Sacrifice!

Sacrifice! Illustration for Mana Rocks an upcoming online card game.

All I was given was the name of the card and I went first with a literal idea of a warrior sacrificing himself for something. I guess initially my idea was like to seal a demon away or something. But I didn't like it so I decided to bring more storytelling to it, which I like a lot more, so I figured something like a last stand, an old and battered warrior giving it all for the last time. Then I got the second sketch and from there the painting worked much better.

Both sketches were done digitally in Photoshop as was the final painting.

First idea

First idea

Improved idea

Improved idea

Detail

Detail