Happy 2011!

Howdy Everyone,

Happy New Year to all of you!

A year ago I wrote that my biggest goal for 2010 was to pursue my freelance career full time. I'm happy to report that I was able to accomplish it in 2010. I went full-time freelance in the summer after quiting my day job at Royal-Athena Galleries and moving 3000 miles west to Portland, Oregon. It hasn't been an easy transition and 6 months in I'm still trying to work out a lot of the kinks that come with the freelance life style.

The biggest change, one that I don't think I can ever get used to, is the absence of the weekly paycheck. I had to drastically change my standard of living. Good bye weekly sushi outings, hello PB&J. This hasn't been that hard mainly because I haven't found a good sushi place in Portland yet. But worrying about how I'm going to pay rent next month has not been fun. On the plus side, this experience has been a crash course in living within your means, something every freelancer need to learn to do.

The other major issue is not having a daily routine fully worked out. I don't need to be anywhere at any certain time, so it's pretty easy to loose all structure and sleep in past noon. In NY, my freelance work day would start in the evenings after coming home from the full time work day. It has largely remained the same here in PDX. I typically start my workday way too late and burn the midnight oil a lot. So one of my resolutions for 2011 is to slowly edge this schedule down to the less vampiric hours.

There are a few other changes that I'm still struggling to get used to, but I'm sure you really don't want to hear about this minutia. So on too some art.

Last year I previewed a dragon head from a coloring book I did for Dover. Well the book just hit the shelves a week or so ago. Here is the front and back covers (note: I just did the art, the covers were designed and colored by the Dover art department):






...and some interior pages:










This was a fun project. I had to make 2 big illustrations that had to split into 12 individual images and each individual image had to be interesting enough to stand on it's own. It was a fun challenge that I took to my usual anal-retentive extremes. Here's another one I did immediately after, Fairy Princess:





The first scene was you typical Princess in a magical garden scene:





...but for the second scene I got to draw a Princess defending her castle from an attacking horde of Orcs:






I also got to do a fun, glow-in-the-dark paper-dolls book that will be coming out some time before Halloween 2011. Here are some rejected sketches that sadly will not be in the book. We ended up dropping the demon and using a different pose for the Werewolf:



And the Zombies were a little too gruesome for kids so I PGed them for the final product:



I can't wait to see how they'll turn out in all their glow-in-the-dark glory.

I was hoping to show off some work I did for the Legends of the Five Rings RPG, but AEG pushed back the release date to late February 2011. I've been working on a number of cards for them over the last few months and I'm starting on a new set soon that I'm very excited about. I also have some personal work that I'm very eager to get started on as soon as I finish my current obligations. I'm really looking forward to what 2011 has in store for me, and I hope to be able to share new work with you more often than I did this past year.

Thank you all for checking in and being super patient with me.

Oh and before I forget, today is the last day to take advantage of the Holiday Sale on Nude of the Day.



I realize that I never gave the readers of this blog a heads up about the 2-month long sale. So if you're still interested in getting some Nudes once the sale is over I'll be happy to extend the 50% off rates for you. Just email me and I'll take care of you.

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:

Happy 2010!

Howdy Everyone,

I know I'm a little late to the party, but I'd like to wish everyone a Happy New Year!
I started off the year swamped with freelance deadlines and a nasty cold slowing me down. I'm finally getting a lot of last year's stuff out of the way and it's given me a moment to reflect on 2009 and set up some goals for 2010.

My biggest goal for 2010 is to pursue my freelance career full time. I'm at that point where the freelance is enough to have me pulling all kinds of crazy hours outside of my day job but not enough to support my retarded-high New York rent and food expenses. I started off 2009 with just one client, and was lucky enough to pick up another few throughout the year. A few of them in the RPG card game industry, something I've been hoping to do for a while now. In 2010 I'm targeting the Big Kahuna in the RPG industry, Wizards of the Coast. I've hung out with a bunch of the AD's from Wizards over the past few years and had some great reviews from them.

One of the AD's who's been a great source of information is Jon Schindehette (the Senior AD for Dungeons & Dragons®). On his blog ArtOder he posts great insights into the inner workings of Wizards of the Coast, answers questions from the AD's perspective, spotlights all kinds of great artists, runs weekly creative challenges, and a whole lot more. I tried to participate in as many of the weekly challenges as possible, but only managed to finish up one, the one for the Vampires Challenge. Here is my entry:




One of the funnest challenges form last year was the Drow vs. Mind Flayer Challenge. Jon enlisted top AD's in the industry to help him judge the challenge and it was a great opportunity for exposure. Unfortunately, due to prior deadlines for Dover and a fun week bleeding after sinus surgery, I wasn't able to finish my piece in time. I planned to finish it up after the deadline but haven't gotten around to it. Here's where I'm at:



detail:


There's probably some things I'd change in the composition but overall I'm happy with the direction it's headed.

One of the other really helpful things Jon used to do (and I hope he gets back to doing this year) was post selections from the D&D style guide so that non-D&D-playing artists like myself can familiarize ourselves with the characters of the D&D world. Every Thursday that Jon posted a style guide I'd spend my lunch hour at work sketching up some compositions and character studies. I also started using the style guides for warm-up sketches before tackling my freelance work. Here are a few:

Tieflings







A watercolor warm-up sketch:


And with some digital on top:


Dragonborn





Lucky for me, the stars aligned themselves and I spent most of 2009 working on books for Dover that related to the RPG game industry. Dover just published my Fantasy Warriors Stained Glass Coloring Book. Here are a some pages form that:

Front Cover:


Back Cover:


Orc:


Angel:


Devil Girl:


It was a fun project to work on and I used it as an excuse to work up a bunch of sketches and collect a ton of reference that I may be able to use in the future.

Also, I just finished up a project for Dover that had a dragon in it. And thanks to Jon's critique of my dragon at GenCon, I was able to make a stronger image for this project. Here's a sneak peek:

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.

Moleskine 5.0 Part 2

Today is Drawing Day 2009.

Help promote art by drawing today and putting your results online. You don't have to be an artist to participate, just a lover of art. Click on the banner above for more details.

My contribution is the remainder of my Moleskine 5.0



Composition sketches for another Dover project, due out at the end of the year.



Did another stint at the NYC Veterans Affairs hospital in February, a volunteer event organized by Joan Chiverton. Here's the sticker to prove it.


Sketches for spots for a Cover for a McGraw-Hill business book and another Dover project.



Short sketches form the Society of Illustrators.


More sketches for yet another Dover project. This one, unfortunately, was not aproved by the powers that be.




Quick landscape sketches from a short trip to Brattleboro, VT in April.







Related Posts: Moleskine, Moleskine continued, Moleskine 2.0, Moleskine 3.0, Moleskine 2007: A Year in Review, Watercolor Moleskine: Part 1, Watercolor Moleskine: Part 2, Moleskine 5.0: Part 1