ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE! final

Final submission for Character of the Week (CHOW).

(here's a better resolution shot)

ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE! - work in progress

A work in progress done for CA's Character of the Week.

Variations

Just a quick post today before I run off to the day job. This is for ArtOrder's "Variations" Concept Tuesday contest. Just having a little fun with it :)

The (un)Usual suspects

This was done for ArtOrder's Concept Tuesday challenge, here. One of the things that surprised me was how ridiculously *fun* this particular challenge was. Once I got around to drawing the characters, (yesterday ... ) they only took a little while to do. I think I spent more time trying to settle on a background that didn't conflict with the characters than I did actually drawing them.

An interview in three parts: Jon Schindehette

I had the opportunity to interview Jon Schindehete, the author of ArtOrder and Senior Art Director for Wizards of the Coast for Character of the Week on Conceptart.org the other day. I've wanted to work for WoTC since I was kid (it was TSR, then). I want to even more now after talking with Jon. It sounds just all kinds of awesome.

PART I

PART II

PART III

SCBWI, wonderful peoples, and working digitally

This past weekend I was at the Western Washington SCBWI conference in Redmond, near Seattle. I had a great time, and got some very good notes from Grace Lin's breakout session on being a full time children's book illustrator.

Had a chance to meet some old friends and make some new ones: Deb Lund, Richard Jesse Watson, Dana Sullivan, Jim Di Bartolo, Michael Stearns, and Kevan Atteberry to name just a few of the wonderful people that I was able to talk to and hang out with.

From an illustrator's perspective, one of things that I was surprised by about the conference was the number of people that I spoke to who are interested in working digitally, or are working digitally, but are having challenges working in Adobe Photoshop, or are working only with a mouse. This is a bit of a multifaceted issue, in that many people (including some of the presenters) were only vaguely aware of Corel's Painter program. I don't want this to get into one is better than the other, but more of a "here's another option" post. I've been working in Adobe Photoshop since version 2, but for me, I find Painter to be far more intuitive and easy to use when painting digitally. Also, Painter is much less expensive than Photoshop.

The other thing that I was struck by was how many people are attempting to work digitally with a mouse. You *need* to get a Wacom Tablet at the very least. Corel and Wacom occaisionally do promotions where you can get Painter with a tablet. It makes life *so* much easier.

Ok, that's it for now. Time to go draw!

Haven't had much time this week for anything. Actively looking for work right now. If you know of something, give me a heads up.

Suburban dinosaurs - a wip. It's a bit of a recurring theme with me. I've been working on this piece off and on for a little more than a month now. The kid's face is fighting me for some reason.

A quick critter sketch.

Unfamiliar

Working up ideas for the next Concept Tuesday entry: An Unfamiliar Familiar. I haven't decided if I am going to abandon this concept yet or not. Still playing with it.

Boll Deevil

This was my second entry to Art Order's Concept Tuesday.

Art Order

I recently found Jon Schindehette's Art Order blog - a daily blog on the ins and outs of being an art director and how it relates to being an artist/illustrator. Aside from just fantastic insider information that you would normally have to kill for, or at least wait until an event of some kind to get, Jon also runs a weekly concept contest called "Concept Tuesday." A lot of fun with open entry, the artwork featured there every week (and well, almost everyday) is just jaw dropping.

The first challenge I entered was to take one of the existing D&D race (artist's choice) and move it ahead 4000 years. I chose the dragonborn.

Some older work

Start out with some older work that have been around a while.
Mask Series



Joan of Arc pencil study