[Edit} I am using this post as also a conglomeration of my best fantasy art and will keep adding new samples when or if I create them to this post.
Also of note, you can see how my work has improved and since I digitalized it, from the original stuff I uploaded here some years ago here. At that time, I did not know the art scene and assumed people would steal it so I sued to be paranoid about adding or having watermarks.
Lately, I have been adding fantasy and medieval style of digital art to this website, but due to few visitors and low SEO I implemented to it thus far, as I am focusing on making it mostly a resume website, many people probably visiting this site will not get to see it. Thus, I want to add it below to this post and have a post that collects my various ideas within it.
I am a big fan of western role-playing games (RPGs) based on Dungeon & Dragon rulesets, as well as traditional gaming rule sets, thus I enjoy creating the type of artwork inspired by this. I am also a fan of action RPGs like the original two Diablo games on PC. By western RPGs, I mean titles like the Elder Scrolls series, particularly Morrowind and Skyrim, which I own both of (one on PS3 and one on PC), and indie RPGs by a little known software house (a two-person operation of Jeff Vogel and his wife) called Spiderweb Software. My favorite are the Exile or Avernun series based on a prison being underground and a single empire controlling all people and lands in the surface world.
I do also enjoy Japanese RPGs like Final Fantasy, Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger however. Recently, Apple has allowed emulators to be available on the App Store and I have been collecting classic or retro roms or games on it from the Super Nintendo era. This includes even titles I have been playing for the first time like Shadowrun that are cyberpunk or tech noir in nature. besides that, I have some Playstation RPGs on my iPad and enjoy games from this era as well, such as Vagrant Story, which in ways combines western and eastern gaming aesthetics.
This brings me back to my original point of this post. I enjoy creating artwork and storyline ideas based on the games I play and grew up with combined with fantasy movies and novels like the Lord of the Rings series. I also enjoy medieval history and reading up on ancient battles and histories of countries like Lithuania and the Teutonic Knights influencing the region in the past. Ancient battles all the way from the Roman times to the Middle Ages times, like the battle Grunwald or the siege of Troy, also fascinate me.
Thus, I want to showcase some of my artwork I have been creating lately and adding to the site based on such ideas. I also again maybe plan on combining it with my writing in the future to create some visual novels or other short stories.
Speaking of which, here is one I have created before and plan on continuing. It also includes some of my artwork embedded within it as a PDF. Before you read this, listen to this San Quentin story of a prison with floating ships at 2:10 within the clip below… that is before you dismiss my ideas that is for a game storyline (as maybe you hat I said also holds true or at least is based on legend from people who were there):
Speaking of gaming style dialogues and creating backstories or prologues, I have a video sample (if you can keep up with the scrolling text) of me combining graphic design with story telling, but it has little relevance to fantasy style of art or dialogues, as it is sci-fi, and this overall post. Check it out here.
I also created this one as an intro to a medieval game of sorts like Kingdom Come: Deliverance:
„Times were different then. Men squabbled over provinces and territories on a map they had little rights to. Kings, lords and barons often profited from constant war, while the commoners were the ones to suffer. This was an age that defined humanity for centuries to come. And this is the age you are thrown into now and must adapt to. Will you survive or will you perish like the countless souls before you? This only you must answer. Welcome to your world now.”
This is a an example of the sort of narrations I can create for games or movies in terms of dialogues and text setting up scenes.
With that said, below is some of my recent fantasy or medieval artwork. The first one I did a remake of an old drawing by hand digitally and added some text on top or a catchphrase :
Older and lighter version of the digital illustration above – some of the faces are different so some might like that version and a cat is more refined in this older one vs some other weasel-like animal in the other ones:
I actually started the original pencil drawing above some years ago. I only finally managed to finish it recently as I forgot about it and worked on other designs or illustrations. You may notice a possom, or a cat, within the background? It sort of formed naturally and I worked it in from the original drawing I created.
Here is another illustration or graphic design. My original hand drawing using paper and pencil that I simply took a screenshot of and added a color hue to. It was, is if I recall correctly, a purely digital creation:
A bit of texture added:
This image above is a take on a previous Dark-Souls inspired image. In this version above you may notice the crystal on top does not have a loop or magic coming out of it, but the one on the bottom does. Below is an older version of it, but still a newer version of something I worked on ealrier. The original also was based partly on a hand-drawn evrsion I did, which you can see below as well.
Less light rebound or reflection
This verison has some of the original hand-drawn version’s aspects left in it as background:
This time some pastel work turned digital:
I originally created this one above using oil pastels. I did that some years ago and took a photo of it and digitized it – as well as fixed the throne or chair within it that was not lined up correctly in terms of angle or perspective. It still is not perfect, but I like how the colors turned out form the oil pastels.
I also created this one below originally using oil pastels, took a photo and digitized it while adding some textures and changing some of the shadows among other things.
This is a castle that started out as a pencil drawing I took a photo of and turned into a digital illustration later adding a horse rider to it:
The one above started out as a pencil drawing and I added to it when I took a photo of it and digitized it. I fixed the towers on the castle to make them look more 3D and less flat.
This is an older illustration I created based off the idea above or a horse rider but this one was completely created digitally without using photos of any of the original hand-drawn versions – just the idea of a horse rider being here. Notice that I fixed the slope of the rock formation the horse and rider is riding on from previous versions, if you have seen them:
If you have been checking out the site for a while, you may have seen the image above I created some time ago digitally. However, in this latest version I fixed the rider to have some weight on him as he sits on the saddle and his legs to be more of a realistic size to hang down form the side of the horse. Other versions, more abstract, below:
Below is a soldier or warrior facing a dragon and lizard-like and hybrid creature of sorts. The hue is reddish due to it being around some volcano area as well as the creature breathing fire. It also started out as a hand-made drawing that I digitized.
Below is a warrior facing a wizard that started out as a pastel drawing. I have some older and varied versions of it that change the wizard’s beard and face slightly as well as the small cat or dog creature next to him – among other latest additions later added.
I still think my digitalised versions of the wizard may be inferior to the original version I made or drew:, but everyone has a different taste or opinion. I also had to change the chair or layout as my photo of the original pastel drawing did not show all the details below (or the few photos I took of it did not show the whole chair):
It is interesting how here the wizard turned different from a different angle and photo of the same artwork the end result was almost a more abstract, albeit also a more surreal and clean, look of this image from the original pastel drawing I did.
This is a Dungeons & Dragons-like setting I created originally using only a white soft pastel on black paper and digitized.
A warrior overlooks a tower of sorts in the two works below. I used different colors including monochrome in different versions of this as well as pure pixel art in some versions. In a way it combines pixel art with standard digital art for a surreal look. Keep in mind that the idea of it happens a lot in games, for instance the image within this article shows somewhat of a similar idea done in pixel art just like I did the first image below.
Book Cover Idea:
The ideas for what turned out to be the above started out here:
This one started out as one of the variants above (first one if I recall above) and also was in pixel art before adding to it various techniques, filters and colors. However it resembles almost a map of a landscape from farther down or from a greater bird’s eye view. I’d you look closely you may see things appear within it like a castle on upper left:
I have added features to the landscape to make you think and also see a face if you look deep enough:
A Hussar riding to a castle or structure of sorts. I originally drew the original using soft pastels and fixed the rider’s leg being too short and abstract looking digitally from that original version. I also like superimposed the moon sort of cut and paste it to make it look almost like it is coming out of the image or put on top of it.
This one below was inspired by Final Fantasy 7. The tower or elevator that leads Cloud above is what I recall inspired me for this one to be exact. It is also like overlooking from a bird’s eye view a dungeon of sorts.
Some other fantasy artwork and digital art I want to add here that I create din the past, The first one below is a wizard I used Adobe Illustrator to outline and the two ghost-like guardians on either side were originally pictures I took from props in a museum in Warsaw.
This one has many variants:
This originally was a screenshot I took of my Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim adventure that I turned into a digital art piece and added a character to the screenshot that does exist within the game world:
Mix oil pastels with soft pastels below with some charcoal. Maybe the angle of the castle or city outskirts wall was too much in the hand-drawn original I did, so I change dit digitally for the second and bottom version among some other things:
More of a dot matrix style of old computers like the ZX Spectrum – note there wre two versions I made:
Another similar- themed work I am working on and only completed a sketch I barely digitised:
I created the original drawing with pure charcoal:
One of the reasons I chose to create this post is because I recently had a trail assignment for a translation and game writing position at a Polish and Warsaw-based game studio. It is perhaps the biggest or most famous coming out of Poland and was encouraged to try applying again. Although I am familiar with the series of games this studio creates and offshoot streaming TV shows coming from one of its brands, I have not played much of them and own them on GOG.com, thus would like to before applying again. One of the series this studio creates also falls right in line with the artwork presented here.
Maciej Duraj 
Leave a comment