19 Sunday Nov 2017
Posted in Humor, Illustration., Science Fiction
Tags
beautiful woman, Digital art, dog, E.M. Foner, Humorous Science Fiction, illustration, Keith Draws, robot, Science fiction art, space station, starship, Union Station
Just found out “Union Station 1, 2 and 3” bundle, hit number one on Amazon’s “Humorous Science Fiction” Chart! And “Union Station 1″ is number two! ” While Union Station 13″ is number Four on the chart. Just wow…
Well done E.M. Foner!
Union station 3 book bundle cover art © Keith Draws
24 Sunday Sep 2017
Posted in Illustration., Science Fiction
Tags
alien, Chris Foss, design, Digital art, Fantasy, fantasy woman, Frank Frazetta, Jim Burns, Keith Draws, Peter A. Jones, Peter Elson, Sci Fi, science fantasy, science Fiction, Science fiction art, science fiction illustration, sexy woman, superhero woman, Todd Lockwood
Following the theme of the first book “Child’s Play“, Guerin asked me to show how the main character (and possibly the whole of Earth) is punished for their bad behavior by the Alien Race, who guide human advancement in the background- Mainly through the actions of Guerin’s Nemesis, Julie of the Bree. I decided to take the viewpoint of a child being told off by their mother:
Punishment cover art © Keith Draws
The book is on sale here and if you get there quick enough it’s free and it’s a great read.
Once again you can see many of my influences there. My buddy Jim Burns (alien tech and just pure astounding difference) , Chris Foss and Peter Elson (for the sheer massive scale and detail they can imbue in their work), Peter A. Jones ( for the dynamism and the colour), Todd Lockwood (whose painting technique and compositional sense astounding to me) and once again Frank Frazetta (who achieves sexy, and dynamic with sheer class).
Posters are available here: https://keithdraws.deviantart.com/art/Punishment-by-Guerin-Zand-706231250
17 Saturday Sep 2016
Posted in Fantasy, Fantasy art, Illustration.
Tags
book cover, Cover Art, Dragon, E.M. Foner, Fantasy Art, illustration, Keith Draws, Magic, medieval, medieval girl, Meghan's Dragon, Mort Drucker, Todd Lockwood
He writes science fiction and Fantasy with a light comedic twist. In this case the cover for “Meghan’s Dragon” was to feature a young girl and her Dragon (who happens to also be extremely hungry all the time). And I have to indicate the humor found in the story.
Comedic illustration is never the easiest thing to do but when it’s done well it can be hilarious.
Mort Drucker
For me, there is nobody better at this than Mort Drucker (famous mainly for his work in Mad Magazine).
So when faced with this challenge I looked at what he does. And what he does is incredible, he sets up situations and then punctuates the joke using the characters facial expressions. I also looked at the Dragons created by Todd Lockwood, which are all pretty scary and used that as a direction to avoid! So with that in mind, I set about working on ideas and after several roughs and some to and fro between the Author and I/we finally settled on this.
My indicator that it works is that my kids laugh at it and immediately make up stories about what’s going on… Mind you, They are both under 9 years old and they laugh at my jokes too, so maybe that’s not the best guide… Anyway…
It’s probably the first time ever that I’ve welcomed people laughing at my work! Maybe I’m dragoning this post out a bit so I’ll end it here.
Here’s where you can get this book: https://goo.gl/iuLvGb
And posters are available here: http://keithdraws.deviantart.com/gallery/
26 Friday Aug 2016
Posted in Illustration.
Tags
Comic, Comic Art, Cover design, DC, Fantasy Art, golden ratio, illustration, Keith Draws, Liam Sharp, Magic, Outlier, science Fiction, Silent Machine, Smoke Bomb, TFN, Twelve Foot Ninja, TwelveFootNinja, Wonder Woman, WonderWoman
And I produced the cover art. Credit where credit is due though, TFN always have very strong ideas and without their direction this cover would not have worked half as well.
Outlier
You can get it here http://twelvefootninja.com/
And this is their new single which I also did the cover for:
I’ve been working with TFN since 2010 and in fact they were probably the main reason I was able to move my focus to illustration.
Initially they asked for artists to send a couple of comic panels as samples since they were intending to produce a comic and or graphic novel. I don’t normally do this, but for some reason I had a good feeling about this work and so I produced the following.
Two incredible things happened. First the amazing Liam Sharp (currently the lead artist on Wonder Woman for DC) and blew my mind with this comment on my deviant page and I have to say that is probably one of the most inspirational moments of my life. A moment when it felt like all the effort was worth it after what seemed like an eternity of losing battles. I’m happy to say that we also became friends (even if it is only on social media). If Liam had not left that message I suspect I would have gone down another path.
It only gets better… After I’d given up on hearing back about the samples, Stevic from TFN got in touch with me and told me I’d got the Job.
From that point on I worked with the band mainly through Stevic and Dave MacGregor (their manager who they work very closely with). things went well. I worked on a lot of concept with them, finally deciding on the look of the Twelve Foot Ninja and we produced the cover for their second CD
Now we moved on to the next major project. The album “Silent Machine”
Silent Machine Cover
It had 12 tracks and each would have it’s own 6 page comic making up a graphic novella to go with the album.
I produced all the art and wrote the adaptation from the original plot/novel. But I had to tie the stories in with the songs. They pretty much gave me a free hand so long as I stuck to the plot; and the songs are very inspiring which made it a lot easier. It was a hell of a job, on a tight deadline, but we did it!….And I’m very proud of this work. Here are some pages.
I’ve worked on lots of other projects with them over the years and they have done a lot to help me out through some difficult times. They are great people and I doubt I’d even be doing this if it wasn’t for them.
Oh and I’m also working on another new project with them right now so watch this space, it’s going to be awesome!
All art produced for “Twelve Foot Ninja” is copyright “Twelve Foot Ninja” and is reproduced with permission.
03 Friday Jun 2016
Posted in Illustration.
Tags
Alien Abduction, book cover, Cover Art, Cover design, Digital art, Fantasy Art, illustration, Keith Draws, Mason Dodd, Nash, science Fiction
Alien abduction is not a subject I’ve explored in art before. This project gave me the opportunity.
The book is available here: https://goo.gl/ad2G4O
Posters here: http://goo.gl/hggfPw
Nash-The-Abduction- cover art © Keith Draws
28 Saturday May 2016
Posted in Illustration., Uncategorized
The Great Todd Lockwood left me speechless!
A moment I’ll never forget.
28 Saturday May 2016
Posted in Book cover, Fantasy art, Illustration., Science Fiction, Uncategorized
Tags
book cover, Boris, Bruce Pennington, Chris Achilleos, Chris Foss, Cover Art, Cover design, Digital art, Dream, Fantasy Art, Frank Frazetta, illustration, Jim Burns, Julie Bell, Keith Draws, Peter A. Jones, Peter Elson, pursue your dreams, Richard Tongue, Sci Fi, science Fiction, Science fiction art, Todd Lockwood
As a youth I spent hours in bookshops, looking for scifi and fantasy art on book covers. I’d find a few I liked, buy them and when I got home, I’d study the art and try to learn how to do it. I dreamed about doing that kind of art for a living.
Jim Burns, Todd Lockwood, Peter A. Jones, Chris Foss, Chris Achilleos, Frank Frazetta, Boris and Julie Bell, Bruce Pennington and Peter Elson (to name but a few) were major influences. In the past few years, I’ve even been lucky enough to get to know a few of these people.
Even more amazing I actually now get paid to do work in that genre. I produce a lot of Sci fi images for the Great and Prolific Author Richard Tongue. In fact, I’ve done more than twenty illustrations for him to date, and they just get more challenging every time.
Always pursue your dreams. It’s worth it.
Here are a few of the more recent covers I’ve done for Richard:
The Battle of Hercules cover art © Keith Draws
Interceptor cover art © Keith Draws
Starfighter cover art © Keith Draws
Forbidden Seas cover art © Keith Draws
26 Friday Jun 2015
Posted in Fantasy art, Illustration.
…and getting all the key element’s in place turned out to be a lot of fun.
Harvey Click always manages to overheat my brain cells in the best possible way!
I’m even thinking it might be cool to make a complete set of Tarot cards… If only I had the time.
21 Tuesday Apr 2015
Posted in Illustration.
Tags
book cover, Cover Art, Cover design, Demon, Demons, Fantasy Art, golden ratio, Harvey Click, illustration, Keith Draws, kindle, Magic
… after getting commissioned to produce the covers for the Demon Frenzy series by Harvey Click. He gave descriptions of Demons that were incredibly challenging, but let’s face it. I love doing stuff like this so what really scared me was would I be able to stop!
Here are the first two. More to come soon
Demon Frenzy cover art © Keith Draws
Demon Mania cover art © Keith Draws
Demon Frenzy cover art © Keith Draws
01 Monday Sep 2014
Posted in Book cover, Fantasy, Fantasy art, Illustration., Science Fiction
Tags
book cover, Cover Art, Cover design, golden ratio, illustration, Keith Draws, Richard Tongue, Sci Fi, science Fiction
The cover for “Battlecruiser Alamo-Stars in the Sand” by Richard Tongue.
BCA Stars in the Sand cover art ©Keith Draws
I’m always trying to go for an updated “Amazing Stories” type image with this work since I love that stuff so much.
Posters and high res here
keithdraws 