Rob Torno

Steam Witch

robtorno — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:49:01 +0000

This is the last of the pieces for the Nevermet Press Monster Folio. She is an undead sorceress who is replacing her failing internal organs with steam-powered versions. She uses her gear-staff to separate souls and construct animus from their hosts and store them in her lantern to be transformed into energy to power her undeath. At least that is my take on her. The talented writer’s at NMP will probably come up with something much cooler.

Steampunk Mummy

robtorno — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 19:00:06 +0000

This is another of the pieces for Nevermet Press’s upcoming product revolving around steampunk undead. I don’t really know if he was created with that device on his back or modified later. It is a fusion of an alchemical/magical item combined with a sort of Tesla coil that generates electrical charges through the bolt guantlets. I look forward to seeing what the authors do with him.

Concept-Yaogah Yeti

robtorno — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 01:40:16 +0000

I did this quick piece of pencil work for Nevermet Press about a year or so ago and it seemed like a fun one to paint around with. It was less than an hour from pencil to finish and gave me a chance to try out my new pc.

Steam Worg

robtorno — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 02:23:19 +0000

The next piece in the Steampunk series for NMP. This one is a steampunk undead Worg inspired by the wolf from the old Disney Peter and the Wolf cartoon. I loved that wolf as a kid and had a lot of fun doing something a little more tweaked and cartoony like this. Below is the pencil and finished color work.

Alchemical Vampire

robtorno — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 06:07:11 +0000

So it probably seems pretty quiet around here and that might lead one to infer that not much is happening art-wise, right? Wrong! For the last few weeks I’ve been putting together some special monsters for Nevermet Press. I’ve been given a pretty free rein to develop whatever I want as long as it incorporates steampunk elements and brings something new to some of the tried and true monster types. These will then be passed along to some creative writing folks to make into full-fledged game monsters. It is a total reverse on how things are usually done and I like it.

The first one out of the gates is an alchemical vampire, a Nosferatu type with hypodermics for fingertips connected into his blood and body fluids. I don’t know if he drains or injects or both. I don’t know what effects his blood and such would have on a victim. That is for the writer to figure out but I like the possibilities.

Below is the initial pencils and the digital color work.

Ghoul pencils

robtorno — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 22:17:04 +0000

In honor of Halloween I’m posting the finished pencils of my ghoul piece. I’ll be onto the painting process from here. I’m looking forward to seeing how icky I can make him appear.

Ghoul Feeding line art

robtorno — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 00:02:31 +0000

For whatever reason I’ve been in a Halloween sorta mood lately and ever since I stumbled upon the writings of H.P. Lovecraft and the even more grotesque writings of Brian McNaughton (both deceased, mwahhahahaha) my favorite creeps have been ghouls. While they are described differently by each author, I’ve cherry-picked some of the best features of both and blended them together to get this cheerful fellow. I hope you like him, maybe print him off and color him and check back in a few days as I finish pencilling him in and do the same.

White Dragon pencil

robtorno — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:46:11 +0000

I mentioned something a couple of weeks ago in a post about a dragon in the works so I thought I should post the pencil work for it. It is currently being painted up and prepared for the digital part of the process. It should be done in the next week or two.

Hook Horror vs Dwarf revisited

robtorno — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 19:03:46 +0000

I’ve been producing some new work for my portfolio recently and using a different mix of traditional and digital then I was utilizing over the last few years. I’ve been really liking the results so I thought I’d apply the newer technique to an old favorite of mine. I was never quite satisfied with the way the original turned out but I like where the new method is taking things so I thought I’d post it up to this point. It is most likely finished but we’ll see.

Color Illithid Mind Flayer Culinarian

robtorno — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 21:23:53 +0000

I’m probably done with this but I want to give it a couple of days to make final adjustments and make sure that I’m happy with it altogether. This is another piece I’ve done to beef up my portfolio for professional submissions and I hope some of the improvements in my traditional and digital workflow are apparent.