Many of you are asking, "What ever happened to the Dungeon Master Series?" And, "Does Justin even draw anymore?" and, "Are all of his castles built on a foundation of LIES?!?!" Well, today I finally have an update for those of you asking for more adventure!
Our classic crew has been languishing in an orc prison for the past month, ...still waiting to be broken...
2025-03-14 13:00:14 +0000 UTC View Post
This month we've got 2 new spreads from the Martian of the Month Sketchbook!
The first features some very outdated technology that is well past its planned obsolescence date...
I had a lot of fun going back to some really old 1990 tech for designing the robots. Next month we've got the NEW and improved version (based off the FUTURISTIC designs from t...
2025-03-14 13:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post
Today we continue on our sightseeing tour of the galaxy with 2 interplanetary menaces:
First, the "Stranded." Leftovers from the leviathan invasion, who were left aboard ships when the Leviath fleet left the system. Now they haunt the abandoned stations and derelict ship hulls drifting in the vast orbital graveyards.
2025-02-21 19:18:56 +0000 UTC
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Today I have 3 drawings of characters to introduce to you from the Good & Evil Spirits project. This first one is a yet-to-be-named walking pebble the locals simply call "Mossy." Mossy will be our monochrome oil painting for the month.
Next is Madame Hemlock. Sh...
2025-02-21 19:06:16 +0000 UTC View Post
Today I have a few more exploratory sketches to share with you from the *secret* project I am working on with Annie. I've been steadily sketching these little characters and locations out in between my other work.
2025-02-07 16:00:16 +0000 UTC
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This month for the martian sketchbook, I am working with Squids!
The mainstay units of their invasion fleet. I have been looking forward to working on these characters for a long time. The squids were one of the earliest factions I designed, and the one that I have probably had the clearest vision for overall. Not sure why it has taken me so long to post them! I've g...
2025-02-07 15:05:18 +0000 UTC View Post
This month's Monster of the Month is the Aphid Rancher. Though not quite a monster himself, his aphids definitely are. (If you ask the tomato plant anyway.) The Aphid Rancher is a character personifying the tragedy of the commons. "Take everything you can, let others care for the common good!" He exists only for his aphid honeydew, and the rest of the world can burn so...
2025-01-28 15:12:35 +0000 UTC View Post
For some time now, my wife Annie and I have been developing a nature guide book together. It is in the early stages, and not quite ready to be released out into the wild, but I plan to start sharing the drawings and paintings we've finished here with you first.
Much of this is conceptual art, so the t...
2025-01-19 19:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
This month I have a painting of some glorious aerial mayhem for you! It is a cover for a tabletop game featuring airships and sky islands. (I will link it here when it goes live.) The cover was a ton of fun to paint, especially the explosions, which I feel like I just never can get enough of!
The process wa...
2025-01-18 19:09:19 +0000 UTC View Post
At 9:13 on October the 8th, I had just let my dogs out and was standing on the porch when I heard something crunching in the woods near my house. The dogs barked and ran back to the door. As I turned to look toward the direction of the sound I was startled by a tiny creature with 4 wings and a frog face that flew up to me from the brush, and then flew away at great speed. It was as if it had tried to warn me in some forest language that I couldn't hear or understand. As I watched it fly up in...
2025-01-09 23:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
In this post I am going to share my favorite materials for drawing "under-the-circumstances". This is something I developed out of necessity after having kids, while trying to maintain a work/life balance of watching them as babies, and also keeping my job. Now that they are older and less prone to climb gates or pull lamps over or microwave the cat, I find this mobile studio continues to deliver, and has allowed me to finish hundreds of professional drawings wether on the...
2025-01-02 14:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
As dangerous as it is to make New Year’s resolutions, or big plans for a year in general, I still like to set some basic goals and expectations. Having a target helps me stay motivated, and always results in greater productivity and accomplishment for me. So without further ado, here are the projects I plan to be working on this next year, and the format I'll be sharing them in!:
PROJECTS:
#1 The Dungeon ...
2025-01-01 16:00:15 +0000 UTC View Post
At the end of a year I like to look back and see what my goals for the year were, and do a post-mortem on how my plans turned out. One might think that this kind of harsh internal scrutiny at one's own failures is a sure-fired way into a spiral of depression and self-loathing; but I like it! Failure is okay! If you aren't FAILING, then you aren't setting your sites high enough! DREA...
2024-12-29 14:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
This month, as promised, we are catching up on spreads for the Martian Sketchbook. First!: We've got the giant caterpillars, the "Ion Worm" and the "Plague Tyrant". Their webs overtake entire space stations as they chew their way through the hulls, but no one yet knows what horror emerges from those cocoons....
Next, the scavengers:
2024-12-28 14:00:07 +0000 UTC
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This month for the Classic Fantasy Art Series I have a quick preview of what's on the easel next for me:
Some of you may recognize this particular cast of characters. I had expected to let them ride off into the sunset and have a rest in 2025. I even had a whole new series on the "City Watch" planned out for a 2025 Calendar:
2024-12-28 13:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Today I am happy to share (what I hope is) the FINAL FORM of the Spacefarer's Guide to Intergalactic Pests! It’s been a blast making drawings for the book, something I’ve been doing in the evenings before bed. (Nothing like going to sleep with alien horrors on the brain…)
I will be sharing more of these each month as I get them written. (The writing is always...
2024-12-03 16:38:08 +0000 UTC View PostFirst, before we get into what you can expect on here for the month, let's reveal what the patented JustinAI bot gave us for #LETSDRDAWMONSTERS this month!:
As usual, I had a hard time picking which one. So instead of doing the hard work and thoughtfully considering the merits of each one, I decided to throw it up on a poll and let you decide! Vote below for...
2024-12-03 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View Post
You encounter a small Doglin wizard. He offers to help you on your quest. Do you accept?
Happy Halloween everyone!
-jg
2024-10-31 13:00:22 +0000 UTC View PostAttached below is big .abr file with all 6 of my brush sets for 2024 so far. I'm sorry they are so late, I have been putting this post off for a loooooong time...
I made these 6 sets and meant to post them several months ago, but then Adobe Photoshop BETRAYED the art community by taking our work without our consent, attempting to replace us with generative AI trained off our work, and trapping us in an unethical subscription model ...
2024-10-27 19:55:37 +0000 UTC View Post
Today I have some early Halloween drawings for you from the Dark Wizards Market!
These are all exploratory work for the 2026 Dungeon Master Series. As with a lot of the others thus far, these focus a bit more on side quests, strange little shops and a giant market for dark wizards. I'm having a lot of fun with all merchants and potion-makers, as well as the st...
2024-10-27 16:22:11 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello all, some bad news for any of you attending Illuxcon later this week. Annie has come down with pneumonia, and at this moment, it seems like we aren't going to be making it to this year's Illuxcon. This is really disappointing for us both as she and I both finished 2 paintings each for the event. So we will be missing it, but today, I wanted to share some of these new originals I had planned t...
2024-10-22 19:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
I need your help choosing which character to paint for this month's watercolor warrior! "Warrior" may actually be too strong a term for most of these figures. Theme-wise, these are all characters you might meet if you were running a booth at a market for Dark Wizards. Some need curses broken, some need medicine, some need rare pet food, and all have come to your booth for help! Who fits that idea the best? Which would you...
2024-10-11 13:08:32 +0000 UTC View Post
I've been busy drawing this month and today I have a collection of several hi-res drawings to share with you! All of these were done in preparation for this year's Illuxcon where I plan to display the originals for sale. The images are explorations for the next iteration of the Dungeon Master Series. Primarily, this series will be focused on creating content for Calendar 2026, but there is also a fun little card game component I am working on related to it. The characte...
2024-10-11 12:50:39 +0000 UTC View Post
Update Oct. 2, 2024: My computer crashed, then caught fire, and finally was pulled into the warp by cosmic demons, just as I launched the scheduled stream today. I am hastily ordering new parts, and hoping to get them in and up in time do the stream 10AM EST on Friday October 4, 2024. More updates to follow on the Discord... -jg
OKAY, LET'S JUMP RIGHT IN: We've got an awesome monster...
2024-10-02 12:33:01 +0000 UTC View Post
I am NOT dead, and yes I still make art! We survived hurricane Helene with only minor scrapes, and while the power is still on here I am uploading a batch of much-delayed art for you! First, a much delayed hydra:
It was drawn in the new color-pencil style we've been working with recently (and which I am still loving!). For anyone interested in it's evolution, here is a shot of the origi...
2024-09-27 21:13:05 +0000 UTC View Post
This month we are back with a classic! The Terrorkeet is the creature for September and we will be getting started within the hour!
As per our new format, this offering is what we received by chance from a set of 3 random offerings from the cards. It was a close one though, as the other 2 were awesome sounding as well!:
Very likely you are looking at a preview of n...
2024-09-11 13:16:38 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm back from DragonCon! It was an amazing show and we had an awesome time there this year. We ate good food, saw crazy costumes, bought some amazing art, ...and brought back a bit of the classic con crud.
So I am still not exactly unpacked yet, nor have I done anything of the hundred or so other things I was supposed to do, and instead I found myself just sitting and painting monsters for awh...
2024-09-06 13:00:10 +0000 UTC View Post
It's that time of year again and I've got a couple posts to share some of the goods that I'll be purveying this year!:
First, we've got a ton of prints and originals from our recently-released cards from Magic the Gathering's Bloomburrow series, such as the drawing of "Crumpet" shown above, and "Beastmaster Ascension" shown below.
2024-08-26 19:06:06 +0000 UTC
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This month I am pleased to finally release the Dungeon Master Series 2025 Calendar!
It features all of the illustrations from the Dungeon Master Series thus far, plus some bonus material and drawings!
Live on: twitch.tv/justingerardillustration
As promised, today we dive back into LETSDRAWMONSTERS! It's season 2 and this time, we are letting the fishbowl fates decide the prompt for us! I'll explain more about the format on stream, but here is what they gave us for this month:
A...
2024-08-07 13:47:59 +0000 UTC View Post