Friday, December 17, 2010

Studio Man Cave

I've been inspired by Teri Windling's recent posts of various people's work spaces . I captured my man-cave in a panorama. Of note is the my completely ordinary drafting table that is special only to me because I've had it since the 8th grade in 1980. Also of note is the chair by the drafting table which was liberated from the University of Maryland computer lab sometime around 1985-6. Not shown is the walk-in closet (behind the closed door on the left) that I converted into a walk-in library because my book collection just got too big to keep in the room itself.



Sunday, December 5, 2010

Getting Started

Wow, I actually had enough time today to work on a piece for myself. It's been a really long time. I think I have a long way to go yet to get where I want to be ( this is a bit generic, a bit stiff, and not quite the "me" I know is possible), but at least I finished a drawing. I'll be doing color on this sometime soon. I'm trying to commit to a 100% natural media approach (though a few Photoshop tweaks are reasonable).

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Influence Map

Seems a lot of my artist friends are doing this. I found it really interesting to try to filter it down to those artists who really influence me (as opposed to ones I admire or like, but don't necessarily find to be an influence). Size to some extent in the image reflects degree of influence, but I only really have a limited scale here, so don't give it too much importance (Mignola should have a bigger square, so should Man Arenas, Miyazaki and and Moebius).



Clockwise  around the outside from the upper left: Alphonse Mucha, Winsor McCay, Man Arenas, Frank Frazetta, Moebius, Mary Blair, N.C. Wyeth, Roger Dean, Eyvinde Earl, Mike Mignola, Gustaf Tenggren, Kawase Hasui, Ivan Bilibin, Hayao Miyazaki; Center: John Bauer.

Get your own template here.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

A New Beginning

Well, looks like I landed a job! So I hope now to convert this blog into what I always wanted it to be which is a home for my work, not the work I do for others. I am proud of what I've done  and continue to do for my employers, but rarely are my job and my personal inclinations  in sync. Stay tuned.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Odd Man

There is something about his piece that I really like. I think it is its utter simplicity. It represents a style that I still can do, but never had much opportunity to pursue. I am currently working on a large personal project that I hope retains some of the qualities in this piece.

New Tools!

A long time ago I bought a suite of tools from Adobe. Mainly for Photoshop and After Effects, but they threw in Illustrator as well. I had had a really frustrating time years before with Illustrator, so I kind of "forgot" that I had it. A few years later I saw some Illustrator workby an artist that I admired that seemed to mesh well with where my personal work was going at the time -all flat and stylized. So I busted out Illustrator to see what I could do with it and to my surprise mastered it very quickly. I did a lot of  personal work with it and continue to hold it in my arsenal today.

One place I really got a work out was in doing forum avatars for my guild's website. It started by making images for me and my wife, but then everyone wanted one. So I ended up doing toon versions of somewhere over 60 guildies. We even opened a Cafe Press shop so we could buy mugs and tshirts. It was a lot of fun. I did a few custom pieces as well ranging from illustrating a crafting guide to a few special tshirts.














Where we start, is where we began.

Just over 10 years ago, I found myself stranded in Seattle, with no job and a pregnant wife. I had been designing and art directing the Babylon 5 game for over 2 years and my portfolio was old and worn. I decided to task myself with building some new pieces to show just what I could do, with an emphasis on world-building and concept design. The result was a project I called Si. An Asian flavored fantasy set in a world of clouds and floating islands. I think they still hold up pretty well.



























































Wednesday, July 7, 2010

New Stuff Coming Soon!

Well, I find myself in need of an on-line portfolio and I need it pretty fast, so this is going to be the new home for that until I do something more permanent. Stay tuned as work will be going up as soon as I sort and process it all.