Two pariah type dogs hold hands and gaze into each others eyes, sharing a moment of understanding. siblings? Mates? Both?\r\n\r\nThe title comes from Polynesia mythology. Mana is the spiritual power found within everyone and everything, coming down from the ancestors and gods. Those who could trace their lineage back directly to the gods had the highest mana. preserving the bloodline and keeping the channels to the gods open was of great importance and in the case of Hawaiian royalty, actually led to the marriage of brother to sister to keep the blood pure.\r\n\r\nHere the two are shown as common pariah type dogs, the lowest of the low, true mongrels through and through to contrast with the elite pedigree the principle of mana demands.\r\n\r\nAcrylic on vellum finish bristol, 11X14.\r\n\r\n\r\n

I was a 98 pound weakling, but thanks to the Charles Atlas method and a lot of steroids, I can make full size werewolves look like little puppies!\r\n\r\nCharacter artwork for the Rage CCG. This is the character's transformed monsterous form. Werewolf are generally about 9 feet tall, so to have a werewolf hanging off your arm like a toddler, he must be HUUUUUUUGE.\r\n\r\nI used a reference photo of a kid hanging off his fathers arm for the pose. No, clearly it was not a werewolf kid. :)\r\n\r\nAcrylic on vellum finish bristol.

A down and out dog man rests wearily beneath a window. Shadowy people behind him, inside, seem to be arguing about him.\r\nThe pose is based on a black and white photo that appeared on the cover of a book called "Beggars and Thieves: the Lives of Urban Street Criminals". The markings for the dog were based off those of a doberman.\r\n\r\nThis is the second painting I tried. The title of the piece "Our Brother's Keepers" should give you more of a hint towards the general mood I was trying to convey. I really like the testures I got with this piece, which involved lots and lots and lots of drybrushing in the textures and shadows, then covering them in a colored wash, they dry brushing in a little additional texture and highlights.\r\nI'm most happy with the window behind him, the texture of his clothes, and the wall. I'm not happy with the right foot, and the texture of the fur on his face. I am VERY happy with the eyes, which I really feel make or break a piece, and they make me happy here.

Promotional artwork for upcoming Rage set, Periphery. available online, Feb 15. 2004 http://www.rainydaypaperback.com/rage.html\r\n\r\nOriginal is 9X12. Acrylics and ink.\r\n\r\nStyle heavily influenced by Tony Diterlizzi. I realised after I painted it that it also looked like religious icons depicting Jesus and the Sacred Heart. Not a conscious influence on my part, but ended up that way.

Detail of "pigs for the Ancestors" showing off the boar's costume and face. Traditionally New Guinea festival costumes combine natural elements: leaves, plant fibers, animal pelts, twisted cords, shells, many of them dyed or painted bright colors. Plus they smear pigment right on the skin.\r\n\r\nI really like his face, especially the tusks. He has lovely eyelashes too. Complete image can be found in my gallery.\r\n\r\nAcylics on bristol, with inked line work.

Pigs for the Ancestors, or Oinker's Big Moka.\r\n\r\nA boar in his festival finery takes two pigs to a moka ceremony, where they will slaughtered and their meat given away as part of an extravagent gift.\r\n\r\nThe boar's costume is a mishmash of the costumes from several different tribal groups. Costumes are highly individualized, so its hard to spot anything more than general trends in given groups anyway. This is actually quite subdued by New Guinea standards. \r\n\r\nUnderlying line work, ink on bristol. Painted with acrylic in many thin washes and then texture added with drybrushing and poncing. original is 9X11.

This is a picture of a werewolf pup and was done is possibly the most bizarre manner possible. It's a\r\nnear exact copy of a pic found on page 96 of "Wolves" by Candace Savage put out by Sierra Club\r\nBooks. (Photograph taken by Fred Harrington) \r\n\r\n I am an absolutely terrible painter but a whiz at computer overpainting. This was an attempt to use the\r\nsame technique in real media. The whole pic only uses six colors, three shades of brown, black,\r\ngreen, and a splash of yellow in the eye. \r\n\r\nWhat I did is I plastic wrapped the photo and then painted onto the plastic so I was effectively painting\r\ndirectly onto the photo but wouldn't have any of the photo showing through when I was done. That\r\n meant I could go a lot lighter on paint than if I'd actually overpainted the photograph. \r\nThe image was then scanned in on a white background as the base color. \r\n\r\nThe technique is really weird, but Im very happy with the results. It looks LIKE the original picture but\r\ndidn't end up as an exact copy because of the limited palatte of colors. Because its painted on a\r\ntransparent background, the different thickness of the paint application really show up, giving the\r\nappearance I used far more than three colors for the fur. It also gives the expression a lovely soft\r\nquality that seems particuarly appropriate to a pup. \r\n \r\n\r\n Image is copyright of H.C. O'Neill (Fenris Lorsrai)

Acrylics on vellum finish bristol. Inspiration for the background comes from staring at too many of Ursala Vernon's naked women in front of grafitt covered concrete walls. \r\n\r\nI was going to paint a dragon, but my subconscious took over my hands and produced this instead. The reason for the hostile take over of my hands was a rather charged roleplaying session from the night before where my Dark Ages: Vampire character, Aqrab, so pissed off his lady love she was encouraging him to watch the sun rise!\r\n\r\nI like to do a depiction of my characters Beast, the dark monstrous side of their nature, but had never gotten around to doing Aqrab's until now. It ended up bizarrely symbolic. I went with the hyena since he has a tendency to worry things, enemies, ideas, and allies, to death until he destroys them. A pathological inability to STOP had lead to the fight with his love interest.\r\nThe fading rose ended up as a double meaning. His love is from the clan of the rose and the only thing keeping him from watching the sun rise was his duty to his mortal ward. The Arabic term for rose is "ward".\r\nin the background there's two verses from the Koran. Verse 21 and 22 of Surrah XXX: The Romans. To the left there's the stars of scorpio, as his full name is Aqrab al-shita, or "scorpion of winter" refering to the rising of scorpio, specifically the dawn rising of iklil, which is written in the top corner with a little scrawl of the sun on the horizon with an arrow pointing east, to indicate dawn rising.\r\n\r\nI am happy with the picture overall, though it ended up a little happier than I had intended.\r\n\r\n

Revised version of Rose. Its a hyena with a dying rose. original version http://vcl.ctrl-c.liu.se/vcl/Artists/Fenris-Lorsrai/paintings/rose.jpg\r\n\r\nSometimes I wish there were art police who would bust down your door yelling "Put down the paintbrush and step away from the painting before anyone gets hurt!" \r\nI went back to deepen the shadows on this and went a bit too berserk with it. I'm not entirely happy with how it came out, but it works with the theme of the painting, as it ended up half dark, half normally colored (even if the shading is inaccurate). Considering it was a depiction of the dark side of a character, it worked, but wasn't quite what I was intending.\r\nThe writing in the background consists of two verses from the Koran, Verse 21 and 22 of Surrah XXX: The Romans, a depiction of the constalation Scorpio, and the name iklil with a little rising sun and an arrow eastward, indicating dawn rising of iklil (one of the stars of Scorpio).\r\n\r\nI really dig that falling rose petal, the eyes, and the fur coming out the ears. I wish the shadows had turned out better, and the head's a little funky. I may return to this topic again at some point after I've had more practice painting.

start of a poster for my store, eventually to be used (hopefully) plugging the Rage CCG at the shop. Unfortunately the original is on 11' by 14' bristol, so I had to stitch together two scans and compress it heavily. \r\nThis is all done in four colors of acrylics and with a LOT of water. Lots of dry brushing and washes to create the textures. \r\nThe idea here was to create an image that would gnaw on the back of people's brain as they went "there's something familiar about that pose.... but it wasn't a werewolf...." so I used the old poster of Rosie the Riveter as depicted by J. Howard Miller (circa 1943) as the model here. Pose ended up a little different (um, its furry for one...), mostly the head is at a different angle, and the shirt is pulled open, but the idea was to make it similar enough that people who wouldn't be in the least interested in a werewolf would have to take a second or third look as the familiarity of the pose gnawed on the back of their brain.

Revised version of Rosie. first version here: http://vcl.ctrl-c.liu.se/vcl/Artists/Fenris-Lorsrai/paintings/rosie.gif\r\nI decided the colors were a bit too bright in the first version so applied a thin wash of black over the whole thing to give it a grittier feel. I then realized I'd forgot to put spots on her kerchief, so added those, and added a few little highlights in white to the fur on her arms and where it was sticking out of her shirt.\r\nThe whole painting was done in only five colors of acrylic, dilute to various weights with water and used as water colors, or used full weight with very dry brushes. \r\nThe pose and coloring is based on J. Howard Miller's depiction of Rosie the Riveter in 1943.\r\n\r\nOriginal is 11 X 14 inches on vellum finish bristol.

I'm melting.... all over you! Werewolf is sucked into the rolls of flesh on some foul fomor. Punch it and it just sucks you in to smother you. Ick!\r\n\r\nArtwork for the Rage CCG. It will be on the Gift, Tar Baby, thus the strange dimensions.\r\n\r\nI really like the werewolf's fur texture. I like the round look to the thing's arm too. it's all lumpy and twisted and melting and gross.\r\n\r\nAcrylic on vellum finish bristol. Original is 4.5X14 inches. Original available for sale through my website: http:://www.rainydaypaperback.com/artindex.html

Two wolves race through a field of dry grass and into the cool of the forest.\r\n\r\nCard art for the Rage CCG. This will appear on the card Tribal Road in the new set, Gauntlet. Get more info at:\r\nhttp://www.rainydaypaperback.com/rage.html\r\n\r\nPainted in acrylics on vellum finish bristol. Original is 5.5 by 14 inches. A little bit of the long side was cut off in the scan. The original has one more tree visible.

A gift for Swiftrat for ridding me of the customer from hell.\r\n\r\nYou always wanted a scorpion so big you could feed it treats like it was a dog, right? Maybe it'll even play fetch!\r\n\r\nThe scorpion came out surprisingly well, considering I've never drawn buggies before. (though technically it's an arthropod) Reference for the scorpion came for the "world Encylopedia of Animals" by Elena Marcon & Manuel Mongini.\r\n\r\nOriginal is acrylic on vellum finish bristol, original is 7" high by 11 wide.

Working the System

Working the System for the Rage CCG. Pentex is so evil they employ mutant lizard boys to crawl around their filing cabinets!\r\n\r\nMixed media, acrylic with colored pencil detailing. Art for the Rage CCG.

Young Lion ACEO

ACEO 2.5X3.5 inches. 6.5X9 CM. (it appears bigger on screen than it actually is) Original acrylic and charcoal painting on bristol stock.