Owen William Weber Illustration

Sound the Alarm! , 12"x12", oil on paper on masonite, 2014. This is a piece I painted for Fantasy Flight Games from about a year ago.  It was painted for their "Escape from Mt. Gram" deck for their Lord of the Rings LCG.  The description was just to depict a goblin ringing a bell of sorts made from the armor of past victims.  I hadn't really done any evil creatures in a very long time, so I wanted to really show that I can handle the darker side of Lord of the Rings.  Also, I had recently dove head first into Death/Black Metal music and I was really jonesin' for a good demonic painting to paint. Sound the Alarm! sketch , 12"x12", pencil, 2014. I had a great time working on the sketch, and the Art Director liked how it looked, so it was approved for the painting stage without any changes.  As you can see, I kinda get a general composition worked out, but I do a good amount of improvising during the painting stage.  Also, I don't do colo...

It has been a very long time since I have updated this, so I'll have a couple more posts coming up soon.  This one will be about a commission for an upcoming Lord of the Rings deck called "The Wastes of Eriador" from Fantasy Flight Games. It was a pretty straightforward project, here is what the AD sent: Description: Ally. A Guard of the Citadel, dressed in silver with a helm of mithril, bearing the carved wings of sea-birds. He stands guard next to the open gate leading into the topmost tier of Minas Tirith, where we can see the leafless White Tree of Gondor standing prominently behind him. So here is the drawing I sent: Honour Guard Sketch , 10"x10", pencil on Strathmore 400 series, 2014. This was approved, so I went ahead and did the final using oil on masonite. The AD liked it, but wanted me to enlarge the arms and the chest.  I digitally did all the changes, and here is the final image: Honour Guard , 10"x10", digital and oil on...

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 o...

Swarming Mosquitoes , 11"x11", Oil on Paper, on Masonite, 2013. ©Fantasy Flight Games I have been meaning to post this painting for quite some time now, since the card it was painted for came out a month or two ago, sorry if you have been waiting with baited breath.  The description for this commission was to show swarms of hazardous mosquitoes attacking a random ranger in the Dead Marshes.  In order to approach this kind of painting, where the motion of the character swatting at bugs, I couldn't just pose my model in a static position and take a picture.  So my friend, Scott Murphy, came over, dressed in full ranger garb, and flailed around as I held my finger down on a rapid fire setting on my camera.  In a matter or minutes, I had about a hundred pictures from which to choose.  There were some great shots that really showed the motion I wanted, this being the best, in my opinion. This card is part of The Lord of the Rings LCG from Fantasy Flight Game...

Silver Lamp , 11"x11", Oil on Paper on Masonite, 2013. ©Fantasy Flight Games A new card of mine from the Lord of the Rings LCG from Fantasy Flight Games has just been released.  This one is called "Silver Lamp".  The original concept for this image was for it to be a character piece of Haldir of Lórien.  He was to be finding the fellowship in the forest surrounding Lothlórien and lighting their faces.  I guess the Art Director was fond of my design for the lamp, so they changed the card from Haldir to "Silver Lamp".  I myself am very happy with this card.  This is part of The Voice of Isengard set. I should have another piece coming out in the Dead Marshes Nightmare deck in the next couple months, so look out for that. There is also a nice piece that Master of Lore wrote up about this piece on his blog, so if you have a few minutes, you might want to check it out: http://masteroflore.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/artist-spotlight-owen-william-web...

I was just alerted that this piece was released quite a while ago.  I had a really good time painting this piece for "The Black Riders" deck in The Lord of the Rings LCG.  Barliman is a sweet, lovely man, one of the people worth fighting for.  I think I came on to this piece as a last minute addition to fill up the deck.  There was a much quicker due date than most,  so this one is quite small.  I stare at it every once in a while (in the pile of paintings standing against my wall) and it makes me happy.  I'm quite proud of this one.

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.