Raymond Swanland has spent much of his career as a concept artist wih the gaming company Oddworld Inhabitants, working in various capacities from conceptual design to art direction and even marketing.

Now that Oddworld is transitioning into film development, Swanland is following suit. Outside of his Oddworld work, Swanland has created illustrations for fantasy and science fiction books, comics, magazines, snowboards and CDs. His work has also appeared in the Spectrum collections of contemporary fantastic art.

There are galleries of his work on his site. They have a convenient “Next/Previous” navigation that lets you stroll easily through all of the gallery sections (though you lose a bit of context that way).

Swanland works with a mixture of digital and traditional media, but I think the finishes are primarily digital.

He creates imaginative scenes of monsters, creatures and other characters, often in richly detailed and atmospheric environments. Like many conceptual designers, he often exerts control over visual focus with contrasts between muted and intense colors.

There is a Q & A section on which he discusses his working methods and a bio. You can also see some of his covers on the Forgotten Realms Library; and Irene Gallo, on her always fascinating blog, The Art Department, has a nice short post about working with Swanland that includes more images (see my post on The Art Department and Irene Gallo).