I just wanted to take a moment to post about a project that Outland Entertainment is involved in called New Fire, created by Jason Caminsky.

New Fire is a tabletop fantasy roleplaying/storytelling game inspired by the history and mythology of the Aztec-Mexica, the Maya, and the other great civilizations of Precolumbian Mesoamerica. It is really a very cool setting with a look and feel entirely different from a lot of the typical RPG settings. And I’m really excited to be heading the art development for this. We’ve got some really great artists lined up to work on it as well -

Alan Gallo

Chris Meeks

Scott Godlewski

Thanks!

Jer

So a little while back, a good friend of mine, Shotgun (now released). Scott has been working with me for years on the Baeg Tobar project and so I, of course, jumped at it.

Here’s the novel description -

“Shotgun” has it all. Do you like mystery and intrigue and political machinations and worldwide conspiracies? It’s got all that. Elves and demons and trolls and an amnesiac pyromancer with antlers? Check, check, check, check, check. Slightly heavy-handed commentary on the evils of Corporate America? You can’t possibly miss it. Magic shotguns, semi-sentient poundcakes, talking trees, and shapeshifters? Oh hell yeah. Are you an English teacher in need of content to stir a rousing debate involving fate and free will, and whether the heroes actually accomplished something or just did what the villain expected of them? Here you go!

Roger Brooks, a mild-mannered family man, is dropped head first into this world when he accidentally takes possession of the ancient magic the evil Witch hid in his silverware drawer. As he grows into his new role of plucky hero in a city of sorcery, Roger will have to determine which of the motley cast of characters he can trust to help him unravel the Witch’s dastardly plot. Can Roger stop her from changing the world forever?

“Shotgun” is an urban fantasy magnum opus, the first step in the skyrocketing career of an exciting new voice in the genre. And even if it’s not, it’s pretty cheap.

To begin with, I loved his idea. It wasn’t a specific scene from the book, rather, our heroes fighting a horde of suited demons.  It actually made me think of something Frazetta inspired.  I’m a huge Frazetta fan and I have always found his work to be inspiring.  So I thought this might be a good chance to do a sort of homage to the master.

This was also my very first opportunity to do a complete piece of art using my Cintiq 21UX. It allowed me to approach this with a more traditional inked approach, rather than my more normal fine pencil line art. It was a lot of fun and this piece was completed entirely on the Cintiq. I enjoyed being able to spot some blacks for a change and the ability to get a little more variety in my line work. It was a fun experiment and I think it turned out pretty good, so I expect to be doing more work like this in the future.

Anyway, here is my initial sketch.

Since I completed this in full on the Cintiq, I was able to simply take this piece and blow it up. It worked as my under drawing for the piece. I tightened things up a bit as I went but mostly I went straight to inks. Another thing that I did on this piece was work in multiple layers. So just about all the demons were worked out on separate layers so I could draw them in full and get the best possible poses. It was definitely a different approach than I normally take and I enjoyed it. I think I ‘ll be able to streamline it as I work more and more on the Cintiq.

Finished line art.

Finished color.

Final type treatment.

Be sure to take a minute to go and check the book out! Scott is a great writer and this was a fantastic opportunity to work with him. I enjoyed it a lot and I’m rather pleased with how the final turned out.

Thanks!

Jer

And as a result, this site hasn’t been updated in months. Please don’t take that as a sign of inaction – we’ve been working on a lot of very involved projects, both for clients and for Outland Entertainment itself. Many of these will begin seeing the light of day in the not-so-distant future. But in the meantime, many of our projects are still under NDA.

I’m looking forward to being able to announce some of the stuff we’re working on though! And damn, we’ve been busy!

Anyway, one of the things that happened over the last few months, that I can share, was that Chris Meeks (one of our most talented and dependable artists) and I (Jeremy D. Mohler) entered a contest over on deviantART for Epic Games Gears of War 03. There were literally thousands of entries that were submitted and somehow, we managed to take third place.

I have to admit, it was all very exciting and we were quite honored. There were a lot of fantastic entries, so to actually take third place was pretty amazing.

And this is just the beginning of a longer collaboration that’ll be happening between Chris, myself, and Emily (my wife, co-owner of Outland Entertainment, and very talented writer). But I can’t give too much away about that just yet…

Below you can see the original sketch that Chris and I worked on. Chris really nailed the idea right off.

I’m not entirely sure how many sketches he did of the piece to begin with, but the above is what he sent over to me. I suggested really pushing the sort of three-point perspective/fish eye/up-shot by sketching over the drawing in orange. I really wanted to push the composition to be a bit more circular – to help keep the eye moving around the image and to keep things from being being static. That being said – Chris was already there. I was really just reinforcing where he was already heading. His composition was spot on and I think the drawing turned out fantastic.

Below you can see the final contest entry with both the final inks (by Chris) and final colors (by me).

I had a lot of fun coloring this, though it was a bit nerve-wracking at times. I really didn’t want to let Chris down and I wanted to capture the gritty quality of the game. Overall, it was a good experience and it’s always fun to work with Chris.

Thanks!

Jeremy D. Mohler

The basic premise was for this to be a sort of interactive comic series marketed to iPad. The story revolves around a dystopic future and present day – with our main characters communicating through time to stop a major global catastrophe. Like I said – a very cool and fun idea.

The project came to me by way of Jeff Wamester (who actually did the pencils and inks on the covers for the project). Jeff didn’t have time to take the project on and suggested me as a possible alternative, which I was very grateful for. But, after hearing a little bit about the project, I decided it was probably going to be a little more I could handle on my own.

So after some discussion with Peter, I decided to call on some of my contacts to help. I would do the layouts, color work, and letters for the project and we would outsource for the pencils and inks. This all worked out to our advantage – it allowed us to move a little more quickly through the material, at least that’s what we hoped moving into the project. I was able to recruit and work with a number of talented people, Chris Meeks and Shaun O’Neil among a variety of great artists.

To date, we’ve developed the first two chapters, the first four covers, and a myriad of concept art. Right now the project is on a short hiatus and will hopefully return to production toward the end of the year. If you want to check everything out in action, you can do so over at the Foulplay website.

I’m going to occasionally post up a variety of process art. I enjoy seeing how things come together and it’ll be nice to show a little bit of what goes on behind the scenes as well.

Below you can see our process on page two of chapter one. I did the layout, color work, and letters. Shaun O’Neil did the pencils and inks.

For me, I find it really enjoyable to see how another artist can take my layouts and flesh them out into a fully finished page. I think Shaun did a fantastic job with this page – he was able to take my layouts and really bring this future city to life. I also had a lot of fun doing the color work here – it’s always a great deal of fun to handle the colors, but it’s even more fun when you get to work with somebody as talented as Shaun.

I’ve got a lot more work to show and if you like these little process posts, be sure to let me know.

I just wanted to take a few moments to introduce myself and welcome you to Outland Creative.

My name is Jeremy D. Mohler and I have been working as a professional artist since around 2001.  I began in the tabletop role-playing game industry, doing black and white spot illustration and gradually working my way up to full color cover work.  In the interim, I’ve worked on all manner of projects and have met all manner of talented individuals.  In 2008, I formed Outland Entertainment to help develop and publish some of my own creative projects, such as the World of Baeg Tobar.

Over the past several years, I’ve  become more and more interested in developing projects in a directorial role as opposed to an artistic one.  And having generated various connections in the industry through my own artwork and endeavors, it wasn’t a large jump to bring my various artist and client connections together. Outland Creative represents the branch of Outland Entertainment that can handle nearly any of your creative needs.

We are primarily a project management service, designed to connect reliable artists with clients and help the client get the very most for their projects.  The illustrators and designers that we hire are all working professionals who can provide any variety of work you may need.  Nearly all of the artists we work with have a proven track record with me, personally.  And if not, they come highly recommended from somebody I trust.  So while there is always an exception to the rule, we do our best to guarantee dependability.

I also work hard to make sure there is constant communication between the artists and you, the client.  My end goal is to make sure that you get exactly what you need for your project, and I will bend over backward to make sure that happens.  All Outland Creative projects will be directed by me, so you will also benefit from my years of work experience.

So, I welcome you to Outland Creative.  Take a look at what we do, and if you ever find yourself in need of something creative, please, don’t hesitate to contact us!  We’d love to work with you.

Thanks!

Jeremy D. Mohler