Owen William Weber Illustration

Gondorian Shield, Oil on paper on Masonite, 13" x 11", 2012. ©Fantasy Flight Games I finished this piece for Fantasy Flight Games way back in January of 2012.  The project just kept getting pushed back.  Now it has finally come out in the Lord of the Rings: The Steward's Fear deck.  I really loved doing this piece, I felt like I really loosened up my brush strokes and the palette was exactly as I envisioned it in my head.  This was the first Lord of the Rings piece I've ever done.  I've always thought that I was never worthy or that I wouldn't be able to paint a more interesting image than any of the great artists that have made Lord of the Rings imagery.  But when I got this assignment, it was almost a relief that I wouldn't be depicting some climactic scene from the novels.  I can do Gondorian Shields.  And I'm very happy with how I depicted this item for the game.

For the past month or so, I had been working on a commission for a book cover for a self-published book called "The Silent Deal".  The author, Levi Stack, got in touch with me because he enjoyed my "Save the Date" image from my wedding so much.  I had used Vladislav Erko's playing cards as inspiration for the Save the Date, and Levi was looking for a similar style for his cover.  He wanted the two main characters to be shown on the king of spades card.  Levi had wonderful descriptions for the way the characters looked and how the personalities differed.  He was a great help, and made making the image an extremely painless experience.  I hope "The Silent Deal" is a success and we can work together again on the next book in the series. Here is an image of the finished painting: The Silent Deal, 13.25" x 20", Oil on Paper on Masonite, 2013. ©Owen William Weber And here is the final cover image.  I personally think this looks awesom...