Sam Fontaine Studios

So in the last few weeks I've been trying to get better at drawing believable scifi technology. For a long time I've felt like the technology I come up with is a little too... blocky and doesn't quite mirror real life technology the way I would like for it to. So I've been studying and sketching machinery and gadgets from various scifi series and also using real life machines, like car engines and those new military robots. I think it's been helping quite a bit and I've been

The next illustration for the scifi novel, "A Chronicle Volume II" by EAE Gerber is done! This one is a spaceport that is a mall that customers and pilots can browse while their ship gets serviced by a series of technicians. I really enjoyed realizing this piece for the book. It was fun to create a museum like structure to show off various types of ships and alien technicians. I also had fun drawing the mall scene, I don't usually draw crowds of characters but this one was fu

Another illustration for the scifi novel, "A Chronicle Volume II" done! This depicts the climactic epic battle between the three major factions in the story; the Keb(Green ships), the galactic government(black and orange ships) and the main characters inside the space station. This piece was a bit of a departure from the previous illustration, "CRASH!" due to the fact that the primary background was digitally drawn which makes for an interesting, yet odd combination with the

The first illustration for the scifi novel, "A Chronicle Volume II" by EAE Gerber is done! Titled, "CRASH!", our band of ragtag outlaws find themselves caught in the middle of a resistance war between the inhabitants of this planet and the galactic government, and get shot out of the sky. I'm very proud of the color scheme I came up with for this piece, and the level of detail in the rubble. This piece was compared to Rodney Ramos' work on the graphic novel series, "Transmetr

Hey all! I've just finished the line art for the last illustration for the scifi novel, "A Chronicle Volume II" by EAE Gerber! This illustration is titled "CRASH!" because the main characters have unintentionally got wrapped up in a resistance war. During a skirmish they get shot down and crash into the city below. I had a ton of fun drawing these illustrations, but the level of detail that I wanted to have made drawing the rubble really difficult. It took the most time drawi

Here is the final inking of the illustration, "Interview" for the science fiction novel, "A Chronicle Volume II" by EAE Gerber. Since this illustration has larger foreground than my usual illustrations, it took me longer than anticipated to finish the texturing of the larger area such as the awning and the cafe masonry on the ground. This illustration also differed from my usual pieces because the main focus is the two people in the foreground. When I add people to my illustr

Hey all! Been working really hard on a few projects at once which is why I haven't posted any updates recently. One of the main projects I've been chipping away at is the illustrations for the scifi novel, "A Chronicle Volume II" by EAE Gerber. It's been a slow process since I want these to be high quality illustrations and I'm also a bit of a perfectionist, but things have been moving along and I've been very satisfied with how everything is shaping up! Below is a progress p

Someone recently turned me on to a vintage science fiction book series called "The Culture" by Ian M Banks. The series takes place within an intergalactic, fully automated communist federation called "The Culture". Scarcity no longer exists so everything is run by robots, drone and AI while all organic life no longer has to work, die or suffer. In a world where a person can never move from a couch and still live to be 700 years old, the search for meaning in one's life become

I recently had a lot of commissions to work on all within a short amount of time and when they all reached completion I was faced with a terrible amount of artistic burn out and lack of inspiration that I found to be rather depressing. I went online and did some research on techniques that other professional artists use in order to combat burn out. What I found was an interesting meditative technique called "Automatic Drawing" which was used by one of my favorite artists of a

Hi all! I've been super busy recently with some commissions recently which I'm super grateful for. Over this Labor Day weekend I took some time to play around with another digital and traditional media mix. This piece is called "Exploring the Past" since the robot is looking through a laptop from a past civilization. The background was inspired by the art of Roger Dean and Moebius. I started this piece with a fountain pen since it operates much smoother than regular pens and

I don't have much to say about this piece, it was a nice little side project/distraction after working on the scifi long ship poster for so long. The concept was loosely inspired by an old episode of "Courage the Cowardly Dog". The main thing I learned after this piece is that, unless you are using color theory, its not a good idea to lay more than two colors because then the color gets kind of muddy and dirty looking, but I'm happy with how it turned out overall, a nice set

Hi everyone, I got a new character design for you all! "Zorro X" is a digitally painted character portrait created using Photoshop. About a month and a half ago was the 100th Anniversary of the movie "The Legend of Zorro" and I wanted to do something in honor of one of my literary heroes by doing a genre flip/cyberpunk re-imagining. I'm quite proud of how it turned out and I'm hoping to create a background for this piece as a separate project for practice with environment des

Hi everyone! Last week I completed this new scifi book cover to be sold at www.selfpubbokcovers.com. My inspiration for this piece came from a mix of a couple vintage scifi illustrators. These two artists are Blair Wilkins and Moebius. Here is a brief history lesson to you about myself, as you can see in my colored pencil section of my site, I used to do a lot of colored pencil and pen pieces. I was always drawn to clear pen lines and bright colors with creative artistic subj

Along with the series of Dungeons and Dragons character illustrations I was working on, I was also simultaneously working on a scifi city landscape illustration. I call it the "Citadel" and it is one of my favorite scifi illustrations I've done. I learned from a fellow digital painter that sometimes if you want to make a believable texture in your painting, that you should find the actual texture. By that I mean go online and look for a photo that has the texture you want to

I was browsing some of my old art the other day and I found an old poster I drew a couple years ago after being very inspired one night while walking around on a local golf course and taking in a magnificent view of the course and the city lights on the horizon from atop a green mound. I remember thinking hard to make a mental note of the beauty and the details such as the glistening of the grass and stars as well as the shadows of the trees against the horizon. I went home t