Spectrum Fantastic Art Live!!!

Hey gang,

Guess where I'll be next week? Where all the cool art nerds will be, of course. In Kansas City, Missouri.

(Record Scratch!!!)

Say WHAT? Why? Missouri? Really?

Ya, I'll be at Spectrum Fantastic Art Live along with the who's who of the fantasy illustration community. I'll be sharing a booth with some guy named Greg Manchess. (whomever the hell THAT is?)

No, Greg is a really good friend of mine and was (and still is) a hero of mine all through out college and beyond. I'm deeply honored to be stinking up his booth with my crappy artwork. ;) I'm doing my best to crank out some new work and finish off stuff that's been on the drawing board for a number of months now. I'll also have prints of some of my most recent illustrations, some of my nudes, and some of my coloring books for Dover.

Here's an image of said recent piece.



It's a mix of oils, acrylics and digital.

RPG Compositions 2 and Society of Illustrators Jazz Sketch Show

Sketching some more compositions for RPG's on my lunch breaks at work. Here is a new batch.











Thank you for all the comments on the first batch. I should have a little more time in the new year to attack these babies and turn them into finished illustrations.


Also, I have a nude up on the wall of the Society of Illustrators part of the Jazz & Sketch Group Show. See Related Post.

This painting of the beautiful Piera was also on the Nude of the Day Blog: 11.24.2008.

Sketching Compositions for RPGs

Ever since I picked up my first Magic: The Gathering cards back in high-school, I was into sci-fi and fantasy role playing games. Not for the chance to be in a different world, pretending to be a monster or a goblin (I've never touched Dungeons & Dragons), but for the Illustrations. I haven't played the game for over 10 years. I don't think I even remember how to play it anymore. But every time a new set comes out I scour the interwebs for the art. I have several friends that illustrate for Wizards of the Coast (the company that publishes Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons), some even make a decent living from it.

It's always been my goal to work for WotC but my portfolio does not reflect this. So I've been playing around with compositions and sketching out ideas that I'd like to eventually turn into a portfolio for RPGs. Here are some doodles I did last week on my lunch break at work:








What do you think? Are there any that jump out at you? Any I should develop further or forget about?

Process of "Underneath It All" Painting

Here are some shots of the process of my Last Man Standing Round 1 "Underneath It All" entry.

Sketch phase: Started out with a digital sketch to play with compositions and then collaged some photos. Then just went in with charcoal on gessoed masonite. I was originally going to put the girl in a grave yard but then i decided to avoid the "goth" feel.


Detail of the figure in sketch phase:

I got very impatient with the sketch and decided to dive into the oils without fully resolving the figure and a lot of the secondary elements. Bad idea on my part.


And this is where the frustration started. Lots of noodling at an early stage, wiping down the paint back to the sketch stage, and lots of screaming at myself about how much I suck at painting.





Then my usual issues start coming through; gimpy feet and head that's WAY too big. No matter what my intentions are I always end up making the head about twice as big as when i started out.



After repainting the head two more times and more noodling in the background things started coming together. Now on to my dreaded enemies, the hands.



With the deadline fast approaching and the hands giving me all sorts of trouble I decided to stop here and fix the mistakes digitally.

24x48 inches Oil on Masonite


Digitally I enhanced the saturation and color of the figure and laid in more snow to further delineate what is above ground and what is below. Added some better looking trees to the background. And then continued struggling with those hands. This is where the image was at when it was time to submit it for Last Man Standing.



I let it sit for a few days and then tried to fix it some more to send it of for Spectrum 15. I made the figure smaller and moved it down some. Fixed the hands a little.



Related Post: Last Man Standing 3 - Round 1 - Underneath It All

Last Man Standing 3 - Round 1 - Underneath It All

A few years ago a friend of mine, Cody Tilson, started a brutal art elimimnation contest over at ConceptArt.org. It was a modification on their yearly Thunderdome contest where artists would compete against one another for bragging rights. Cody's version, Last Man Standing, pits members of the site against one another in multi-round elimination art "fights". Amateurs are pitted against professionals and the soon-to-be-professionals. The only way to advance is to bring out your best art skills and tricks and then push them beyond their limits.


(I submitted this version to Spectrum 15)


In it's Third year Last Man Standing (LMS3) started with 360 contestants "fighting" in 72 six-man/woman battles. The battles were posted last week and we await the judges' results.
(LMS3 round 1 - Matches 1-24, 25-48, and 49-72)
The entries are judged by an all-star panel of Professionals in the field and Art Directors. This is a great way for young upstarts to get their work in front of the people who matter.


I had a tough match (#28). I'll consider myself very lucky if I advance to Round 2.
This was the state at which the piece was at when I submitted it:



Related Post: Process of "Underneath It All" Painting