Muddy Colors (@muddycolors) — Bluesky Profile

10 months ago

Bob & Brad In the past month we've lost two absolute legends of the Illustration community, Robert E. McGinnis [above left] at the age of 99 on March 10 and Brad Holland [above right] at the age of 81, following...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/04/bob-...

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11 months ago

Tonal preliminary concept for WIND AND TRUTH featuring Dalinar Kholin in Alethi uniform standing with his back to the audience on a platform high in the mountains. He holds his arms up with his left hand clenched in a fist. There is a glow about him and a book is floating over his head. The sky is made of a broad swirling vortex of clouds with an opening at the center. The mountains are beautifully detailed, jagged with snow covering steep slopes and filling the crevices in the rock.

We’re pleased to announce Whelan Wednesdays, a new schedule for original art releases that will carry us through spring.

We’ll be adding an original to the shop every Wednesday at 11am ET, starting with this preliminary concept for WIND AND TRUTH.

www.michaelwhelan.com/shop/to-hold...

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11 months ago

Jim Henson Presents No. 1 - Labyrinth Over the years, I’ve chronicled my affection for and work within the worlds created by Jim Henson and Brian Froud here on Muddy Colors. From the official prequel novels for The Dark Crystal (which bec...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/04/jim-...

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11 months ago

Lines Unlike a painter, I work primarily in Line to separate shapes, as opposed to value. Unfortunately, lines don’t appear in the natural world that we see, but are an invention used to describe the separa...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/03/lines/

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11 months ago

Full process on Bone-Cairn Butcher for Magic: the Gathering A little over a year ago, I attempted to document every stage of the process in creating a painting for Magic the Gathering. That painting has finally been publicly released: Bone-Cairn Butcher for t...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/03/full...

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11 months ago

Sketching With Gurney and Kinkade In 1980 young artists James Gurney and Thomas Kinkade climbed aboard a boxcar in Los Angeles and road the rails East seeking visual adventures. Drawing anything and everything all along the way, they ...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/03/sket...

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1 year ago

Concept Process This time I’d like to talk about my concept art process which is a hybrid process that seems more complicated than it is. I lay that out below but I would like to say that, for the most part, concept ...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/02/conc...

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1 year ago

Before The Paint The Character In Context Show first opened in 2024 at the A. R. Mitchell Museum in Trinidad, Colorado, and becomes an annual show with it's return this coming May. The show is curated by fellow illust...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/02/befo...

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1 year ago

To Green Angel Tower - cover art Periodically I make the choice to lean in heavily on a commission, dramatically increasing the amount of labor, focus, and intent I wish to bring to a painting. This bar is raised by myself, never by...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/02/to-g...

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1 year ago

Fischer Paints: Gonti- the Night Minister for Magic the Gathering Hey folks! This month I will take you through my latest for Magic the Gathering, Gonti: Night Minister for Magic: the Gathering- Aetherdrift. Pretty small piece for me at 12X16. We do a quick acrylic ...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/02/fisc...

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1 year ago

Cut Flowers Chapter 2 Cover I've been hard at work evenings and days off, getting Chapter 2 of my comic Cut Flowers finished. It's finally complete and off to the printers! One of the great side benefits of a big personal proje...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/02/cut-...

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1 year ago

Kiddos part 2 Hey everyone...Whew! It's been a surprisingly busy month, for which I’m incredibly grateful for. I tend to be a happier Coro when I have too much on my plate, vs having nothing to do but obsess and f...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/02/kidd...

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1 year ago

Cinematic Lighting for Outdoor Concepts Here are a couple of lighting methods I use to help my outdoor concepts work better. These work well on interiors also but interiors will probably be a later post. I’m sure there might be a name for t...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/02/cine...

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1 year ago

Short Order Art In Comic-book culture, there’s been a long tradition of doing convention sketches for fans and collectors. Back in the 70’s and 80’s, these used to be quick and free, but thanks to the secondary marke...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/02/shor...

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1 year ago

Illustrating Starling House Today I’m sharing my illustrations for Starling House by Alix E. Harrow! I’ve been a fan of Harrow’s work since illustrating a special edition of The Once and Future Witches a few years ago, so when I...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/01/illu...

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1 year ago

Year of the Snake Well it’s officially The Year of The Snake, 2025, and I’m sharing my first painting of the year, titled Queen Cobra. This was painted for a group exhibition at Modern Eden Gallery with the Year of the...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/01/year...

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1 year ago

Traditional-Digital Legacy with Matthew Schenk Traditional and Digital tools together are being used in collaboration in illustration today more than ever. I’m bringing Muddy Colors an artist and gifted teacher who rides the waves of technology ...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/01/trad...

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1 year ago

Déjà Vu Earlier this month we all witnessed two horrific firestorms: the one that devastated the neighborhoods surrounding Los Angeles and the one that engulfed the career one of the most successful and impor...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/01/deja...

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1 year ago

TrendWatching Part 1: Philosophy It's a big part of my job as a Creative Director to be on top of bookcover trends. Actually, no, that's not accurate. It's a big part of my job to be ahead of trends before they hit bookcovers. Which ...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/01/tren...

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1 year ago

Fear of Photos Working from photos comes up every semester I teach. The students are always concerned that it’s cheating. Ridiculous. If you know how to train yourself to draw, then photography is not an issue. It c...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/01/fear...

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1 year ago

Fischer Paints: Breathing in the Stardust Ahhh Ziggy... You know of all of Bowie's personas, he is perhaps the most iconic. The music, the hair, the outfits, that lightning bolt. Heh, my father saw this piece in process. Dad is 80 years old a...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/01/fisc...

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1 year ago

Restoration Angel Painting Process Here's the full image of my Magic card illustration "Restoration Angel" for Innistrad Remastered, art directed by Jameela Wahlgren. It's 11 x 14 inches and done completely in acrylic, on a cradled Bli...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/01/rest...

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1 year ago

favorite subjects Happy 2025! Here are some paintings I started over Christmas week of my four kids. i hadn’t painted them in a while, and Im trying to get a round of them out at least evert couple years to document th...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/01/favo...

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1 year ago

"Presearch" — Part 1 of 3 Amazing Spider-Man #638, Cover. 2010 Watercolor and gouache on Illustration Board, 11 x 17". Part 1: Why do we need reference? — Refining searches through specificity — Today begins a 3-part post on...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/01/pres...

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1 year ago

Doldrums and Sea Monsters For this, my first post of the new year, I’d considered delving into the collapsed and cratered landscape of social media. But there’s no sunny upside to that, is there? That particular ouroboros wou...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/01/dold...

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1 year ago

Garden Birds I am starting a new project: Garden Birds. Its a fully illustrated book about the 50 most common birds in the garden in Scandinavia. There is a lot of those books out there, but whats different with...

www.muddycolors.com/2025/01/gard...

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1 year ago

One of my favorite works I’ve done for Magic: the Gathering!

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1 year ago

Tra-digital Tell All A look at Kirbi Fagan's traditional/digital approach to making artwork. In this post, Kirbi details printing, scanning and creating rich textures.

www.muddycolors.com/2024/12/tra-...

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1 year ago

IG WOW: Episode 5 Episode 5 of my Instagram curated recommendations. Throughout my digital travels on the internet, I stumble on some pretty amazing stuff. Finding new artwork opens up an opportunity to look at my own ...

Today's post on muddycolor.com // www.muddycolors.com/2024/11/ig-w...

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1 year ago

A headless statue in stately robes sits upon a stone throne hovering in front of a vibrant blue spiral galaxy. One arm rests lazily gripping a scepter that on close examination could be a long slender spacecraft with spherical bow section. The other hand is cupped palm up with dozens of planets hovering just above as if within its sovereignty. A tall shiny helmet floats empty just above the statue's shoulders. Rendered in tiny scale compared to the vast statue, a human figure stands at the foot of the throne.

EMPIRE (1980)
Acrylic - 28" x 18"

H. Beam Piper is perhaps not as widely read these days as later 20th Century Grandmasters like Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert Heinlein, but his contributions to science fiction are undeniable. 1/3

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