This page displays a range of my black and white artwork, primarily in the Fantasy and Science Fiction genre, but also including a couple of other genre pieces in which I occasionally work. Originals and prints for sale are so indicated with each image. I do take private and publishing commissions - feel free to contact me for information at pbutler@camden.rutgers.edu. Click on the images to see a higher resolution version. All images are copyright Paul Butler and may not be used in any way without permission of the artist.

Persephone
Pencil on paper, 8x10 inches
Copyright 1996.

Portrait of my wife Stephanie based on a photograph taken by the former staff photographer ("Fred") of the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania. My wife is an ancient historian specializing in Greece and the Near East, and I decided to do a portrait of her in classical persona. The dress, lyre and jewelry are hers, the background is imaginary.

Niavelsha
Pencil on paper, 8x9 inches
Copyright 2005.

Character portrait of one of my gaming characters, an elvish archer. Had a lot of fun designing the armor. Bow is based on my recurve. She is known in the game as being somewhat stoic and does WAY too much damage with her arrows.

Forging the Soulsword
Pencil on paper, 8x10 inches
Copyright 1996.

A pencil study done for an as-yet uncompleted painting. A "modified" version of my friend Greg's living room, with myself as the young wizard, friend Arthur as the wizard, cat Diva as herself, with various props from my house. The giant book was actually the OED. I did this one mostly to work out the lighting for the painting, but it turned out such a nice drawing that I decided to finish it more cleanly.

Dragonflight
Pencil on paper, 11x16 inches
Copyright 1997.

Dragon flying over Caernaevon Castle in North Wales. Based on an aeriel photograph of the castle ruins. And yes, it took a fair number of hours to do. For closer detail, .

Dragon Strike
Pencil on paper, 11x16 inches
Copyright 1998.

I had sold the above piece at a convention, and decided I wanted another one for myself at the time. So I did this piece of a dragon flying over a battle for Conwy Castle, also in North Wales. Never did decide which side the dragon was on... For closer detail, .

Bonnie Silver
Pencil on paper, 8x13 inches
Copyright 2002.

Portrait of Bonnie Silver. Bonnie is a character I created back when I was 13 years old or so, and have been drawing on and off since. Drawings of her are kind of my personal benchmark of how my drawing is doing. This one is more or less completely out of my own head (little bit of reference of me kneeling to get the hand angles correct, but that's about it). Probably the first time I've put her in modern dress. If you want to be amused, you can see the history of Bonnie (and indirectly how my drawing has improved over time) by .

The One-Eyed Man
Pencil on paper, 9x12 inches
Copyright 1998.

This was an illustration for a short story in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future collection (where I was a finalist in the Illustrators contest). The man here is a prisoner who is on trial, watching a projection of his own memory of the incident.

Barbarian
Pencil on paper, 8x10 inches
Copyright 2000.

Character drawing of a fantasy barbarian. I posed with a pair of axes for it, though my axes weren't quite as fancy. I did make a pair of bracers like his, though. Very much in the flavor of Elmore, Parkinson and the old D&D crew.

Elven Archer
Pencil on paper, 8x10 inches
Copyright 2000.

Character drawing of a elven archer. Done as a companion to the barbarian above. The bow is based on my wife's scythian double-recurve bow, and I had a lot of fun with the costume here. This one has even more Elmore influence in it, I think.


Pencil on paper, 3x8 and 6x8 inches
Copyright 2002.

Pair of images done for Flights of Fantasy's Book of Traps and Tricks Volumes One and Two. I ended up doing about forty drawings between both books of the mechanics of traps and magical items. They were lots of fun! These are a couple of my favorites.

Matsu Igiruko
Pencil on paper, 8x10 inches
Copyright 2002.

Character drawing of my Legend of the Five Rings character, the samurai Matsu Igiruko. The sword is my tachi, the armor drawn from a text on Japanese arms and armor. The woman on which the drawing is based is actually Korean.

Ahdriana
Pencil on paper, 8x10 inches
Copyright 2002.

Character drawing of my human assassin character Ahdriana. The crossbow is based on my own, the armor similar to something I saw at a Renaissance faire. The figure is from my head.

Asian Nude
Pencil on paper, 8x14 inches
Copyright 2002.

No this isn't Igiruko in a more leisurely mode, though the model is same woman, and technically so is the sword. I had done a pencil study of an old playboy image of a nude blonde with a fencing foil a while back , and surprisingly got several requests from individuals to draw them in a similar fashion. This is how one of them came out.

Harper and Fairy
Pen and Ink on paper, 8x10 inches and 4x6 inches
Copyright 1997 and 2000.

Pair of pen and ink images of my wife Stephanie. The harper drawing uses my Dusty Strings harp posed with her in the Morris Arboretum. The fairy version is a small pen and ink version of a color pencil drawing that might appear on the color page. It was done for a company called Enchanted Ink, which makes rubber stamps!

Half-Elven Rogue
Pencil on paper, 8x10 inches
Copyright 2000.

Character portrait done for a client of a half-elven rogue. The face is based on Zen Gesner (per their request), who played Sinbad on the old sydnicated TV series. Unfortunately I don't own that sword...

Into the Woods
Pen and Ink on paper, 9x12 inches
Copyright 1995.

Into the nasty dark woods. Fun with textures, mostly, though I have to say I did come to really like the ogres. Almost has the feel of a woodcut, and somebody once sent me a really nice colorized version.

Map of Fronlaria
Pen and Ink on paper, 10x16 inches
Copyright 2000.

I've done a lot of maps in my gaming career, so I thought I'd put one up here. This is the land of Fronlaria in the Northwest Realms. Text was added via computer onto a scanned pen and ink drawing.

Terracotta Figurine
Pen and Ink on paper, 2x7 inches and 7x9 inches
Copyright 2002.

A pair of images for my wife's book on the Origins of Aphrodite. The left is a small terracotta figurine from Cato Symi. The right is a greek black figure amphora showing the judgement of Paris. The stipling technique for this was done with a superfine micro pen, and did take a couple of hours.

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