Category Archives: Sketchbook pages

Pages from my sketchbook.

Science Fiction, Sketchbook pages, Sunken World

A few of the things I’m working on at the moment

November 4, 2013 Will Beck Leave a comment

I’m working on a heck of a lot of things at the moment so apologies for no posts for the last couple of months. I thought I’d show you some sketches of a few of those ‘things’.

Some doodles from late last year:
Ideas for civilised beast-men and my whalephant design.

And from earlier this year:
SF beastmen (or Warhammer 40,000 Abhumans) and some Sunken World ‘Yrdin’ character ideas.

Some more Sunken World character ideas.

Also a return to my New Horizons characters from way back in 2006 (!). Just felt like seeing what had happened to them.

And some of the original designs.

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Sketchbook pages, Sunken World

Thulhid Assassin

August 24, 2013 Will Beck Leave a comment

This is an idea I had a while back after seeing the mimic octopus on a nature documentary ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimic_octopus ) for an experimental terror of the Sunken World – a shape-changing Thulhid assassin. These creatures are fortunately few in number; the product of the Thulhid scientists experimenting on their own kind.

Once an assassin has slain a human (or humanoid) and consumed their flesh it can change its form to be an identical copy of the unfortunate victim. I imagine it can only form crude-looking clothing though there is always the stolen clothing of the victim and perhaps other clothing can be acquired by their slaves or even Thulhid-worshippers.

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Sketchbook pages

New statues

July 28, 2013 Will Beck Leave a comment

These are some ideas for new statues for Warhammer 40,000 as I think the Imperium deserves more variety in statues (and a more martial pose)!

I figured that the kit wouldn’t need to be as configurable as your usual 28mm miniature but should have a few optional heads and weapons so you could use several of the same statue in a game. They need to look like exaggerated stylistic statues and not just a 28mm or bigger miniature painted like a statue which looks wrong on the tabletop. I’ve designed a Saint or Battle Sister as I think these would be commemorated as statues as well.

Again this is fan art and not intended to infringe on GW’s copyright.

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Dark fantasy, Fantasy, Sketchbook pages

Demon Mage-Lord

June 17, 2013 Will Beck Leave a comment

A brief diversion back to my Demon designs. Here is the Mage-Lord demon himself (leader of the army featured in my Ghaan-og the Berserker one-page comic) with his centaur-demon bodyguards in the background. The Mage-Lord has multiple arms for casting multiple spells on the battlefield.

The demon spirits he’s summoning from the globe on top of staff came from a combination of ideas (they were blue originally but my brother said they didn’t stand out enough):
Firstly these critters on the right page:

The demon witches on the left are servants of the Demon Prophetess, from my earlier post:
https://www.willbeck.com/artblog?p=635

And also the colours came from the invisible monster in an old weekly ImagineFX challenge on the theme of ‘invisibility’:

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Illustrations, Science Fiction

Silas Alberec Captain of the Exorcists 3rd Company

June 7, 2013 Will Beck Leave a comment

Here’s my picture I produced for a Graphic Illustrator job at Forge World (I didn’t get it but did receive some very useful positive feedback). It’s from the Badab War (Book 2) by Alan Bligh and depicts Silas Alberec surveying the battlefield. I based him on my what I imagined an ogre-sized heroic space marine superhuman would look like! He’s taller than even an Imperial Space Marine would be; vaguely like a steroid-pumped Max von Sydow as Father Merrin in The Exorcist movie.

The ‘Orison of the Broken Tower’ symbol on his tilt shield I created from scratch based on the Tower Tarot Card and all the warding sigils and symbols were based on masonic symbols and hexagrams modified by me. There wasn’t space on my image for the cod-latin exorcisms that I had planned for his face.

All quotes are from Alan Bligh’s description of him in the back of the Badab War Book 2.

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Fantasy, Sketchbook pages

Greater Daemon of Nurgle

May 31, 2013 Will Beck Leave a comment

I’ve been very busy this last couple of months so haven’t had chance to update my website/blog. Here’s an old image I drew a few years back of a Great Unclean One; a plague-ridden, maggot-infested, bloated Greater Daemon from Games Workshop’s Warhammer Worlds.

No digital work here; simply inks and watercolours.

This is fan art and not intended any way to infringe Games Workshop’s copyright.

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Science Fiction, Sketchbook pages

SF Special Ops Infiltrator

March 21, 2013 Will Leave a comment

When starting an illustration that requires more invention than simply reference material I like to do a model sheet with the costume and equipment the character has. Here is my initial design for a futuristic spy (in stealth armour) and her equipment (sniper rifle, mini-robots, shotgun and pistol). You may recognise her from previous SF sketches.

Here’s the finished image:

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Science Fiction, Sketchbook pages

Human Variants 1 (inked and coloured)

March 12, 2013 Will Leave a comment

Here’s the inked (on paper) and coloured (digitally) version. I created the runic language from looking at Tolkien’s Angerthas (Dwarvish) runes and making them look a bit more technical.
I’ve some more ideas for these and some other human variants; I just felt that this page needed some colour.

This is still fan-art and not meant to infringe on GW’s copyright.

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Science Fiction, Sketchbook pages

Human variants 1

March 1, 2013 Will Leave a comment

I always liked the Squats (Space Dwarfs) in WH40K and felt they’ve been unjustly maligned over the years so here are some of my ideas for them. First are a couple of heads and a hero with bionic hand and power-hammer, also some ideas for their runic language (so not to be too Nordic but also retain the geometric nature). Then there is a tunnel fighting armoured warrior with an axe-boltgun and combat shield (that expands from his armour) and a ‘Living Ancestor’ psychic.

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Dark fantasy, Sketchbook pages

Demon Captains

February 4, 2013 Will Leave a comment

These are three of my ideas for the lower ranks of demons but higher up than the rank-and-file demon soldiers. https://www.willbeck.com/artblog?p=262

They’re essentially bulkier soldier demons with exaggerated proportions. The female demon on the right serves a different demon lord; hence the symbol on her armour and colour of its metal (the demon in the centre also serves another lord).

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SF & Fantasy Art