Bryant Paul Johnson

Three kids dressed in modern clothing stand in from of a fantasy backdrop: a castle looming over a stepped hill. The kid on the left is stepping through a red portal. He’s dressed like a teenaged metal head, and holds a glowing skeleton key. The kid in the center is wearing a green sweater and slacks. He is holding a backpack with sword sticking out from it. The kid on the right is wearing a red hoodie. She’s holding a spear.

Nova Cromlec might be famous for its monsters, but did you know it also has thousands of miles of pristine coastlines, lovely green hills, and charming villages? And monsters. Lots of monsters.

Nova Cromlec: coming soon to an inter dimensional portal near you!

Three kids dressed in modern clothing stand in from of a fantasy backdrop: a castle looming over a stepped hill. The kid on the left is stepping through a red portal. He’s dressed like a teenaged metal head, and holds a glowing skeleton key. The kid in the center is wearing a green sweater and slacks. He is holding a backpack with sword sticking out from it. The kid on the right is wearing a red hoodie. She’s holding a spear.

Nova Cromlec might be famous for its monsters, but did you know it also has thousands of miles of pristine coastlines, lovely green hills, and charming villages? And monsters. Lots of monsters.

Nova Cromlec: coming soon to an inter dimensional portal near you!

I've definitely seen others that are more gothic... I'll try to remember where I saw them! (The downside of seeing things in passing on Instagram is that I can never remember the specifics.)

@elisabethalba.bsky.social Has several tarot decks that might fit this bill! (Including one with amazingly cute woodland critters!) www.albaillustration.com/whimsy-woods...

If you don't go out preaching the good word, the Duolingo owl gets really sad.

Proselytizing is gamefied empathy.

(Sorry, I was just thinking about that so-called Christian dude railing against empathy.)

Wow, thank you! I hope to do more comic stuff in the future. I'll try my hardest to not draw all the hidden details.

Also, I saw that my friend Matt did one of the variant covers for your Ghostbusters comic! (I met him a million years ago when he was a docent at the Words and Pictures Museum.)

That what I should do, but never actually seem to. Most of my stuff these days is just illustration, so I almost always prioritize the art. I've let my comics skills atrophy!

My favorite thing to do is edit the text so that the word balloons don't cover that perfect hand that came out exactly how I wanted it to.

Adobe asked me to fill out a survey on AI tools. I’d urge any graphic artists to make it clear that AI tools are bad for everyone. They’re bad for artists who lose revenue. They’re bad for clients who want images that effectively communicate. And they train an audience to expect visual garbage.

Twice the work, for the same pay! (Which, since it's my own work, is 2x zero.)

Quite often, when I'm lettering my own work, I'll do a hybrid: I'll letter it digitally to get the layout and balloons, then create digital lettering guides and letter them on my iPad. You get that slightly janky analog quality, but the ability to adjust things when stuff needs to be edited.

Finally, my untapped marketing prowess is manifesting!

Two pumpkin headed figure surround a man in a striped shirt who is staring at a pumpkin hovering in the air. They’re surrounded by an ivy covered stone circle. It’s all very mysterious. Well, not that mysterious. The artist is implying that scarecrows are the result of some sort of dread chthonic ritual, and not just agricultural necessity.

It’s kidlit postcard day! Do you like weird, kinda humorous takes on folklore, fantasy, & whiling away time in offices waiting for the heat death of the universe? Do you think that scarecrows are born, and not made? I’m your guy. This illustration is titled “It’s the Great Eschaton, Charlie Brown”.

This statement has not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Whenever I need to concentrate, but need music to drown out the tinnitus, I listen to Medieval LoFi. It keeps showing up in my end-of-year lists for number of plays!

Interesting! I guess that makes sense. If it also meant not having to wait 15 minutes every third time you play a game for the latest software updates, that might be a worthwhile tradeoff.

I worked on a couple of titles in the early 2000s for PS2 & XBOX. It was such a chore getting assets on the PS2 because of processor specs. Each bump in processing means less optimization is needed by the art team who would rather eat glass than spend time trimming poly counts & texture size.

I keep seeing weird ads for Fox News while watching Robin of Sherwood. Nothing like watching a tale of outsiders fighting against oppression interspersed with creepy dog whistle jingoism.

A fan cover of Philip Pullman’s novel “The Golden Compass.” It shows Lyra Belacqua clad in arctic garb running through a snowy forest. In the background is the aurora Borealis. Beside her are a pine marten (Pantalaimon) and a polar bear (Iorek Byrnison).

The same as the previous image, but the title has been changed to “The Northern Lights,” which was the novel’s original title.

A bit of good luck for me!
‘Cause I’ve got a golden compass!

A mocked up cover for The Golden Compass, or The Northern Lights, if you’re reading this anywhere but in the US.

Drawn in Affinity Designer, as mostly vector.

Right! I hope the guy in the widow’s peak hood is a recurring character!

I didn’t expect all the druid magic stuff! I didn’t expect it, but it’s a great addition!

BTW, I just started watching Robin of Sherwood. It’s highly entertaining. I kind of love the Kung-Fu Theatre style foley work.

I feel like if I’d watched Farscape as a teenager (instead of, you know, a late twentieser) it’d have been my entire personality. I probably drew 200 pages of comics watching that show.

If you see this, post a DC comics cover you love.

I’ll admit, I totally ate up the New Mutants/X-Force hype when it came out.

Years later, I found this in a dollar bin. It’s amazing all the way through, including the hyperbolic commentary about the various contributors.

If you see this, post a vampire!

It’s vector and raster, with a dash of the supernatural. #kidlit

Signing up for a block of time at the computer lab, and being able to ignore the “No MUD/MOOs!” sign because you knew the student in charge.

Or alternately, queuing up in the library to wait for a terminal to read your various rec.arts.comics newsgroups.

A mocked up cover to P.G. Wodehouse’s novel Psmith Journalist. Psmith and Billy Wagner are walking through a slightly seedy New York street watched by a gray cat. Psmith is strolling jauntily, while Billy looks apprehensively about.

A man stands in a pumpkin patch holding a watering can and a hoe. Around him are growing pumpkins. Behind him is a giant menacing jack o-lantern emerging from the soil. It’s all oranges and blues. And it was drawn in June, so seasonally appropriate.

A small boy trails behind an agéd wizard in a fantastic wooded landscape. I mean fantastic in that it depicts a fantasy scene, and not a qualitative descriptor. Though I do like how it turned out. Presumably the small boy is a wizard in training. He does have a short cape on, which might also make him a sidekick.

A scene depicting Merlin standing with young Arthur as he grasps a sword in an anvil. Personally, given how things are going right now, I’d almost rather have a sword-based meritocracy than the cruel whiplash government we have in the US.

It’s #portfolioday apparently. (I bought one of those word-a-day calendars, so I was operating under the impression that it was “crepuscular” day. Which means I’m about 11 hours early, on the East Coast.) Anyway, some recent illustrations… and as always, you can find me at bryantpauljohnson.com

Maybe don’t include obviously AI generated visuals in your high minded LinkedIn posts about the need for ethics in business.

I don’t believe in an afterlife, but I almost wish I did, just to see the enablers of The World’s Shittiest Theocracy hoist by their own spiritual petards.