Pete Venters – Blog

One of the things I’m working on currently is a page or two for the commemorative Transmetropolitan Art Book Hardcover. This is a project for the great Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and I am jazzed at being involved. Just take a look at the collected talent listed in the link below –

Transmet Art Book

Transmetropolitan Art Book Flyer

The production of the book is being funded by using Kickstarter. Check out the right column on the Kickstarter page to see how you can donate and ensure yourself a copy of this very limited edition book.

Posted in Wordy
Tags: 2011, Art Book, debut, Transmetropolitan

Yeah, it’s been a bit quiet here at the blog. Nothing significant, we’ve just had a few house-guests, a con (Steamcon), a bout of snow and record lows and a studio that’s actually a little too cold to comfortably work in no mater what I do to heat it.

I’ll be back with some more stuff soon, but in the meantime for those of you that observe the holiday, have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Posted in Wordy

Currently, I’m working my way through Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. Good harrowing zombie steampunk fun.

I really enjoy steampunk. Its aesthetic is immediately inviting, balancing the fashions and architecture of an amazingly elegant (IMHO) period with a technology that is both more wondrous and more graspable (physically and mentally) than the modern day real world. Indeed, the continuing miniaturization of gadgetry makes imagining a realistic – but visually pleasing – future increasingly difficult. What does a cyberpunk world hold and how can an artist make it both believable (at the current pace of technology) and somehow convey what it’s like to exist in a nano-tech controlled world where so much of what makes life fantastical by today’s standards would be invisible to the naked eye?

Even though I’ve been aware of steampunk since before it made the leap from a concept to a subculture, I’ve never actually drawn anything steampunk. Sure, some of Magic’s self-described ‘mage-punk’ comes close but that’s still a fantasy world of wizards and goblins. How much fun to jump back to a world of stiff collars and even stiffer upper lips!

And one slice of (admittedly far flung fantastical) steampunk I avidly follow is the wonderful Girl Genius comic book by Phil & Kaja Foglio, two of the original Magic artists (with exceptional coloring by Cheyenne Wright).

Okay, back to reading and recuperating.

Posted in Wordy
Tags: Reading, Steampunk

While searching through a drawer of old sketches I found this oddity on a piece of tracing paper (a common method of transferring a sketch to art board). The image is odd because it’s substantially more of the figure than was seen in the final card image.

I suspect this is because I drew the whole figure and then placed the image within the boundaries of the card image, repositioning it until I got a balance of dynamism and seeing as much of the figure as possible.

Well, that’s my guess anyway. It was painted eight years ago so things aren’t exactly crystal clear…

I can’t help but hear “HULK SMASH!” when I see it.

Posted in Art
Tags: 2003, Magic the Gathering, Mirrodin

So, I just got back from vacation where I managed to wrench my back (and had 4 chiropractic visits in 4 days!) and my wife caught a flu bug. Yeah, go us!

Anyway, as I try to get back into the swing of things, let me throw a little sketch your way. Here I was playing with starting two drawings with approximately the same eyes and eyebrows and seeing what wildly different creatures could be attached to them.

Creature doodling can be such fun.

If you’re still hungry for more creatures, I found an amazing blog called Creature Spot. It’s heavy on the bandwidth but a real feast for the eyes.

Posted in Sketch
Tags: Sketch

After the last entry the Joker seems like the appropriate follow-up.

One of my sketch pads has four Joker sketches in quick succession. The first Joker was drawn from memory and was lacking, being timid in both its application and the Joker’s ‘normally’ exaggerated proportions. For the second I nabbed a few Joker-related comics for reference which helped get me on the right track but the image was a little distorted. The third wore a crazed expression, but lacked any of the Joker’s personality.

But this one, the fourth, was immediately my favorite. The linework is loose in just the right way, informative but not restrictive. The Joker’s expression is not as fierce as you might expect; it’s playful and mischievous, as if he’s just bursting to tell you something, maybe to monologue his grand new plan to a captive audience.

Or maybe he’s just looking at Harley.

Either way, he makes me smile too.

Posted in Sketch
Tags: Comic Books, Joker, Sketch

Well, it’s the Halloween weekend here and oddly enough I don’t have a spooky image saved up for this. But… bats are suitably Halloweeny, right?

Here’s a doodle of my fave bat – Batman. Hey, I grew up reading comics and while I was much more of a Superman fan as a kid, my tastes shifted towards the Dark Knight as I reached my late teens. I was lucky enough to be attending the U.K. Comic Arts Convention in its earliest days when the pros were pretty easy to meet and I managed to get all 4 issues of Dark Knight Returns signed by both Frank Miller and Lynn Varley!

I doodled this up during a recent D&D game. It’s drawn in ball point and Sharpie and the blacks are evened out in Photoshop.

Posted in Sketch
Tags: Batman, Comic Books, Sketch

While I’m busy with some stuff (including my wedding anniversary!), I’m going to fire some sketches your way.

This time, it’s an alternate take on my Zur the Enchanter card from MTG: Coldsnap. The sketch cycle for Zur was one of the lengthier ones of my Magic career, probably only beaten by the crazy amount of drawings I did for the 8th edition version of the Lhurgoyf.

The art description for Zur was pretty brief, and it was only through several cycles of sketches and emails that we nailed down just how crazy Zur needed to look…

But when I started the process I imagined Zur as a more serious, even grim, figure pushed to the edge of his sanity and disdainful of those of ‘lesser power’ who had usurped him…

Yeah, he’s one grumpy enchanter ready to ruin your day.

So, for my next sketch, would you like something else from Magic, or something completely different?

Posted in Sketch
Tags: 2005, Coldsnap, Magic the Gathering, Sketch, Zur

I’m a little too busy to tackle the Baron repaint right now, so I thought I’d share with you one of the few additional Baron images I painted over a decade ago. This one was published in the Duelist and I’d thought it accompanied an article for the launch of Homelands. However, the year on the art says 1996 so I guess the article may have been a story review to help fill in the blanks for people. I’ll have to see if I can dig up that issue. Lord knows where I stored my Duelists…

So, presenting the Family Sengir –

This is the only time I’ve ever painted the Baron accompanied by ‘Granny’ and Irini. Also I got to include his adviser, the Sengir Autocrat (originally painted by David A. Cherry), and his henchman, Veldrane of Sengir (originally painted by Susan Van Camp).

Posted in From the Vault
Tags: 1996, Baron Sengir, From the Vault, Grandmother Sengir, Homelands, Irini Sengir, Magic the Gathering

Thank you all for your feedback!

Unsurprisingly, the vote favored a new pose for the Baron which is probably for the best. However, the issue of whether to include a sword split the ranks pretty evenly so I’m leaving that option open for now.

Now to address a few things directly;
Trees, skulls, swords, and no feet to be found!

Posted in W.I.P., Wordy
Tags: Baron Sengir, Dark Barony, Magic the Gathering, Repaint, WIP