UnUsed Book Cover Sketches

These were some sketches I did for a book series that eventually weren't used, so I figure I can at least show them on my blog! ;]  It was for a re-release of a series of novels featuring the adventurers "Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser".  I believe Mike Mignola did some covers for the graphic novel version of these for Dark Horse.  I was told these adventure stories were almost as popular as LOTR by Tolkien at one point.  I'd never heard of them before working on it, so it must not have had the life-span that The Lord of the Rings has had--- I skimmed through some of the books in order to do the sketches, but didn't get hooked on the writing.  Anyone read these books before? 

Comments

[Invertir Dinero]

Thanks for this great work is very useful for all readers, I thank you for allowing me to read this great blog

[Jon Silpayamanant]

Charlie--those ARE reuired reading! ;)

Joe pointed me to you blog, btw--how you been?

Jon (the artist formerly known as "Clem")

[RL]

Yep, they're classics of the fantasy genre and pretty much required reading.

~rl

[Michael betties]

Dude man, I think I want to cry. You work is Awesome. I want to ask what steps did you take to learning how to color in Photoshop. Nice~

[cwen]

Hi, Torei, First of all, thanks for the compliment!
Probably the first advice I'd give is to study figure drawing as much as possible.
Along with that, have a mirror with you while you're working on facial expressions. While I'm working on faces, I try to always use a mirror to act out the expressions, so I can "get into character". Photo reference can help if you or the director already knows the distinct character type to draw from, but don't rely too much on photo reference, but use them only to capture distinct personalities. Hope this helps!

[cwen]

Thanks so much for leaving your comments, guys! Much appreciated:D

[torei]

Hi, I really like the composition and how you draw the expression on the face. I'm just curious issit possible to get advise on how to draw a faces like that? Do you use reference? And how do you find them? so it fit you thoughts and idea?

It's very very nice.~ T_T Love it very much.

[Marcos Mateu]

Well, I can certainly see these as nice -finished- pieces!
Cool stuff.

[Jared Shear]

Cool images, thanks for sharing, can't wait to see more!

[Taik Lee]

Hey Charlie,

Awesome stuff man. Always loved your work from waaaay back. See u sometime.

[Jeremy Liu]

how's it going? cool blog man. Hope things are going well for you.

[Carlo]

awesome. Great to see your work up Charlie.

[fenton]

Sweet man, insperational!!

[Kevin McB.]

I've read many of the Fahfrd and the Gray Mouser books inc. Ill Met in Lanhkmar and Swords of Lankhmar. All were very good books and very entertaining.

[Maple Lam]

Always amazing work, Charlie! Very cool indeed!

[Eric Chiang]

Sickness Charlie...sickness. Its always good to have people like you around to remind me as to how much I suck =) Thanks. Very inspiring

[sho katayama]

awesomasss, Charlie! I love the arc the two swords are making.

[Andrew Kim]

Man... awesome stuff, Charlie! It's been so fun looking at your pieces.

[Art Tisian]

What a treat for us your fans to see these unpublished works! Is Dark Horse using your other images then?

[Bryan Lee]

Insanely awesome. T.T

Bryan Lee

[Randy Bantog]

Awesome paintings Charlie! I just read the graphic novel of Fahfrd and the Gray Mouser drawn by Mike Mignola. It was just an okay read for me, but the art by Mignola helped push the story forward whenever I began to lose interest a little. It would be cool to see your take on a graphic novel version.

[stephen]

Charlie F'n Wen, what have I been doing with my life!? such sick work man, I'm really glad you've got some work online now, gives me some inspiration to work alittle(alot) harder!

cheers
stephen schirle