Khal-Drogo, son of Bharbo

Note! I just added labels to all the Game of Thrones/ASOIAF posts-- if you want to just see those, click either of the corresponding labels on the right of the page or at the bottom of this post!

So this Game of Thrones sketch came around after watching "Valhalla Rising" on Netflix instantwatch. It's a strangely slow, beautiful, brutal movie-- pretty dark (vikings!), not much dialogue, but some really nice compositions/filmography and an intriguing main character played by Mads Mikkelsen.

I always draw ladies, and I wanted to draw an interesting-looking toughguy.
Thus: Khal Drogo! The undefeated leader of a hundred-thousand men and horses! Warrior of the plains with a be-ringed moustachio and bells braided into his long oiled hair! I mean, geez, what a description!

I originally wanted to draw Khal Drogo and Daenerys together, but this was just a spur-of-the moment drawing for practice, and I might do an actual composition with them together in the future. In any case, I still have a ways to go with digital painting! (and drawing dudes!)

Bridesmaids Movie

Hello friends!
Quick update-- this Bridesmaids illustration is in the most recent (March 28th) issue of the New Yorker. It's my first New Yorker piece, so I was pretty excited to get the assignment! The turnaround was super quick, just a couple days for everything, but the final size for this baby is only about 1.75x4.5 inches in the magazine. The movie looks really funny, (definitely watch the trailer HERE) and the illo just needed to be a lighthearted general take on it. It also challenged my ability with likenesses! Kristen Wiig is surprisingly difficult to draw!
Sketches:
(upon review, the lineup for this one reminds me of a Scooby-Doo scenario)


ALSO today I got an email from the New Yorker saying they had been contacted by Judd Apatow's assistant because Mr. Apatow wants to purchase a print of my illustration! SO COOL!! (he's the producer for Bridesmaids--and the director/writer of a million fantastic comedy movies) It really made my day, and the strange ways in which the illustration world overlaps with other areas of the universe can be so often unexpected and fun. Yay!

ART HEIST!

OH NO, EVERYONE! I went out to buy cookies and when I came back some of my priceless Vermeers, Rembrandts, Degas, and Manets were GONE!

Some were even CUT out of their frames! With a big scary knife, I bet!

The police are stumped and I've TRIED to alert the public to this disappearing act...

...but the art could have already been passed off to a shady collector in the black market...

...OR maybe it's just sitting forgotten or unsold--stashed under someone's bed or in a dark and spooky warehouse!

I guess I'll leave the empty frames up on the wall in memorium and hope that someday the art will be found again. Only my precious cookies can console me now.

And the weirdest part is, this is ACTUALLY a true story. Minus the cookies. The Isabella Stewart Gardner museum was robbed in 1990, and the 13 pieces taken still have not been found. The estimated value of the art (which includes pieces by all the artists I listed above, and more) is placed around 500 million dollars, which makes it the largest single property theft in recorded history. Crazy, right?! These spots were all done for Boston Common magazine, which ran an article revisiting the heist. It was really interesting for me to find out about it and you might also enjoy reading the article! Kudos again to Anthony Arias, who was my great AD for this project.

I also wanted to say thanks to all the kind folks who have commented on some of my recent digital painting experiments. If any of you are interested, a lot of the brushes I'm playing with have been made from some of the free brushes Bittbox gives away. You can browse through their different offerings here. Drawn also served up a great link to these free photoshop brushes being given away by Chris Wahl-- I can't wait to try them!

Indulge me

Things have been getting pretty nerd-tacular on this blog lately, and this post isn't about to change that!

I swapped some sweet photoshop brushes with Chuck Groeninkt & Sam Bosma, and I had some off time to noodle around with them. I was thinking about doing some more fanart, but I decided to hearken back to my jr. high medieval-fantasy/sci-fi roots and do some original art instead.
(The only downside to fanart is that the art doesn't really 'belong' to you in the end!)

So, here's a warrior queen & her catbeast.

I was initially inspired by these gowns & was going to do a space queen, but ended up going in a different direction. I'll draw a sci-fi lady another day!

And, for you less-medievally inclined people out there, I do have an actual magazine assignment to show you next week. It's about an art heist!

For anyone interested in me talking briefly about Game of Thrones, I have a little interview on this blog: One Cleric Short

The North

To continue this series of leisurely Game of Thrones fanart-sketch-experiments while I rest and recharge, I have JON SNOW and GHOST (his direwolf!) in the frozen land beyond the Wall.


This was a further experiment in making my own photoshop brushes and slapping on more texture. I expanded and made a bunch more! The new brushes are okay, but I wish I could find a really nice sort of dry-brush ink or charcoal-y simulcrum. (besides just drawing traditionally, of course) :) To the people who are curious about how I normally draw-- I just use my wacom and a regular hard round photoshop brush, start to finish, nothing fancy. (when I need texture, I put it in layers over my work)

Horses are way hard to draw. Also, I am disappointed that Jon Snow in the HBO previews has a dumb moustache. Makes him look too old! He's supposed to be a skinny 14-15 yr old!

Sunrise

This week I:

*Mailed out all the Print Giveaway prints. Thanks everyone, they'll be arriving soon!

*Finished up my 4-month-long 32-page kids activity book for Amtrak (waiting to hear if there's revisions! Fingers crossed! Pictures to come in future months.)

*Drew this medieval/Game of Thrones inspired sketch:

This may or may not be Sansa acting romantically tragic in the Red Keep...

During the last month of working on the Amtrak book I had a huge desire to draw for fun, but literally had no time. My illustrations & lettering for the book are verrry crisp and clean, and after sending in the last pages and relaxing a little, I decided to take some time to mess around with the new photoshop brushes and textures and create a new brush.

This image came together pretty haphazardly using a nice texturey brush I created (and some additional textures on top). I didn't plan anything out, I just wanted to GO. It felt good.

Plus, I learned i can draw a lot faster if I'm using a textured brush (I don't have to clean anything up!!) so I'm thinking of trying it out more in the future. What do you think?

Print Giveaway WINNERS!!!

Hoo boy, I got a lot of entries and lovely comments for the print giveaway! You guys blew me away, I will have to definitely do another giveaway in the future.

I got a lot of feedback requesting more book-based illustrations. That's great, because I definitely want to do more literature-influenced personal projects! I have a few more Sabriel illustrations I've been thinking about, as well as some Game of Thrones and sci-fi stuff. I'd love to be able to expand from editorial into the book industry!

But anyway, HERE'S what you've been waiting for, we have THE WINNERS!!! (all were randomly generated!)

CONGRATULATIONS TO:
Niv Bavarsky (from the blog)
Jake (from the blog)
Irma Kniivila (from the blog)
Boum (from the blog)
Reedtard (from twitter)
Jameshindle (from twitter)
Eptin (from twitter)

If you nice folks could all send me an email to kali@ciesemier.com with your address by the end of the week, I can get your prints sent off! If someone hasn't responded by the end of the week, I will draw another winner.

A huge THANK YOU to everyone that entered! You all made me very happy. I've been wavering on setting up an actual print shop somewhere on the internet (rather than just people emailing me when they're interested in a print)-- if anyone has any suggestions or positive experiences with online stores, let me know.

Thanks again, and expect another blog post soon!