Bruce Brenneise 🔜Dragonsteel Nexus

Oof!

As harrowing as that sounds, glad you picked up regular work in these broken economic times!

Thanks, Zara!

Thanks! It's the eternal struggle, haha.

Thank you!

Sure, they've made an environmentally catastrophic mass hallucination disinformation plagiarism Clippy that will destabilize the world, but also their other goal is to replace human workers entirely and let us humans starve. A boycott of AI is the most important boycott of your entire life.

"Things Left Behind", personal piece from 2019 or so. I'm always trying to remind myself to save some time for personal work like this, but I haven't been terribly effective at doing so.

Yeah, seems like it'd be hard to sleep well in this area!

The final D&D piece I get to share for now, from Forgotten Realms: Adventures in Faerun! Plus the painting (acrylic, 12x16) when it was in progress while I was visiting my in-laws in China this past winter.
Harrowdale
AD: Emi Tanji

He really knew what he was doing with that scene!

My easel as I headed off to Vegas this morning....

Yeah, they wanted it to be a bit more grey/grim kind of feel, so I desaturated and color shifted it a bit digitally before turning it in. The original is mostly a mix of yellow ochre and green gold.

Las Vegas this weekend! See some of you there. :-)

Yeah, months after the piece was approved, the AD came back to me to add the additional moons for that reason!

Thanks! And for something even more subtle, the ruins of Elminster's tower are just visible between the lake and Old Skull Tor.

Glad to hear it, that's exactly what I'm asking. Always hard to know whether to cater more to folks who've invested a lot in their taste and imagination, vs general public who may like things spelled out more.

Another example is the Bloodstained mire, where a slight shift of perspective would make an obvious Phyrexian symbol out of the red sun and falling oil. Too subtle?

Sometimes I wonder if I should be more obvious with placement of icons within a piece. This is a good example, where the crescent moon behind the twisted tower is the heraldic symbol of Shadowdale. I placed it just to the side, so the viewer can put two and two together mentally. What do you think?

Yes, indeed! Every D&D locale benefits from a mysterious hook like that, no?

Very cool, glad you have some great memories there!

"Shadowdale"
D&D Forgotten Realms: Adventures in Faerun
AD: Emi Tanji
I was incredibly honored to paint this one (acrylic, 16x12 in.), because Shadowdale is one of THE most iconic places in all of Faerun!

Thanks so much, Jordan! It needed it!

Thank you, Alanna!

❤️

Thanks so much, Brian! I really enjoyed seeing yours in the books, too! Hard to keep track of which pieces are in which books, though, hahaha, even my own.

Aw, thanks! I get a lot of inspiration for those from the Tonalism movement.

'Telflamm' Illustration for 'Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerun' from D&D. A very challenging piece! On the left (click on it) the final version that saw print. To the right, a progress shot of the acrylic painting. Behind the painting you can see one of my 'models', my cat Loki! AD: Emi Tanji

At 12 x36 inches, one of my largest paintings yet! In some ways it's easier to control at larger size, though. I plan on doing more work in this vein, for my personal world-building if nothing else.

Yeah, I wanted to go big with this and one other one. All the other paintings had to be small enough to fit in my luggage to China and back.

I wish the story was that cool. I repainted that because of a late art director request. They wanted more of a portal shape there instead of the shape intended to mirror the phenomenon of lenticular clouds on the mountain. Such is freelance!