Tips and Techniques: Golden

Hello from upstate NY where I am attending the World Fantasy Convention! Happy 3rd Birthday to Exit Within tomorrow!

Not too long ago I accepted a private commission for 2 pencil drawings. I was basically given carte blanche with regards to subject matter--the best sort of commission. I put it off for a little bit and had an idea for what to do with it. When I surveyed the art I'd be showing at World Fantasy, I decided another painting with a female figure would not be appropriate given the lady-centric selection of work I was bringing.

I now had an 8x10" hole to fill, and the only limiting factor was I wanted a male involved in the image. I sat for a bit and somewhat unbidden, a fuzzy image flashed in my head. Basically, it was a male torso, straight-on, but almost all you could see was the man's face; the rest was to be a wall of gold and patterning, as if he was wearing some gigantic headdress. I knocked out a thumbnail for it. Having done it, I continued thumbnailing other concepts, less focused on the headdress, but with the idea of tons of gold and decoration still. I think I did that just to see if second-guessing my intuition improved things. Sometimes it does. It didn't.

A few digital thumbnails. I don't "finish" them all, and don't save them all either.

Clockwise from top left: The original wall-of-gold idea, a boring 3/4 portrait, a treatment more focused on a cape shape, and the final thumbnail revision.

After a number of approaches that didn't focus on the wall-of-gold headdress idea, I returned to the headdress idea but began sculpting shapes out of it to make it look more like a giant headdress. In the first version it lacked context; I wasn't convinced it would read correctly. It might've looked like some guy peeking out between giant gold curtains. In the final thumbnail, a hand is included. The guy is looking a little simian, a little Planet of the Apes vibe going on.

From there I proceeded to do the pencil drawing, above. It was actually done on the inside cover of one of my sketchbooks, as requested. Scanning that in, a quickie value study in Painter followed:

From there I began working on the 8x10" painting. Following are some in-progress shots and a detail comparison of the hand before and after.

And, the final, which fills out my World Fantasy display this week.

Star Treatment

Thanks to a nice guy named Rob who I met in Roanoke recently, I was made aware of Nov.2007 Previews--Diamond Comics Distributors' giant catalog for comics and games stores. During the summer, my sketchbook Dreaming in Black and White was picked up by the fabulous bookseller Bud Plant and was sold at San Diego Comic Con prominently placed among a select few books chosen as "Bud's Picks" for the show. I was thrilled at this as I had no idea it was going to be done.

My book's listing in Previews also got the deluxe treatment. Again, I had no idea. I've been flattered and proud to see my sketchbook get a little recognition by people who deal in books of this sort on a daily basis. Demand that your local game or comic shop stock it!

Sorry, Peter Max

There is a lot of cheesecake on that page too, I definitely would've guessed something of that sort would make a spotlight due to its natural marketability. Be assured, parents, that my book is child-safe! Well, as long as your child is ok with an occasional frightening beastie or skeleton!

Lorwyn: A Tale of Four Cities in Two Parts

Back in San Jose, still staying with family, I finished the painting for Consuming Bonfire, which went fairly smoothly. I also did concepting and drawings for the last 2 Lorwyn pieces and had them approved. Then we moved again.

Surge of Thoughtweft, Pencil, 8x10”

Wait, did I say 2 more Lorwyn pieces? But I only have 3 illustrations in Lorwyn!

Landing in Asheville NC, I finished up work I was also doing on the Shadowdale RPG and got to work on completing the Lorwyn assignment. These two were the most successful of the set as they were subject matter more up my alley. My favorite of the set, I was dismayed to learn, was not included in Lorwyn. This sometimes happens, and it was not a fault of the art (I checked to be sure). I’m hopeful it’ll turn it up in the follow-up set, Morningtide. Sometimes the game designers are able to find a place for orphaned art, sometimes not. As it stands, the fourth piece, which I had pre-written this blog to include, will remain a mystery awhile longer….

Surge of Thoughtweft, Oils, 11x14"

So, a project in four cities, a first for me:

Fire-Belly Changeling drawing: Frigiliana, Spain
Consuming Bonfire digisketch: Frigiliana, Spain
Fire-Belly Changeling painting: Austin, TX
Consuming Bonfire drawing: Austin, TX
Consuming Bonfire painting: Austin & San Jose, CA
Surge of Thoughtweft drawing: San Jose, CA
Mystery drawing: San Jose, CA
Surge of Thoughtweft painting: Asheville, NC
Mystery painting: Asheville, NC

Whew!

Lorwyn: A Tale of Four Cities

Magic's Lorwyn has just been previewed, and it provides a mildly interesting story. Large Magic sets often commission over the course of about 4 months simply because it’s hard to produce over 300 pieces of art in short order among the stable of artists Magic tends to use.

Readers of Exit Within know that I’ve been moving around a lot the last couple of years. This means that artwork being done is being done in all sorts of places. I began writing on drawings and, on the backs of paintings, the locations where they were produced. If you purchase anything since 2006 you’re going to see some city labeled somewhere. With Lorwyn, it ended up that a series of moves had the set produced over the course of four cities.

It began about a year ago, with the initial commission. At the time I was at the end of my stay in Frigiliana, Spain—a tiny whitewashed village at the start of Andalucia’s Sierra Nevada, and a few kilometers away from Nerja and the Mediterranean. I concepted the first two pieces, did a pencil for one of them and a digital sketch for the other. I submitted them and a short few days later, we left Spain as chronicled a couple posts ago.

What the heck is that? Pencil 6x8”

We arrived in the USA just before Thanksgiving, landing in Austin TX where stayed with family for about a month. I set up my guerilla art studio and got to work immediately. The above sketch was approved, the other required a re-sketch. I redid it in pencil this time and submitted it.

Resubmitted sketch, Pencil 6x8” I rarely use heavily toned paper for sketches

I also began the painting for Fire Belly Changeling. This proved to be one of the most difficult illustrations I’ve ever done. The Changelings are very…unusual…in their normal states. Now, make him shapeshifting into a lizard shape and, oh, make him 2-headed. Oh dear. And he breathes fire too. In any case, that wasn’t my final problem in producing the painting. It was the background and color scheme. I struggled far too long at it, and ended up painting the background maybe 4 times in total. I was still unhappy. I tossed a photo in-progress to my friend Ben Thompson, who gave some digital suggestions that were pretty helpful. While I didn’t take his suggestions outright, I did take some compositional changes he made, and it was very helpful in getting me out of my rut. Shortly before Christmas, we went back to California.

Clockwise from top-left: in-progress, “final”, Ben’s suggestion, final

Next week, 2 more cities, and a disappearing act.

Preparing for the World Fantasy Convention

A particularly rough patch of assignments are turned in, my half-marathon has been run, and I did my little trip out to Richmond and Roanoke VA where I met lots of great folks. Next on the agenda: the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs NY this year (it moves each year).

I have basically a month to figure out what I'm doing there. Essentially, I'm going to show and hopefully sell some art and connect with some artist friends at a much more laid back event than the big media conventions I do in the summer. Whereas during the day at Comic-Con or GenCon you are busy all day and can only mix it up in the evening, really, conventions like WFC (literary conventions with a stronger emphasis on fantasy fiction than, say, anime) are very, very laid back. Also, whereas the media conventions have you behind a table all weekend meeting people, these conventions favor the art show, or gallery space. Your art is up and presented in a large room with tons of other art...and no artists. Quite a different experience. It's nice to tour the art show as an artist, but it definitely doesn't have the...friendliness (?) of a media con. It definitely looks nicer though!

One main reason I haven't been as involved in big literary conventions has been that since I've felt like doing them the last few years, I was far away in California or abroad. Because these shows often insist on attendance, you bite the bullet and fork over a grand in flights/hotels/food or don't show. Added to that are the expenses involved in framing art, since the art needs to be framed or, minimally, matted to be displayed. A few hundred more bucks, and now you've got shipping issues involved since you can't bring it on the plane easily or at all. So, big literary conventions can be a considerable amount of money and effort to get involved in.

How will I solve these problems? First off, I'm on the East Coast already. I'll drive up. This will save me a little money on flights at the expense of time, and save me all the headaches involved in shipping to and from. I get to see some friends along the way, too. Secondly, I will resort to driving in a half hour to an hour each way, each day I attend, staying further out in some probably terrible highway hotel. This will easily knock a few hundred dollars off of more nearby hotel options. Lastly, I'll have to frame on the cheap. This becomes the hardest part. Nice framing jobs--all acid-free double or triple mats, nice frames that really compliment each piece, UV plexi--are expensive. Considering this will be the only time the pieces I take will use their frames, it seems a waste to go all out on them, especially since I'm not at the level where I can expect everything I bring to fly off the walls in mad bidding wars (these shows operate as auctions).

When I have to do this sort of thing, I typically will go for functional and presentable. Single mats, all uniform black, and probably simple frames, probably uniform black. Not the most creative, but inexpensive and consistent.

I purchased a 4 by 6 foot display panel. These are typically pegboard. Some artists can go all out and fabric-cover their areas for maximum presentation control. I will not, and most won't. The issue now becomes: what will I show? What will fit?

Using Photoshop, I quickly put together a 4x6' file at 72dpi. I could then pop images in easily, to scale. I tossed around them some generic frames I found online and was able to quickly mock up my space. The white cards are for the "bid sheets" which are required.

My wife chuckled at my method in doing this. Not actual frames.

It was helpful putting this together. It's a tight fit in places. I'll need to keep the frames fairly thin. I suddenly realized a couple of things. 1.)There is a blank spot under Undertow that would not fit one of my standard 11x14" paintings once framed, and 2.)There is not a single male on the entire wall!! Someone also threatened to purchase Aethermage's Touch last weekend. If it goes, I'll replace that image maybe with Anachronism's Chimalli. This would add a male to the wall--I may even swap them for the purpose! As it stands, Aethermage's Touch is a replacement--I intended Mesa Enchantress to fill that space. I was very happy to have it sell at GenCon, though.

Where Sprite Noble is, up in the center, I had pasted in a black-and-white study for a painting I was going to do specifically for the show. Guess what--another female. I don't have any small paintings I want to show in that blank space below; I haven't done many smaller illustrations lately. I am now forced to do a new piece for that smaller spot--roughly 8x10". I don't think I'll have time to do the 11x14" female piece for the time being, so I'll put it away. And one thing is for sure, the new 8x10" will have to have a male figure in it, or something.

So now it's time to start frame hunting and getting some custom mats done for the larger pieces. I'll be sure to post a photo of the final setup, hopefully. And there are more illustrations to do this month. Ay yay yay!