Biblio-Art Therapy (or, "I did this!")

After blogging about the "24-hour Comix Jam @ The Pod", I remembered I had scans of paintings I did in my teens. Got nostalgic and decided to share them here.

They were done during school holidays and term breaks. I would borrow books from the public library. Mostly Fantasy and Sci Fi, as you can see from the pictures. Hence many of the paintings were inspired from ideas and characters from books.

This one's titled "Elfin Warrior: Frenor the Slayer" (Mar '89). Poster paints, watercolour pencils & ink. Corny title, right? I think the idea came from a combination of too many "Conan the Barbarian" stories and WWF wrestling shows (who remembers "The Ultimate Warrior"?)



This one's a made-up character "Jared: Sommniat Warrior of the Serpentine Order" (Aug '89). Watercolour pencils & ink. Ok, heavy influence from more 'Conan the Barbarian' type of stories. But in my mind, this guy is a good guy.


If memory serves me, I think "Sherba - Arakian Trakker Hound" (Aug '89) was inspired by reading Frank Herbert's "Dune". Somewhere in the novel, there was something about tracker hounds being set upon Paul Atreides (please correct me if I'm wrong about this).



"Tangerine's Dream - Dream Sequence 1: Elf Warrior" (Aug '89). Ah, more of the warrior elves stuff. A friend of mine introduced me to a new-age synthesizer band called "Tangerine Dream". Somehow, the band name and the elf-warrior idea got er... synthesized. Thing is, I often don't have specific notions of the story behind the names I gave to the paintings and characters. The whole idea was to give some vague meaning to the titles -- like how we see a book cover with a catchy title, and thinking what could possible be the story behind the title and the picture.



This one was copied straight from the cover of a book by Robert Holdstock "Where Time Winds Blow" (Aug '89; poster paints & ink). Wrote down the author and book title but forgot to note the illustrator. The story didn't have a lasting impression but the book cover did. One of those moments where I looked at a book cover and told myself, "Hey I think I can paint it!" -- oh, the crack in the glass was my additional touch (it wasn't on the original cover illustration).



This one's titled "Warrior's Prayer - The Metal Kings" (Dec '89). Watercolours & ink. The idea for this didn't come from a book though. I was listening to a track titled "The Warrior's Prayer" from the heavy metal band, 'Manowar' (Kings of Metal).


The track starts off with a boy saying, "Grandfather, tell me a story!" and the grandfather did, with sound effects of the horses and men and swords and thunder... (storytelling for adults!)


"Tor'noh'kqlish: Warrior King of the Tarvarn Nation" (May '92). Poster paints, watercolours & ink. I was toying with the idea of a cross between the American Indian and Roman warrior cultures. Of course I can't deny there was more of the 'Conan the Barbarian' influence.



If you're a fan of the band "Extreme" and find the next painting strangely familiar, you're right! The original picture is from the inside sleeve of one of their albums ("Pornografitti", I think -- I could be wrong, let me know). See, I liked the lighting effects of the picture and how Gary Cherone and Nuno Bettencourt were posing. Then I imagined them carrying swords -- and so it became "Legends of Nimrath: Eria Bladers" (Dec '94). Watercolours, colour pencils & ink.



"Red Expedition" (Apr '96). Acrylic & ink. Can't remember exactly what I read to have inspired this but it had to do with Mars. I imagined them as hunter-explorers, humans in armoured suits, on a newly terraformed Mars.


Ok, I might scan and post more in future. If you've got a blog for your own paintings, leave a comment here.


Tag: book art