The WAY Overdue Summer 2010 Update

Summer is almost over and I am WAY overdue for an update. And what a summer it was. I started it by quiting my day job at Royal-Athena Galleries and heading up to Amherst, MA for the Illustration Master Class. In between freaking out about no longer having a steady income and the upcoming move 3000 miles west to Portland, Oregon, I managed to cobble together a sketch and slap some paint on the canvas. And, according to Greg Manchess, I even had a breakthrough, though I'm still not 100% sure of that. I didn't finish my piece, but planning to get back to it in a few weeks after I finish off some freelance obligations.

So immediately after the IMC I spent a week in a daze of cardboard boxes and packing tape. It's amazing how much crap you accumulate in 5 years. But while all that turmoil was going on, AEG released an expansion for their popular Legend of the Five Rings CCG. I was only able to do one card for the set:


Here are the sketches I sent to the AD:


Also, at the same time, I received a package from Fantasy Flight Games. It was a copy of their Talisman expansion. As with L5R, I was only able to do one card for this set. And it was a stretch for me. An environment piece with no figures:


The AD gave me the option to put a crazy monster into the illustration, which, in retrospect, I should have done. But I chose the literal route and decided on a landscape. Here are the sketches I sent the AD:

I liked the third sketch the best, but the AD picked the first one, because it best depicted the chaos he was looking for. As a compromise, I used an element from sketch #3 in the final. See if you can spot it.

July was a mad dash to find an apartment in Portland and getting acclimated to my new surroundings. I also managed to do another piece for Fantasy Flight. Unfortunately it is still under NDA.

And August was pure insanity. After getting ripped off by the movers and paying twice what I expected I found my savings dwindle to just $50. So it was Ramen noodles and PB&J for a while. The watercolors from my Nude of the Day blog survived the trek west, so I decided to get rid of them in a month-long and a way overdue (get the theme yet?) sale:


But in my usual fashion, I failed to promote the sale, so it was a bust. If anyone reading this blog is sorry they missed the sale, I will gladly extend it for you. Just shoot me an email.

And, if you have some spending cash left over afterward, check out what my girlfriend has been up to and send some cash her way:


August also was the end of my 3rd decade on this shiny blue planet and the beginning of my 4th. And on my 30th birthday, Dover released my Vampire Nights Stained Glass Coloring Book. Here are a few pages from the book:





And now in September I'm starting another "Vampire" project for Dover. I, too, am riding the Vampire craze as far as it takes me.

I hope this makes up for my lack of posts over the past few months. Here's another small nugget, a sketch for another portfolio piece I'll try to squeeze in when I have the time: