Doug Hoppes - Designer

Hi, I'm Doug Hoppes. In the past, I've mainly worked with small independent publishers creating dark fantasy covers for their comics and books. Also, I create creature designs and paintings for game systems such as Necromech and the Cellarius Project. In the cases of games, the creature paintings were used for interior design for their monster manuals and their rule books.

As a dark fantasy illustrator, my primary focus is on creating an image that portrays an emotional feel. I make heavy use of textures and silhouettes so that a person understands what is going on, but I don't tell them the whole story. This way, they can bring part of themselves to the cover and only has a glimpse of what is happening in the story.

When working with authors, I typically will create several digital paintings so that we both can understand what type of story information that we want to tell the reader. Once the digital painting has been approved, the next step is to transfer the drawing and then create the oil painting.