Four of Swords final

So about 80% of the way into my Four of Swords piece, I realized that I was not going to be happy with the end result. Image and concept wise, I felt that it was falling short of what I was after. I don't know why it took me as long as that to make up my mind, but I came to the conclusion that the best thing to do was to junk it and take things back to the sketch phase. I don't generally like to scrap a piece and start over at such a late stage, but sometimes it's really the best choice, and having the freedom to make that call (as I do on this set) is definately a good thing. Every once in a rare while you just need to make radical decisions at the 11th hour. So anyhow, it was back to square one on the Four of Swords. I decided to take a bolder and more graphic aproach to the piece and to get something that would give a stronger emotional punch.




















Also, I think that the first installment is in the new Heavy Metal that just came out. This (above) piece will be for the Nov/Dec issue.

New wallpapers uploaded

I just added some wallpapers to my site, go check them out and let me decorate your desktop: www.dvpalumbo.com/downloads

New digi line work

Been back into the digital pen and inks now that my computer is back online. A couple warm-ups:

Some new YA cover paintings

Let me tell you, when your computer contracts a serious virus, it becomes very difficult to update to your blog :(

So anyhow, sorry for the extended silence. Here is a series of YA covers that I completed recently, just some cute little vignettes. The bottom most piece is for the back cover image to be used on all four:

Four of Swords underpainting

An update to the Four of Swords tarot piece. Here's my acrylic underpainting. Once I've shot my refs and layed out the drawing, I transfer it to a gessoed board and do a quick tonal block in with acrylic washes. The next step from here is just to jump right in to the oils.

New oil sketch

I haven't done any loose/brushy oils in several months, so here's a little something I felt like knocking off this afternoon. 8x11 on board, say about 2 hours.

Dwarven Strategist

I got home early yesterday morning from a long weekend away from the studio. I had a great time, though not much to show for it artwise, so here's a little piece that I did a little while back and never got around to posting anyplace. Not for a job or anything, just some fooling about. Oils on board, 8x10