Summer 2009 News And Updates

Hey Gang,

Lots of exiting news from yours truly.

First off, yesterday I posted my 800th Nude on Nude of the Day.

I'm a little late with the Best Of Year Two book, but rest assured that it is in the works. I hope to have it in time for IlluxCon in November.


Second, Spectrum Show II will be up at the Society of Illustrators from September 1st to the October 17th. I had the honor of helping Arnie and Cathy Fenner, Irene Gallo and Greg Manchess curate the show. The opening for the show is on Friday September 11th and will be followed by Art Out Loud demos on September 12th. If you can spare the $40 entrance fee, I highly recommend you make it to the opening. If not, come see the show any other day when it is free.


Also, I updated my website. It's not a big update, just a few "newish" pieces in the Illustration section, but its an update non-the-less.


The update was spurred on by GenCon 2009 (got to keep those portfolio sites updated). I went out Indianapolis to help out my friend Steven Belledin. He told me months ago "Come out to Indy, show your portfolio to gaming publishers, and you will get work", and I did. Two days after GenCon, White Wolf called with a job. W00t!
I had a great time hanging out with my friends in the Artist's Alley and meeting new ones. One new friend, Jeremy McHugh, recorded my mindless babble for the Ninja Mountain Podcast (which is a MUST listen for everyone in the illustration field).

In other news, a few weeks ago I received several sets of the Ancient Greek Discovery Kit from Dover, which collected a few coloring books (one of them mine) and included crayons and an 11x17 poster I did of the Battle of Marathon. Click on the image for a larger version.


Until next time.

Freelance work for Dover Publications

Wow, it's been over a month since my last update. Not good.

I went off to California last month for a little break from NY, and came back to a mountain-load of work.

Thanks to the referral of my good friend Scott Altmann, I've been working on coloring books for Dover Publications. Between working a full-time job (almost full-time, I've been at lest an hour late consistently over the last 3-6 months), and helping out at the Society of Illustrators, I've been burning the midnight oil working on the books for Dover.
The first one, Extreme Sports Coloring Book, is coming out October 17th. Amazon has it for pre-order. I'm not too crazy about the cover...

(not my font choices)

...but some of the interior pages turned out pretty nice.







I wish I had more sketchbooks to show, but the Dover work kinda took over my life in the summer time, so I haven't been able to do much personal sketching. Hopefully this will change as I better incorporate my freelance work into my already busy schedule.


In other news, the good folks over at Spectrum plugged my Best of Nude of the Day: Year One book in their ComicCon International coverage. That's very nice of them, especially after I got hostile with Arlo Burnett.


Also, I created a Facebook fan page for Nude of the Day. If you are a member of Facebook, head over and become a fan of the blog. I will be updating the page with my favorite images and will notify fans of upcoming promotions and special offers.

Spectrum 15 List

Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art published the list of all the artists that got into Spectrum 15.

I didn't make it this year (which was expected), but I'd like to congratulate all my friends that did get in.

About 200 works of art from Volumes 12-15 will be collected together for a Best Of exhibit at the Society of Illustrators in late 2009.


Related post: Spectrum 15 Award Winners Announced

Spectrum 15 Award Winners Announced

Last weekend while I was partying it up at the Society of Illustrators with friends at the Book and Editorial Show for the 50th Annual, another annual was being judged in Overland Park, Kansas (Spectrum 15).

The Spectrum website teased us with pictures of the judging while it was happening.
And a few days ago they released the list of Award Winners.

A big congrats to my friends Kurt Huggins and Zelda Devon (Kurt lived 2 doors down from me in the dorms at the Savannah College of Art and Design) for getting the Silver Medal in the Editorial Illustration Category. At the pre-mentioned SoI party, Zelda congratulated me for for getting into Spectrum 14, and told me that it was her and Kurt's first year entering Spectrum. Not a bad first year. Here's a link to their Award-Winning Piece.

I doubt I'll make it in this year, but we'll have to wait until late March to find out.


Related post: Spectrum 15 List

Spectrum 14 - The Book

With the deadline for Spectrum 15 (January 25, 2008) fast approaching, I'd like to write about #14 (another post that is a long time overdue).

In late October 2007, Spectrum 14 (Amazon link), The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art came out. With every passing year, the annual has been getting progressively better.

Check out that awesome Andrew Jones cover:


After 5 years of trying, someone actually thought my work was worthy of the book.


And best of all I was put on the spread facing Alexi Briclot's piece that was used on the back cover of the Paperback version of the book.


Charlie Parker, wrote about #14 on his "Lines and Colors Blog" featuring Alexi's page. And Spectrum's website write-up about #14 has the foldout with my piece on it (even though the image quality is poor). Look Ma, I'm Famous.


For those looking to enter this year here is the Spectrum 15 entry info. Good luck to everyone!

Spectrum 14 Update

I got my letter from Spectrum Annual of Fantastic Art. The piece below was accepted:



edit: made the image a little bigger.

Spectrum 14 Annual

First off, i want to apologize for not updating this thing in a long time.

And second, I'm very happy to announce that after 5 years of trying I finally made it into the Spectrum Annual of Fantastic Art. What makes it even more exciting for me is that I'm in the book with a lot of my friends, who are directly responsible for my growth in the last two years. Thank you all who have helped me out and all that have sent their congratulations.

And third, I do not want to make a "yay me" post without any artwork to show for myself, so here is a detail of a painting I'm working on (in progress):