the Lhurgoyf, carrying a Rocket Launcher (from Antiquities) which seems to be powered by the Souls of the Damned (Ice Age) while rampaging across a fields of skulls from Spoils of War (also Ice Age). There also appears to be a Nevinyrral’s Disk in the background, and ole Lhurgy is wearing armor, but I have no idea which card that’s referencing. Maybe WTF was the correct response after all.

Yeah, I got nothing. I suspect the image was painted for a Duelist article and I guess it was painted during a VERY busy time which is why I don’t remember it. Possibly as long ago as 1995.

Gotta tell you it’s a weird feeling being (re)introduced to one of your own paintings.

I wonder where the original painting is? If it’s in my studio, it’s really well hidden.

Posted in From the Vault
Tags: Ice Age, Lhurgoyf, Magic the Gathering, Weird

Goblin time! This is a recent commission on a playmat featuring a variety of my goblins from across the years of M:TG.

Posted in Sketch
Tags: 2011, Goblin, Playmat, Sketch

2011 has been a rough year for us so far; my wife’s mother and grandmother have died and in mid April I had to have my favorite – and very young – kitty put to sleep. Needless to say things have been a bit of a struggle.

I’m getting around to some personal projects that need some time, and learning a couple of programs. I’m still trying to get comfortable with Dreamweaver and I’m dipping my toe into zBrush. I’d like more time to tackle zBrush as it’s kind of the coolest digital toy box around.

Anyway, while that’s all happening, here’s a final nod to the Lhurgoyf. It’s a sketch done for an aborted Duelist article. I doubt it’ll ever get painted now, but I like the image so I thought I’d share.

Hmm. I might ink it though. This sketch is about 4 inches high. If you’re interested in buying it, drop me a line with an offer to peteventers@gmail.com

Posted in Sketch
Tags: Lhurgoyf, Sketch

After the five previous sneak peeks of my pieces for the upcoming Transmet Art Book, I discovered a number of people thought the final images were going to remain black & white.

Not so! Here’s a portion of the left half of my double page image from the book…

You’re getting just a portion of the page for two reasons –
1) Because I’d like to save the full image for those of you who bought the book.
2) The full image is OMG NSFW! Seriously.

If you’ve read Transmetropolitan, you may recognize that this is the younger version of Spider from several years before issue #1. The other person is his wife, better known brusquely as The Wife. Their relationship could be described as ‘troubled’ in much the same way as the void of space could be described as ‘nippy’.

This image is entirely conjecture extrapolated from a few scraps of info from the comic book, but that’s what made it so much fun. I knew a lot of artists were going to be focusing on events or people from within the timespan of the series, so I decided to set mine outside of that period. That might give you a clue as to the nature of the other half of my double page image.

I had a blast with these pieces and it was great returning to comic book work after all these years. Also, having read the Transmet series a number of times I took a little bit of fiendish joy filling the images with Easter eggs.

And somewhere in my double page spread, I hid one of the hallmark three-eyed smiley face symbols. It won’t be easy to find. Have fun hunting for it, the book should be with you soon. I’m looking forward to getting my copy!

Posted in Art
Tags: 2011, Art Book, Comic Books, debut, Transmetropolitan

The final stages of the painting await!

The first big change is the shoulder pads; they’ve been completely remodeled! Warcraft’s armor tends to be very intricate, even convoluted and sometimes the shapes can be hard to pin down quickly. It was only after looking at my ref for the umpteenth time that I realized the shoulder pads needed to be broader and the blade made chunkier with a little more curvature at the top and a lot less at the bottom.

If I find myself wondering how I missed this, I can console myself with the fact that no one at Blizzard caught it at the sketch stage either!
Time to get it done!

Posted in Art
Tags: 2010, Goblin, Warcraft, WIP

On to the painting of the goblin. I have a few methods for painting pieces. They’re not wildly different, but there’s methods that work better for some images than others. However, almost all of them start with me blocking out the colors. ‘Blocking out’ refers to applying areas of flat color across an entire image to mark clearly what color (minus shadows and lighting) everything should be. I think my comic books roots are showing…

Prepping the underpainting.

Posted in Art
Tags: 2010, Goblin, Warcraft, WIP

I’ve done a handful of goblin pieces for Warcraft recently. Her’s the second one that I can show you; a maniacal whirling dervish of a goblin rogue called Zakis Trickstab.

Sketches and decapitations this way…

Posted in Art
Tags: 2010, Goblin, Warcraft, WIP

… when you’re having deadlines. Yeah, apart from family stuff, February was packed with deadlines as I dealt with my pieces for the Transmetropolitan Art Book and a couple images for the World of Warcraft CCG.

Speaking of which, here’s one of mine, ‘Kistix Shockvat’ from the last Warcraft release Worldbreaker which came out in December.

March has been quieter except for the awesomeness of the Emerald City Comicon which has managed to become bigger and cooler with every passing year. I hung out at the show this year, walking the aisles and meeting up with friends old, and new. In the latter category, I met Darick Robertson, artist on the brilliant Transmetropolitan who turned out to be an all round great and generous guy.

For ECCC 2012, I think I may get a table and sell some wares.

Anyway, I’ll be back soon with a new WIP, this time for the other card I did for Worldbreaker.

Posted in Art
Tags: 2010, ECCC, Goblin, Transmetropolitan, Warcraft

Man, that was a fast week. So it’s the last of my Transmet Art Book previews and I figured we’d end where we began, with Spider Jerusalem, this time accompanied by Yelena. Spider seems to have exchanged his furious expression for… well, what is that expression? Annoyed? Repulsed? You tell me.

All will become clear when you see the final piece. Hopefully you’ve got a copy preordered. And since I mentioned it, you have until early evening on Valentines Day to make your preorder. This book is not going to be distributed normally so unless your comic store went and did the exact same thing I’m suggesting you do now, you won’t be able to find a copy, except maybe for an outrageously inflated price on eBay…

So, follow this link to the Transmet Art Book on Kickstarter.
It’s for Charity! Hurry, time is running out.

Posted in Art
Tags: 2011, Art Book, Comic Books, debut, Spider Jerusalem, Transmetropolitan, WIP

It’s that gecko-eating cat! He’s looking none too pleased and when you see the final piece you’ll see he’s on the receiving end of some payback. The lounging pose with one hind leg dangling was modeled by my completely graceless cat, Trinian.

Prrrpt? Not so much.

Posted in Art
Tags: 2011, Art Book, Comic Books, debut, Transmetropolitan, WIP