Skip to main content

Leaf-Wrapped Lembas

Hello Again,

So this time I will be showing the process of painting the latest card of mine that has been released.  The new Lord of the Rings LCG expansion pack from Fantasy Flight Games, "The Road Darkens", has become available, which has my "Leaf-Wrapped Lembas" card.

When I received the assignment, around this time last year, I was immediately excited.  I had been wanting a good excuse to do a highly detailed bread still-life, in the tradition of 18th c. Spanish painters like Luis Meléndez.  I then researched what Tolkien was intending his Lembas bread to be similar to; it turns out he was thinking of Bannock bread.  Luckily enough, I told my wife about this, and she instantly whips out her obsession: Yvette van Boven's Cookbook, Homemade Winter.  She has a great recipe for Bannock bread.  So we quickly fried the bread that night; fried, because it is cooked on a pan over the burners.  It looked great, I was quite happy with the outcome on a purely aesthetic basis.  We both highly recommend it, it turned out great!

The next day I went into Central Park and photographed them in some nice natural light, under a tree, with some big leaves I found along the way.  This is how it turned out:    

Lembas Reference
 I then started drawing the piece on some Strathmore 80lbs. Drawing Paper and just a graphite pencil.  I sent it to the AD Zoë Robinson at Fantasy Flight Games.  She very quickly sent me an emailed telling me I have the go ahead for the final painting.

Lembas Sketch
The painting stage went fairly smooth, since I had such good reference.  I kept the background fairly painterly, and focused in on the detail of the bread.  Painting organic forms does have it's challenges, though.  Since there is no standard form for this bread, one has to look at everything in a very abstract way.  I kind of looked past the detail of the reference and tried to find general forms and colors that I could block in, but even this was difficult.  Eventually, it all worked out.  When one finally gets to doing the highlights, it gets a lot easier to make the bread look like something.

Leaf-Wrapped Lembas, 8"x8", Oil on paper on Masonite, 2013. ©Fantasy Flight Games
And here is the final product.  Hope this was fairly informative.  It was a fun project to work on, especially because it came with great food to munch on, but much like Pippin, I could not get my fill.

Final Card


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Smilodon and Elasmotherium

I have just finished another two paintings in my ongoing Prehistoric Creatures series.  The most recent four in the series have all been mammals that lived millions of years after the dinosaurs went extinct.  I plan to do seven of these mammals and then go back to dinosaurs, maybe group them into Prehistoric Creatures Series 1, Series 2, etc.  They are all for sale, but they have been snatched up quick, so if anyone as inquiries on pricing, please email me at owweberillustration@gmail.com . I have been doing pencil portraits of many prehistoric animals on my instagram account, and these two have gotten the most likes, which is a great way of knowing which creature to paint next for this series.  Smilodon is very well know.  Along with the Woolly Mammoth, it's one of the most well known extinct creatures from the Early Pleistocene era.  It was only a matter of time before I was going to paint this guy.  I wanted to show it in a way that was not often depicted.  We've all see
Post a Comment
Read more

The Magic Feather

This is a piece I did for the Running with Paintbrushes blog Scott, Becca, and I are doing.  The assignment was to do a young adult oriented image based on "Flight".  Mine is more of a children's piece.  I had a great time doing this piece, and am really happy with the final product.  Really fun, got to take my subject matter less seriously. The Magic Feather , 11" x 17", Oil on Paper on Masonite, 2010.
Post a Comment
Read more

Frostbite and Irish Elk

Yesterday, I received my contributor copy of Elder Sign: Omens of Ice which holds the painting "Frostbite" that I painted for it last year.  The idea behind it was that it was a man who had been frostbitten in his hands and face, in a New England town in the early 20th c., I believe.  The AD wanted him screaming and being brought into an ambulance.  I love doing this type of stuff, but I'm never given these types of assignments, so I was very excited.  And a word to the wise, don't google image search "frostbite", it's truly awful to look at.  Here is the sketch that I came up with: Frostbite Sketch, 12" x 8", Pencil. The AD thought the screaming mouth was a bit too much, so I closed it and went ahead with the painting.  Here is the final: Frostbite , 12" x 8", oil on paper on masonite, 2015. ©Fantasy Flight Games Another piece that I just finished and then immediately sold was my "Irish Elk" piece.  This animal w
Post a Comment
Read more