Veteran Explorer

This one was real simple, but allowed me to flex my art muscles in a direction I hadn't in a while. The piece is a new illustration for an existing card, "Veteran Explorer." This new art is specific to Magic's Battlebond setting and the fine folks at Wizards had everything pretty well figured out before the assignment got to me.

I was asked to depict a map maker sitting in the top of a tree above the clouds. The map maker, though human, was to be dressed similarly to how the elves in the plain of Kylem (where Battlebond is set) dress and he was to be looking toward the viewer and the uncharted lands beyond. The city of Valor's Reach should be seen piercing the clouds in the background.

Given to me for reference were images of Valor's Reach and examples of Kylem elven dress. All that was left was to process all the stuff, find a way to depict what they needed from me and draw it up. Simple right? Well, in this instance, it kind of was. I knew exactly what kind of picture I wanted to make as soon as I read the description. The art order describes and adventure picture and when it comes to adventure pictures, there's one name that rings above any other in my mind: N. C. Wyeth. So, I pulled out some N. C. Wyeth art books, opened them to choice paintings that helped inform this piece, and went to town on a sketch, trying to absorb as much of the work around me and find a way to inject it into the picture I was making.

Here's how that came out:

©Wizards of the Coast

If memory serves, there was a request that I reduce the scale of the other trees indicated in the background, right. Aside from that I was good to go to paint.

I used to print out all of my reference images before starting a painting. These images would be taped up around my working surface and were constantly present. But honestly, I found the practice to be pretty wasteful in the amount of paper and ink I was blowing through to create things that were destined for the recycling bin. Plus, its been a long time since I had a printer that I didn't have to fight with every time I turned it on. Nowadays, I print reference very rarely and even then it's only what I absolutely need. The rest of my photos are kept open on iPad or laptop screens surrounding the painting. Less waste, less fuss, and it gets the job done.

That's nice and all, but what kind of reference did I collect for this image? Well, there are the aforementioned images of the city in the clouds and the elven dress, as well as some other images that I kept looking back to from the style guide that really informed the overall mood of the world. To these image I added images of clouds and skies and trees. I also included images specifically of trees sticking up above the clouds. Additionally, I pulled out a leather case I have to help inform the map bag hanging from the tree. Essentially, if I'm unsure about any aspect of a piece, I typically collect reference for it. I'm looking to make sure that the final result is believable—maybe not completely accurate, mind you, just believable.

And then there's the reference my wife and I take.

Usually reference taking works like tike this: my wife takes the photos using my sketch for comparison and I pose for the photos. This is often true even when I am depicting a woman. The reason is that it just always goes faster that way. Sure, I'll take some back up photos of her in the same pose, but I tend to get a bit closer to the pose I want than she does. Of course sometimes I photograph people other than my wife or myself, but that isn't always feasible with deadlines and scheduling. As a result, Amy and I have take a lot of photos of one another in basements or spare rooms over the years. Digital photography has made that a lot easier, cheaper, and a lot less embarrassing. I do not miss the days of picking up my roll of reference photos from the very bemused developer.

Below is the image I mostly used in this case. There were about twenty-five more, but I picked the one that most closely matched my sketch and used it above the others.

Behold the unfinished demolition of our murder basement in all its box-filled glory!

Some folks cobble all their reference together into one, single image via Photoshop. I find that that takes time away from the easel and I'd rather spend the time there than in front of the computer. That's just personal preference, mind you, but it's worked (mostly) for me so far.

Anyway, after all the reference was in hand, I went to paint. Here are a couple photos showing it at two different stages (with absolutely no indication of how I got from point A to point B):

Yeah, a lot happened between those two but I can fill in some blanks. Generally, at the start of every piece I like to find some part of the image to sink my teeth into. Sometimes that's the figure, sometimes that's an element in the background. It depends on the piece and my mood. Here I dug right into the figure. I brought it up to a certain level of finish and then began to branch out from there. I established where the tree would be, using darker browns than it would inevitably be so that I could just go ahead and paint the background right over the branches and still see where they needed to be. Then I went and had a ridiculously fun time painting the background. Seriously. Those clouds were a blast. Eventually, I got back to the tree and the figure and started to tighten those things up. The second photo probably represents what the piece looked like on the Monday before the piece was due (which would have been just a few days later on Friday). There's still a bunch of details left unfinished on the figure and indeed the leaves of the main tree are still incomplete. Missing also are the beams of light shooting out from the city.

Here's how it eventually came out:

©Wizards of the Coast

The final painting is oil on hardboard and measures sixteen inches wide by twelve inches tall. It was art directed by Cynthia Sheppard.

If I had one complaint about the finish, it's that it falls short of the more atmospheric take indicated by the sketch. Part of that was due to the request by Wizards to shrink the background trees, part of that was just decision making done on the fly. I'm sure there was a bit of a difficulty on my part marrying the atmospherics with the puffy, well-defined clouds I settled on. Still, I like where it eventually landed. Why? Well, it mostly comes down to my influences and the rare chances to nod at them in any way. Sure, I am absolutely a product of my all of my influences and therefore every piece I do nods to them in some way, but it's rare that I get to lean on my art heroes so hard.

In this case, this is probably the closest I will ever get to painting an N. C. Wyeth-esque piece. Obviously it's lacking in a lot of ways in terms of structure and paint application (not to mention scale), but there's a lot of color choices and lighting choices that are absolutely aping his work (or attempting to). Most importantly, I was hoping to capture the spirit of his work. The feelings of adventure and discovery are woven throughout N. C. Wyeth's illustrations and I was really looking to capture those things in a similar way. In the end, I'm mostly just elated that I even got a chance to try to do any of that with a Magic assignment and I'm quite proud of the degree to which I've succeeded.

Frequently Asked Questions 12

Why are your prints so expensive?

Those aren't prints. They're original oil paintings.

Wait, you work in oils? I thought you worked digitally.

Nope. Oils.

But I thought you had to work digitally to work on Magic.

"Could you rephrase that in the form of a question? After all, this is 'Frequently Asked Questions.'"

Oh! Okay. Ahem.

Do you have to work digitally to work on Magic: the Gathering?

Why thanks for asking that question, good sir and/or madame. Allow me to address it in some sort of official blog-type capacity:

It is my belief that artists hoping to get work doing art for Magic can work in any medium. Okay, well, maybe not cast bronze or wrought iron. Let's say any 2-dimensional medium that can be reproduced well. Watercolor? Yup. Oils? Absolutely. Acrylic? You bet. Pastel? Why not? A mixture of several types of media? If it meets the criteria of reproducing well, then yes.

Obviously digital art isn't a problem. Just look at the virtual who's who of digital artists who either currently work or have worked on Magic in the past. There are some amazing folks who've produced some absolutely gorgeous work. But the digital medium itself wasn't why they managed to get their foot in the door. It was the quality of their work. It's my belief that if any of them had done equally good work in a traditional medium, they'd have met with equal success.

So, if getting an opportunity to work on Magic is your goal, then I suggest the following: stop worrying about the medium and do good work.

Seriously. That's it.

Okay, that's not entirely it. I confess that there is some specificity lacking in that statement. I should say, rather, that you should do good work that's appropriate for Magic: the Gathering. This means that it should be fairly realistic and in the fantasy genre. Stylization is not out of bounds, but the end result should still be a fairly realistic take on an imaginary world.

Now, I could elaborate on the best way to go about accomplishing realistic fantasy work, but that would be a little off topic and redundant to hundreds of posts scattered throughout the internet and a bunch of really good books available at bookstores everywhere and perhaps even at your local library. There are more free and low-cost resources out there for you to consume than ever before and I encourage you to seek them out.

However, if the part about making work appropriate for Magic is where you're falling short then I urge you to really look at recent Magic work and figure out what is lacking in your work that is present in the Magic art before you. Is it a matter of design? A matter of readability at reduced scale? A lack of a decent figure/ground relationship? I could go on, but going into depth about what makes a good Magic image would likely take longer than the entirety of this entry and therefore warrants its own article. The short version, though, is that if you put your work next to the work of that which gets printed currently on Magic cards, it should feel at home.

All in all, the most important thing is quality. Medium, I assure you, is not the determining factor. How do I know this? Well, for one, the current lead art director for Magic is a water color artist. Water color, I'm sure you're aware, is a traditional medium. I find it extremely unlikely that such a person would discriminate against his fellow paint pushers.

But why listen to my conjecture? Why don't we look at some facts to back up my claim? With each new Magic set, there are typically one or two new artists brought into the fold. Off the top of my head, here are three new additions to Magic's roster that work traditionally: Lindsay Look, Mike Sass and Scott Murphy. All three use real, live, brushes (some of which even have real hair in 'em) and paint that comes in tubes (some of which is highly toxic and should not be spread on toast and taken internally). And they're not even the only three. So clearly, traditionally produced illustration is not dead in Magic. But I have to confess that it sometimes feels rare.

Of course, this is due mainly to the fact that illustrators who work solely traditionally are rare (at least when compared to the numbers of folks who work digitally). It's becoming less and less common to see folks leaving art school with a portfolio that is completely full of traditional work. Obviously that increasing infrequency is reflected in the ranks of Magic's current artist roster. But like I said, the medium really doesn't end up mattering. 

Look, I have no doubt that there are companies out there that require artists to work digitally. Magic just happens not to be one of them. And I don't think that will change anytime soon. So if you're looking to work for Magic, feel free to rock whatever medium it takes for you to do your best work.

Revisiting Reprints: Tome Scour

It may interest some of you reading this that Tome Scour is old. Really old. In fact, I think it may have been around the 5th or 6th painting I ever did for Magic: the Gathering, which would mean that it was painted in 2006. Despite this fact, the piece did not see the light of day until the Magic 2010 core set which was released in 2009.

Why the delay? My suspicion is that whatever the image was originally commissioned for either got dropped, cancelled or kicked down the road. Perhaps the set the card was originally intended for was no longer necessary. Perhaps the card was set aside in order to preserve mechanical balance within its intended set. Or perhaps the designers just couldn't get the original card's mechanic to function properly. Who knows? Such things happen in the wonderful world of games.

And so it was put into the flat files at Wizards of the Coast where it would sit among all the other images that have never been published for three years. Three years, it turns out, that saw a noticeable degree of artistic growth from yours truly. Enough growth, in fact, to come to the realization that I wasn't quite happy with that piece anymore. Well, I would have been unhappy with it had I remembered it existed in the first place.

Don't worry, fate made sure I was reminded upon the arrival of my artist proofs¹ for the M10 Core Set in the summer of 2009. There the image was atop a card called Tome Scour. My heart sank. There the image was, exposed for all to see, and one of many that I would end up wishing I could take back. Indeed, had I known that Wizards intended to use the piece in M10, I would have made the time to paint a new piece or go back into the original version. But it was too late.

Sigh.

So let's take a look at the piece in question. It sports a young wizard gleefully pulling the writing from off the pages of a large mystical book, the words and diagrams once formed of ink consumed by magic as they float away in the air. Sounds potentially cool when I write it. But somehow less so when I painted it. But then I'm kind of blind to any charms the piece might still retain.

©Wizards of the Coast

The finished piece was done on Strathmore illustration board and measured 11" wide by 8" tall.

The painting is one that falls short of being the worst thing I've painted for Magic, but falls far shorter of being the best. What bothered me more than anything is that because it came out with other pieces done more recently that I was actually happy with, it had the appearance of being the ball I'd dropped. There was no way for anyone to tell that it was just an old piece that I'd outgrown.

Sigh. Again.

I wish I could tell you that it got printed and the game moved on — that it was a one-off and didn't see a lot of play. But that wouldn't be accurate. A year later, it was reprinted in the Magic 2011 Core Set. And I grew to dislike it a bit more. Another year had gone by and I'd like to believe I'd progressed a little further. But then time passed, and I saw the card less and less. I became optimistic that I might not see it as often anymore. But alas, it was not to be. The thing has reappeared in the new Magic 2014 Core Set.

Now, reading this, one might get the sense that I'm completely down on this piece. Surprisingly, that's not so. Like I said before, it's not the worst thing I've ever painted for Magic, and it represents a very wonderful thing that I intend to share with you. While I do feel like I've outgrown the image, I can't say I have any true animosity toward it. Instead, I see it as a reminder in some ways of how fortunate I actually am. You see, under most circumstances with gaming art, this piece would have disappeared and passed out of the public consciousness long ago. Why? Because under normal circumstances, the game likely would no longer be in print. Indeed under normal circumstances it might even be considered a miracle if the company that produced the game was still in business.

You see, the nature of the business, I'm sad to say, is that few companies have had any kind of longevity. Of the imprints manufactured by those few companies that have managed to stick around, even fewer games have had anything even resembling a long life. The only reason I even have the opportunity to complain about this less than stellar piece of art still kicking about is that I just happened to have done it for a game that has withstood the test of time and has continued to grow over 20 years — something that is pretty special. If I'm honest, having pieces that I'm not happy with floating out there for all to see is a pretty small price to pay for being a part of the Magic brand and I have to say once again that I'm honored to be a part of the the game and the community that goes along with it.

---

1 For those not in the know, artist proofs are copies of the artist's cards provided to the artists which have a face — which includes the artwork — but no printed back leaving a white side instead of the usual printed Magic card bacing. These artist proofs are also referred to as "white backs" for this reason, and are considered highly collectible due to the fact that only fifty are made of any given card.^↩

Spectrum Fantastic Art Live 2 By the Numbers

Total number of miles traveled round-trip: 2,431

Total days spent driving round-trip: 4

Total number of times we re-filled the fuel tank: 8

Total amount of gas we had in the tank when we returned home: 3/4 of a tank (11.25 gallons)

Approximate miles per gallon (I lost a receipt so I had to estimate one refill): 27.38

Our car's rating for estimated highway miles per gallon: 27

Total number of Cracker Barrel restaurants encountered one way: 24

Number of deer carcasses seen on the way to Kansas City: 16

Number of deer carcasses seen on the way home: 12

Number of billboards advertising something religious on the way to KC: 15

Number of billboards advertising something adult on the way to KC: 18

Number of billboards advertising fireworks on the way to KC: 24

Number of billboards advertising the sale of cowboy or Western-style boots on the way home: 8 (a number seemingly much smaller than that which we might have have gotten had we kept track of them on the way to KC)

Number of billboards advertising the sale of antiques on the way home: 19

Total number of billboards advertising pie round-trip: 4

Total number of pie pieces consumed by both Amy and me: 3

Of those pieces of pie, the total that were lemon meringue: 1

Of those pieces of pie, the total that were cherry: 1

Of those pieces of pie, the total that were blackberry: 1

Total number of billboards advertising the value of using billboards to advertise: unknown, but easily far exceeding any of the other totals

Number of convertibles encountered on the way to KC: 6

Number of convertibles encountered on the way home: 5

Number of those convertibles with their top down: 5

Number of those convertibles seemingly driven by maniacs: 3

Number of drawings done while at SFAL 2: 10

Number of drawings I was happy with: 9

Number of PopTarts consumed by both Amy and me during the entire trip: 14

Number of PopTarts I was permitted to consume before the age of 18: 0

Number of therapy sessions required to deal with the previous number: 0

It was a crazy show, to be sure, and it was fun to share the ride with my wife, Amy. I would have bet that she'd grow irritated by me at some point during the trip (and I'm sure some of you might have thought the same thing), but it turns out her tolerance for any annoyance I might dish out far exceeds expectations. Always fun, though, to have her by my side, and I suspect my fellow artists find me slightly more tolerable when she's around. I'm more than a little partial to her, myself.

Time and SFAL 2

How it was that a year went by so quickly is beyond me. It feels like just yesterday that I was left to recover from the daze that was the first Spectrum Fantastic Art Live, and here I am grabbing at threads of my normal schedule that were abandoned for that show's sequel. The time, it seems, conspired to blow by me and ignore my pleas for a slower pace. And despite my hoping otherwise, the speed of time's passing did not slow for the days of the show either. It was over in a flash, and I sit here wishing I had had just one more day.

Why? Well, on the surface, it was a really good time. For me, another day of laughs and amusement would not have gone unappreciated. Apart from the merriment, however, were the many good conversations I was fortunate enough to have, and I must confess that I could have used even more of those. As is so often the case, there were many conversations about all kinds of books and films. More importantly, though, I was fortunate enough to share several that were very real and heart-felt and about pretty raw subjects. In fact, I had a couple conversations that I suspect I will never forget for the rest of my life. Among the topics discussed were process — but not the physical process of making art. No, these were real deep looks at the heart of where our own truths as artists lie, where our desires are rooted, and how to tap into them.

While such a thing might seem pretty elementary and straightforward, I assure you that it is not always the case. So much of what I do, for example is at the service of a client's needs. For the vast majority of my career, in fact, I've been ignoring my own needs in order to meet those of the various jobs. And it turns out that the result of suppressing my own needs and not satisfying my own artistic desires has resulted in my being horribly out of touch with both. At this point, given the chance to do whatever I want to do, I tend to find nothing. Nothing to tap into, nothing to extrapolate from, nothing to get my juices flowing. At least that's how it always seems.

Still, I have been discovering a lot about myself of late. But much of what I've discovered are the things I do not want. Very little has dawned on me of what I actually do want. After Spectrum Live 2, however, I think I have a better idea of how to figure that out and the encouragement I've gotten from the vast majority of my fellow artists this past weekend was humbling. It is clear that so many of them see things in myself that I, as yet, do not. But I've gotten encouragement to keep looking, and that is invaluable.

It is an amazing thing that I am fortunate enough to have met so many who can talk about and share very raw and powerful things without batting an eyelash. So many of the artists and illustrators I know (myself included) wear their hearts on their sleeves. By extension, publications and shows such as Spectrum and Spectrum Live wear their hearts on their sleeves, as well. The honesty and simplicity of that is beautiful and is something I will forever cherish, for such vehicles help artists find one another, help us reach out to one another, and help us bond as a community. Having the opportunity for that community to convene once or twice a year is very special and I, for one, am so very grateful for that.

In a matter of just a few days, so much is shared. So much is given. So much is there to be taken in. It's no wonder that the days pass so quickly. After spending so much time preparing and agonizing over small details for weeks before the show, we get there and put up our displays hoping for the best. And then it all ends so suddenly. The clock strikes the closing hour and a cheer rings out. Another show is under our collective belts. And then something truly fascinating occurs: the breakdown. The speed at which our work comes off the walls, our boxes are packed up, and our presence is made to disappear is amazing. Perhaps the inertia born from this is what causes the following year to pass by so quickly. Or maybe it's just the anticipation of getting to do it all over again is the machine driving everything forward. Whatever the case, I somehow will not be surprised should I find myself preparing for the next show on the other side of my very next blink. But hopefully I'll be given the time to start acting on what I've learned and figuring out that which still needs figuring.

Thanks to everyone who made it a great show and thanks so much to those of you who shared so much insight. I hope one day to have such insight and be as brave as you all were in sharing it to the next person in line. In the meantime, I hope to make work that puts this year's wall to shame.

Thanks most of all to Arnie and Cathy Fenner. I remember the very first time I saw Spectrum. I spent hours on the floor of Barnes and Noble leafing through the pages filled with inspiration and a deep feeling of inadequacy. It was that latter emotion that drove me in the vain hope that I might one day make an appearance on the publications' pages. That goal was just a dream for a long time, and I had no idea that I would be fortunate enough to see it become a reality several times over. But even after reaching that goal, I did not in my wildest imagination expect to see the work immortalized in those books covering the walls of Society of Illustrators or trekking out to Kansas City to be a humble part of a show bringing so many of my art and illustration heroes under one roof. I have no idea how you managed it all, but I deeply appreciate all you have done.

If there is a Spectrum Live 3, barring any unforeseen circumstances, you can expect to see my name on the list of exhibitors.

On Stealing Images For Your Portfolio

This post, I'm afraid, is not for you, my faithful readers. No, none of you would be reckless enough to require the advice herein. But there are folks you may have encountered who might just need a taste of this advice and I invite you to point them in the direction of this post after looking it over yourselves. Of course it seems silly that I need write this at all, but the fact is that what I'm going to talk about happens with surprising frequency, so without further ado:

Don't steal other people's artwork and present it as your own.

Okay, obviously it's wrong to steal someone else's artwork at all under any circumstances, but I want to concentrate on the folks who use the hard work of others to represent themselves.

I'm really never sure why folks do such a thing, as there's a certain lapse in their logic. Sure, it probably solves an issue in the short term, but if you commit such a crime you'll almost certainly hang for it in the end. Maybe you're a student and you're assignment has fallen flat, or you just didn't bother to do the assignment in the first place. Or perhaps you're out of school trolling for work and need to pump up your portfolio in order to find employment. Whatever your situation is, theft is just a short-term solution.

And hey, stealing that piece might allow you to pull one over on someone and you might get you your passing grade or land that job, so I suppose it could seem a very good short-term solution indeed.

But then what?

There will be an expectation from those you answer to that you'll be able to duplicate your success. You'll be expected to actually have the skills it took to make that piece of art to begin with. If you lack those skills or those skills aren't of equal value, it's only a matter of time before you're found out. Once that happens, it's pretty likely that you'll be ruined. If still a student, you'll get a failing grade and almost certainly face some sort of disciplinary action. If you're in the work force, you'll lose the gig and your art direct will tell another art director all about you. Then that art director will tell another, who will tell another and so forth. Your fellow illustrators will shout your name and your sins from the rooftops until you are shunned by the community at large and disappear in shame.

So, the solution to avoiding all that would logically be to steal some more, right? Next assignment, you find another image to yank from some other guy's website or DeviantArt page. Have a ton of creature concepts due by the end of the day? Just go ahead and download those off of Facebook. Just be sure to cover up the original artist's signature — that'll keep you covered.

Except, obviously, you're just digging your hole deeper. Each time you steal, you are increasing the chances of getting caught. Eventually you'll take and use something that someone recognizes, and then the art directors start calling and the illustrators start shunning all over again. Clearly that's not going to work, either.

Still I hear you say that I am wrong and that no one will ever catch you. You're little corner of the internet is too obscure, and you're far too unknown. And I counter with the existence of Google Images and Tineye, two websites which allow you to either upload an image or provide its web address in order to locate all the other places that image is used throughout the internet. It's a very scary thing to see how widely one's work is disseminated, and when one finds their hard work in the portfolio of another artist, it rightfully sends them into a blind fury. You will be found, and when you are found you will not be treated kindly.

And yet, you may still be pondering things and weighing what I've said. To some, the repercussions I've listed might not seem so bad. Who needs art directors and the respect of their fellow illustrators, anyway? Unfortunately for you and your thought process, I've just listed the most mild of consequences of your "efforts."

See, there's a little something called copyright. Most images are owned by someone, and some of the folks who own images aren't folks at all, but rather big, seemingly faceless corporations with deep pockets. That part about their being faceless? It's not true. They have a face made of a hundred pit bull lawyers on retainer ready to bark out with cease and desists at a moment's notice. And if your sins are great enough, you will feel the bite of their lawsuits.

But even the little guys can sue. It's not just for the big dogs. There are such things as statutory damages that can be claimed by whoever holds the copyright and isn't afraid to call a lawyer of their own. Admittedly such a claim is much, much easier if the work in question is registered with the copyright office, and so if you've ever wondered why anyone bothers doing that sort of thing, you now have an answer. Suffice it to say that no matter how you look at it, the law is stacked against anyone who goes about taking art that doesn't belong to them.

Look, as I've said many times already, you will get caught if you take someone else's work and pretend that it is your own. Your reputation will be damaged and that damage will be catastrophic and long-lasting. Every piece of art you've ever done will be called into question, as will every piece of art you will ever do. Your entire career and status will be called into question, and you will be plagued by people who doubt you.

Of course, all this being said, I suspect that logic, guilt, or the promise of dire consequences won't sway the mind of someone who is dishonest enough to do this kind of thing. That's why it's up to the rest of us to be vigilant and make sure none of these folks get away with it. But if by chance I actually have moved anyone to any extent, I'll leave you with a few more thoughts.

All things considered, it's a lot cheaper and easier to be honest with yourself. Maybe your skills aren't what they need to be just yet. Maybe your portfolio is lacking. But most artists I know would rather see you put your fledgling work out there and ask us for help than watch you take a stupid shortcut. Hard work will certainly be required in order to overcome your inadequacies, and it will definitely be frustrating at times, but the community will take you in and support you along the way. And if you go down the honest path and persevere, you will find that your work will no longer be limited to what you can find on the internet.

Where I Stand After 2012

Had I not caught the flu a week ago, I might have written an update sooner. But alas, no. The flu, I did get, and so I'm forced to try and catch up with the rest of my life which kept moving while I was down for the count. Since to this point I was either coughing too hard or too drugged out on cold medicine to pull such a post together, I'll go ahead and get this obligatory look back at 2012 over with. Please bear with me.

If there is a word I spoke more than any other over the course of last year, it would be "funk." I mentioned my funk several times on this blog and to be honest, I'm not entirely sure I've ever made clear the reasons for it (though I must admit to being a little unclear about the reasons, myself). Suffice it to say that I've been pretty dissatisfied with the work I've been doing, have been pretty unfulfilled by the assignments I've been getting, and overall I feel artistically underdeveloped. I feel like I should be further down the road than I am quality-wise, and I'm really questioning the financial value of the whole endeavor. In addition to these feelings, a variety of external reasons prevented me from completing as many paintings last year as is typical for me. On the other hand, the few paintings I did complete were quite a bit larger than my work tends to be, so it's probable that I came close to covering the same amount of surface area over the course of the year. All the while, I crept the closest I've ever gotten to throwing in the towel and calling it quits as an illustrator.

Yeah, you read that right. I almost walked away from it all. In fact, that idea still isn't off the table for me. Despite several attempts to kickstart some sort of positivity over the course of last year, I never quite managed to shake the cloud that I saw hanging over me. While I was getting increasingly frustrated, I didn't want to make any rash decisions, either. So, in the waning months, I committed to a different approach for the beginning of this year. Perhaps less work wasn't the answer. Perhaps I needed to try and power through the doldrums by taking on more work. I agreed to a few appearances at Magic tournaments, and began accepting assignments again at normal numbers. I figured taking this route would either succeed in rebooting my point of view or reconfirm all my feeling about the job and at least inform the next step — be it to walk away or veer off in a new direction. Either way, it would be a step forward.

Now, whether this plan works and 2013 shapes up to be a good one is, of course, a mystery. At the very least I'm optimistic about it all, as the number 13 has always been pretty lucky for me. 'Course I don't exactly buy into all that kind of stuff, but I'll take what I can get at this point. What I know for sure is that I'll be signing a whole lot of stuff in the near future, will be back to painting away at some paid gigs again, and will hopefully find my way back to being at least a little okay with myself and my work.

In the meantime, I'll go ahead and answer some questions that one or two of you may be pondering. First, what does this all mean for my personal work? Even if I were to walk away from illustration, I wouldn't walk away from painting. The personal work would get done. For the time being, it'll just have to return to the background. I know that I want to complete the first big piece, but I'm also not in a rush. As I've said before, I'd rather take my time and not flub it in then interest of getting it out of the way. While I already have plans for a second large piece, the idea isn't going anywhere and there's no reason for me to rush things. I may end up with plenty of time to commit to its completion in another couple months, so I'm not too worried. Besides, I should have another update by the end of this week.

Second, what about the blog? With all the writing and travel, will you continue to update it? The short answer is yes. Whether or not I've overextended myself for the coming two months remains to be seen, but I don't see why I can't post something up here once or twice a week during that time. Will it necessarily be updates of new work with pictures and such? Not likely, as I don't have a whole lot coming out anytime soon and the stuff I'll be working on can't be shown. But I do happen to have more than a few posts in various stages of abandonment that I should be able to bang into something more serviceable. Will they be valuable? Dunno. Will they be entertaining? Couldn't say. I'll try on both fronts.

Third, what was that big earth-shattering evento teased in the last post? I still can't say. I've already mentioned that it's not impending children or any kind of marital woes. It's also not major illness or a puppy (that last one being much to my wife's chagrin). I'll leave it at this: the rumblings are big, the impact would be substantial, and it'll be hanging in the air for another three to five months. Maybe I'll be able to talk more about it then, maybe not. Point is that I can't really shed more light on it so this'll be the last I speak of it until I can. In fact, I probably should just have not even brought it up again.

Anyway, I've got a a plan to start implementing. Sketches to do, laundry to wash, etc. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that 2013 will bring more upbeat and positive things both for me, and for all the folks reading this. Also, I sincerely hope yours is flu-free 2013, alas it is too late for me.

Of Bob Ross and Bill Alexander

I'm sure you've seen this video by now, but if not, go ahead and check it out.

What can I say about Bob Ross? Some people hate him, some love him, others love him ironically. I, myself, have mixed feelings about the guy, but most of those feelings are positive. Bob Ross will always remind me of being a kid, sitting in front of the television with my father and the dog. If during our weekend channel surfing we spotted "The Joy of Painting," we'd invariably get sucked in and before we knew it a half hour had gone by.

Though much of my interest in watching Bob Ross' show had to do with the fact that I wanted to pursue the arts, it was just as much to do with the fact that it was easily the most relaxing television program there was at the time. Bob's soothing voice spewed nothing but encouragement and positivity. In fact, it could be said that his show was just as much about motivational speaking as it was about painting, and for me it provided a bit of hope that I could one day live the dream

Bob Ross' mentor, William Alexander, also had a painting show called "The Magic of Oil Painting." Alexander was a German ex-pat who had a gruffer presence and was basically the Emperor Palpatine to Ross' Darth Vader. He hunched before his canvas like some disgruntled bear and he created an atmosphere of enthusiastic tension. While both men spoke of "happy trees" living in their paintings, Alexander would occasionally bust out a "mighty tree" which he would announce with giddy exclamations as it was birthed into his world, and extoll the god-like power one wielded as a painter.

While the premise of both shows was to teach and demonstrate, they were just as much commercial vehicles for both men to sell their art supplies. Still, I remember being pretty transfixed, and while I retained some of what they demonstrated, the truth is that I learned little about the painter I would one day hope to be.

Ross and Alexander were wet on wet guys, which is to say that they just kept piling paint onto the canvas without letting any of it dry until the painting was done. Each had a half hour show (Ross' done without any edits), and there was no point in the show where they pulled the fully realized piece from the oven as was so often done in many of the comparable cooking shows. Their work really did come into existence right before the viewer's eyes.

The ease at which they demonstrated their formula belied the years of experience (and what I assume were hundreds of failed works) behind it all. To the few who actually attempted to paint along with the show, I'm sure this was a source of constant frustration, though I'm almost positive that there's at least one painting hanging framed on a wall somewhere done while devotedly following each step in front of the television (let's just hope they remembered to sign their own name rather than that of the host).

Sadly, as many of you know, both of these men have long since passed. But their teachings, respective schools, and happy little trees live on. And in retrospect, there are several things that amaze me. The first thing is that there was a time when there were entire television series about art. I don't think such a thing would fly nowadays. Not enough tension or violence. The subject of the paintings might have both, but the drama's in the doing not the finished product, and there's only so much manufactured conflict that can be crammed into a painting (oh no, I dropped my brush AGAIN). The second thing that amazes me is that these guys demonstrated both their hits and their misses. The quality of their output could vary wildly and both have episodes that resulted in sub-par work (that is assuming you believe they had below par work to begin with). Whether or not the vast majority of their audience appreciated this fact is unknown to me, but I'm sure at least a few recognized it (probably the person with their own framed piece on the wall, at least). Lastly, I'm amazed that both men were ostensibly doing landscapes, but were really doing fantasy work.

That's right. They were doing fantasy work. A very mild form, but fantasy nonetheless. Sure, there were far fewer dragons and goblins than people are used to seeing in such work, but make no mistake, they were fantasy painters. Why? The landscapes in their work simply didn't exist. Sure William Alexander would take his show outdoors from time to time, but he wasn't painting what he saw before him, he was painting what was in his head. Bob Ross did his work in a closed studio with a black backdrop. These guys weren't painting the world they lived in, they were building a new world from whole cloth a half hour at a time. It was an idealized world, a dream world, and for them and many of their viewers, a utopia. What's that if not a fantasy?

What they were doing wasn't a whole lot different from those occasions when I've been asked to do a fantasy landscape. I just tended to take it a step further. Mine had more metal bits or defied gravity more than theirs might, and I let my paint dry more than they did before reworking an area. But if you look at the landscape portions of a lot of fantasy paintings, you'll see scenery that's not unlike what you see in virtually every Bob Ross and Bill Alexander painting ever made.

All that being said, however, I can't say I'm a fan of either of their work. It just doesn't do it for me. I get the appeal, but I'm not their audience.

What I am a fan of is what they set out to do. They engaged people with art, and tried to make it a part of their audiences' life — even if only in some small way. They preached painting as a source of joy and peace, and I was listening. Sure I never really liked any of the specifics that they were working at, but I liked a lot of the big ideas. While they whiled away building their dream worlds, they inadvertently helped me build my own: a world where I got to paint all day. Whether they knew it or not, they were selling their craft to a little boy in Pennsylvania who sat rapt on a couch with his Dad and a miniature schnauzer called Danny.

Tricks of the Trade

Despite what that title might indicate, this is not a post in which I reveal to you bits and bobs that can make your work look more (or less) professional. Okay, it sort of is, but that's not why it's called "Tricks of the Trade." No, this is all about new Magic art, which appears on a card whose title happens to be "Tricks of the Trade." But don't let that stop you from reading on, because there are actual secrets revealed herein. Dark, horrible secrets, from a life filled with shame and regret...

Let's start with the description, shall we?

ART DESCRIPTION:
Color: Blue Spell
Location: A dimly lit temple or shrine
Action: The spell shows the use of magic by an amazing merfolk thief. Show a rogue hanging upside down as she slides down a rope into a dimly lit temple or shrine. She’s about to steal something, and she’s using powerful stealth magic. Her merfolk skin shimmers with waves of subtle blue-green light. Maybe she’s using just her feet to slide down the rope, which is an incredible feat of athleticism. She’s young, attractive, and dressed in the dark-colored clothes of a thief. Maybe we see the object that she is planning to steal, but it’s not necessary.
Focus: The scene
Mood: Who needs picklocks when you’ve got spells?

This piece is from the new Magic 2013 core set. Unlike the expansion sets which have fancy names and come with style guides, the core sets tend to be visually less specific in their location, and tend to allow the artists to do their own concepting for a change. In other words, we get to play around a bit more and stretch our legs.

While I'd like to say that I got to do all those things and come up with some insane stuff on this piece, I can't really. You see, with the description above, I got a bunch of examples of what the merfolk should look like. While not a formal style sheet, the sample images effectively served the same purpose. I knew what the merfolk were meant to look like, and I knew vaguely what their clothing should entail. Now, I'm not mentioning this in an attempt to file a complaint, but I'm also not going to deny being a little disappointed that I was following someone else's designs on an annual set that has traditionally been more open-ended. It would have been nice to just do my own thing. Disappointment or no, it was the assignment I was given and there were still problems that needed solving. I could complain or I could try and do my best with it. I chose the latter.

So, I took the description and attached images and I immediately started to finagle a solution. The first hurdle was figuring out a pose that solved the problem. My big worry when posing things typically is the reduced size of the reproduction. It's always a potential issue that the figures won't read correctly in card form. In this case, I had a merfolk suspended from a rope by their legs. Not necessarily an easy task. I drew a bunch of different things and finally settled on a pose. I quickly realized, however, that with the pose and the rope it was going to be difficult to fit into the composition in large enough form to read properly. Honestly, the piece felt like it should be a vertically oriented, but I somehow had to fit it into the horizontal space allotted. The only way I could get it to work was by rotating the camera and viewing the thief from below, forcing her into a pretty severe perspective.  I drew it up formally, and handed in the following sketch:

©Wizards of the Coast

Despite it's rather lackluster quality, this sketch was approved, so I shot reference and went to paint.

Wait. Let me back up a second. I just glossed over something that I think is worth talking about: shooting reference. While I've talked at great length about the generalities of shooting reference, I think it's worth talking about this bit of reference specifically. While I'm not going to show you the pictures, I can tell you that the reference for this piece required Amy and I to take turns posing and photographing one another. We posed by balancing on our stomachs atop an old steamer trunk, arching our backs and attempting to mimic the position seen above. It was pretty taxing physically, but I got what I needed, and I'm not going to deny being sore the next morning.

Unlike a lot of folks, I tend not to Frankenstein a bunch of shots together to create a master reference image. Instead, I select two or three that come the closest to the desired result and bounce between them. This process is just a different means to the same end, but I find that my mind is a bit more engaged while I'm working. Having worked both ways, I honestly can't advocate one method over another, I think it's always best to figure out what works for you and go with that.

So, yeah, the painting.

Given how much of the aesthetic was already determined, I decided to spend some time on the architecture. Seemed to me that it was the one place that I could add something significant to the piece, and it was a subject that was still sorely lacking from my work in general. Even if this didn't end up being a portfolio piece, it was at least practice.

The magic described in the art order was pretty vague, but the obvious solution in my mind was for the magic to look almost like water reflections. Not sure why it was obvious, but it's what my gut told me to do. My only concern was that these magic reflections wouldn't stand out properly. My solution was to give the piece a very warm palette, while keeping the magic glistening very cool and slightly out of place.

At least that's what I intended. Then life got in the way.

©Wizards of the Coast

This is what the painting looks like. It's 12"x9", is the usual oil on hardboard, and for whatever reason I didn't incorporate the magic glow into the piece from the beginning. This lapse was a mistake to be sure because it caused a headache and resulted a finish that looks quite different from the published version.

While it's not a very good excuse, I can tell you that this piece was done right as Amy lost her job in Massachusetts and the daunting conversations surrounding her career's future and our potential relocation began while I was painting this very piece. Obviously there's a lot to be concerned about when big things like this hit you, and as I'm a pretty nervous guy by nature, my worry levels increased ten fold when Amy's job went kaput. Unfortunately, a lot of my fears and self-doubt wound up in this piece. I remember feeling pretty confident about things after the sketch was approved, but I can tell you that I lost much of that confidence as the image progressed. I lost faith that I could pull it off, and I resolved midway through to polish it off digitally.

In retrospect, this decision was pretty curious given that my digital skills are pretty weak. If there's anything I should have had little to no faith about, it should have been my ability to do a decent job painting the magic in Photoshop. For some reason, however, it seemed like a really good idea. Since I'd lost faith in my ability to pull it off in paint, at least I would be switching to a medium that allowed for pushing and pulling to my heart's content. I could do something and undo it just as easily.
Given how the timing was working out, with the deadline looming, I had left myself no other options. Not if I wanted to turn the job in on time, anyway. So I plugged in my Wacom tablet and went to work.

This is the result:

©Wizards of the Coast

I've got mixed feelings about this hybrid piece. I like both versions, but I'm not sure I like the version with the magic more. I guess that's why I've left the painting be in its original form. I'm not sure if that's a mistake or not. Either way, I was too quickly on to the next job to go back into it, and I've honestly not thought a whole lot about it since.

In many ways the fact that I pulled it off and handed it in on time was a miracle. There were a lot of sleepless nights and hard conversations happening at the time, and I was pretty distracted. Eventually, Amy moved into my studio with me and did much of her job searching from just a few feet away. We got to spend four months hanging out together while figuring out our next move, and believe it or not it ended up being more fun than stressful. Initially, though, I was just a ball of nerves and this painting will likely always remind me of that. All things considered, it could have come out WAY worse.

Information, Advice and Old Man Pants

Back in my day, we didn't have no internet. And by my day we're talking mid to late nineties. You'd be correct to point out that that statement is an outright lie as the world wide web was certainly a thing back then, but I'll counter with the fact that it just wasn't the same. In the years of my schooling, and for many subsequent, you could feel yourself aging as images downloaded a pixel at a time and appeared magically from left to right, top to bottom. If there was video content to speak of, it was certainly not the kind of thing that mere mortals could view with their substandard connections, and primeval, hamster-driven machines. There was email, of course, and there were chat rooms and webpages, but what hadn't really happened yet was the explosion of content out there for artists and art enthusiasts alike. There were no blogs, no demo videos, no podcasts or streaming content, and there certainly weren't extensive message board threads about the type of paint someone used, what Daarken's digital brush settings are, or how I don't know anything about the anatomy of creatures that don't actually exist.

What did we have to work with? Why, let me put on my old man pants and tell you!

While all those things listed above were certainly to come, my search for information about how other artists did things was limited to books (many of which were long out of print and thus difficult and expensive to find), obscure films that you were lucky to stumble upon a thrice budded VHS cassette of, and actually cold calling people and asking them directly. There was occasionally a lecture or live demonstration here or there, but there just wasn't the wealth of information so readily available like there is today.

At this point I pull up my old man pants and point at you meaningfully (even though it isn't polite) as I say that I hope you all appreciate the opportunities this goldmine presents. I'm happy to be living among you, late to the party in some ways, early in others, enjoying the sheer wealth of information about many of my heroes and how they won so many of their canvas duels.

But there's one thing that has begun to nag at me. The information didn't come alone. No. Uninvited, it brought along its idiot cousin as a plus one. That idiot cousin is free advice.

Now, I'm willing to take much of the information out there at face value — after all, why would someone lie to you about using a number two round dipped in a mixture of Cadmium Red Light and Yellow Ochre?Seriously. What's in it for JoJo down at the shopping mall to lie about using an airbrush to make all those t-shirts he sells? I just don't see the angle. But all those opinions out there? All that free advice? Excuse me while I get my bucket of salt, some waders, and a shovel.

Without further ado, here's some advice about that advice.

Do Some Research

I know this may seem obvious, but it's kind of important to know a little about who the advice is coming from. Figure out whether they're worth your time, what their motives are, and whether there's actually some aspect of their work that's applicable to you. For example, were I looking for oil painting tips I'd be unlikely to go to someone who works digitally. This isn't a prejudice against digital work, mind you, as I'd be just as unlikely to consult a water colorist. And if it's a bigger issue of artistic fundamentals you're looking to solve (like composition, drawing problems, or visual communication issues), it helps to turn to someone whose sensibilities and qualities have something in common with your own — which is not to say that you should only be looking to people who do work that looks exactly like yours. Indeed, the illustrators I turn to have work that looks nothing like mine, but there are underlying threads that keep our work in the same ballpark. Similar approaches to solving problems, similar interest in story telling, etc. That synchronicity automatically makes any opinions they share more effective, as I understand better where they're coming from.

Don't Settle

While potentially overwhelming, the untold quantity of advice mines also give you the luxury of choice. As you sift through your options, it's important to remember not to settle for advice given by artists who are at your level or only marginally better than you. Sure, you might like that one piece that JoJo down at the mall did, but like an art director once told me, "everyone has one good piece in them." So what's the rest of JoJo's work look like? Why not look to someone who has a whole portfolio of good pieces? Pieces that you think are beyond what you could ever hope to achieve. And while we're at it, how about someone with a whole portfolio of good pieces and a decent amount of experience and has made a career of it? The point is, don't skimp. You don't have to. Sure it can be intimidating to contact someone you don't know, and sometimes it takes a while for these total strangers to get back to you, but it's better to wait for advice from a professional who knows what they're talking about than it is to get your instant two cents from JoJo.

More = Better

So you've ignored me and insist on going to JoJo for all his artistic ravings — I understand, he has a wise face. That's one opinion and one opinion is good. You know what's better? Two opinions. Or even three! Hearing more than one thought can help patterns emerge and can also help solutions become clearer. Plus, not everyone is going to pick up on the same things, and you might end up with multiple issues to address. While this seems like a headache, it can also help your work improve multiple times over, and in a far more compressed period of time.

Look, it's never a bad idea to get opinions from multiple sources. You can't determine the direction of a line from a single point, so it always helps to find another point...of view. See what I did there? (I hate myself for writing that). But seriously, it's a lot harder to get to the truth of things from one person's opinion, and gathering insight from more than one source is going to give you a lot more options, and may even counter-intuitively help you hone in on the best answer for you.

Have the Salt Ready

There are a lot of folks out there spouting off on their blogs like it's the gospel as told by the illustration god, Illustrut, himself. They shout with their conviction and dazzle with neat pictures and large, bold typography. Heck, JoJo is sporting a whole cart that's got a big sign on top of it. Clearly these kind of things and the fact that they've been paid to illustrate at some point make all those guys experts and they obviously know more than you. Right?

Ahem.

Perhaps not. The most important thing to remember about advice is that it's just an opinion. Sure, it might be based on facts and experiences, and sure they might be working illustrators, but such things do not turn their wisdom into a law chiseled in stone by Hammurabi*, himself. Advice can apply to you and your work, and it can also be pretty far off base, so it's vital to learn to take in what applies and ignore the rest. Part of making art is having intentions and making real choices. You know what you're trying to do better than the person giving you advice, so be sure that adhering to some of that advice doesn't betray those intentions and choices in some way.

Which brings me to my final point. While I've dispatched some advice as well as a fair amount of information about my work and process on this blog of mine, everything I've passed along has been based on my own experience. What knowledge I've provided is what worked for me, nothing more. I've also tried to include what hasn't worked whenever pertinent. Much of the advice I've given is pretty general. Indeed if you go from blog to blog looking for the secrets of life and illustration you'll note that the advice often is. There are themes of hard work and perseverance woven throughout, and many universal truths are present that you just can't get around. But remember, it's the internet, and the internet is still the Wild West. Any idiot can express their opinion half-intelligently and sound like they know what they're talking about — which includes me, by the way.  

Still, I'm a big proponent of getting help on the fundamentals and then figuring the nuances out for yourself. The building blocks of what we do, while largely comprised of repetition, are often molded by other hands. A slight nudge here, a slap on the wrist there, not to mention the meticulous study and outright thievery of the work of our heroes. The big ticket items are what I go seeking information about and look to others for advice to improve. But deciding what brush to use or what colors to mix? That's all trial and error. Sure I've taken advice on that stuff, but it was me driving the bus and deciding which passengers to let on. I'm just as likely to drive right by. Remember that it's the oddities of process, the quirks, the mistakes and hiccups along the way that make our artistic endeavors our own.

So go out there and seek that advice whenever you need it, but arm yourself with a shovel of your own, and don't forget to leave some time to actually paint along the way.


*  Survey of Art History 101 for the win!

More Advice

On the heals of Randy Gallegos' very nontraditional but all around awesome bit of advice over at ArtOrder, as well as my own, more traditional chunk of wisdom from last week, I bring you a few additional spoonfuls of what some might deem common sense.  Nevertheless, I'm here to offer these tasty morsels up for your consideration.  Why?  Because we've reached the time of year where art students far and wide start sweating their futures.  With the days of their doing projects within a structured environment coming to a close, many of them begin shooting off emails and making phone calls to folks like myself, hoping to get some insight, advice or a paid internship.  While I can't do the third, I just might be able to help with the other two.

Now, some or all of what I might share herein may be old hat to those of you perusing the letters which, when assembled, form words.  But my own observations of some of the folks entering the field each year have indicated that there are certainly those who might benefit from some of what I'm about to get into.  And so, without further interruption, I shall.

Learn To Talk About Your Work
Learning to draw and paint is fine and good, but in addition to developing such fine and admirable skills, you might want to take some time out to figure out how to discuss your work articulately.  And no, I'm not talking about learning to write well for your blog and such (though that's not a bad idea, either).  I'm talking about actual, spoken words — you know, with inflection and everything!  When I was in school, I was expected to actually talk about what it is I did and to eventually get to the point where I could describe my work, style, genre and subject matter in one, concise sentence.  Nowadays, I'm guessing you'd need to be able to do that in 140 characters.  Still, it's not a bad idea to be able to chat about your process, to be able to speak about your choices and to intelligently defend them.  While such a thing as vocalization may seem obsolete now that the internet is here, like it or not there are still art directors out there who might actually want to meet you in person at some point, and if at all possible, it'd be nice if they can actually have a conversation with you.  Trust me, they seem to like that kind of thing.

Learn Humility
While learning to talk about yourself and your work, remember to keep it simple and humble.  Don't be that guy who thinks he's the second coming of the illustration god, Illustrut (I made that up, like it?).  We all know him.  He's the guy who adds pretentiousness where none is needed, the guy who inflates the importance of his work and profession.  Most illustrators I know avoid that guy, and most illustrators are the opposite of that guy — they're humble and don't buy into their own hype.  Personally, I find it difficult to take myself too seriously.  I paint zombies and dragons and such.  I churn out the odd clunker now and then that is more than enough to damage what little self-esteem I actually have.  I have loved only a handful of my own pieces, and one day hope to love another handful.  While I'm not saying you should aspire to be some self-flagellating illustration martyr, I think it's worth remembering that when Illustrut returns to us, he will likely embody someone who isn't you.

Learn to Critique

Now, I'm sure that most of you reading this will roll their eyes over this one, but it's an essential skill.  Most schools out there expect you to participate in critiques of your fellow classmates' work.  But, if managed to got through school without acquiring this important skill, then I suggest you find a group of folks you can rely on and trust, and start doing it as soon as possible.  And I'm not suggesting this because I'm some twisted mashochist who wants to shower in the tears of those being critiqued.  Critiquing the work of others trains your eye, so that when you turn it toward your own work it is more effective.  And while you might be looking forward to the end of such public critiques come graduation, I sincerely hope you don't abandon the practice altogether.  Fourteen years after graduating from college, I still regularly show sketches and finished work to several guys who I know will cut right to the heart of any visible weakness in a piece.  Work I've stared at to the point of bleariness can instantly be tidied with fresh eyes once I've lost all objectivity, and such an asset is invaluable.

Learn To Take a Critique

Think you only need to be able to give a good critique?  Think again.  If you can't take as good as you give, you have to figure out how to develop a thicker skin.  While it can be extremely difficult to have someone rip your favorite piece to shreds, you have to find a way to look at those comments objectively.  If you're getting defensive when on the receiving end of a critique, it just might be possible that in your heart of hearts you know there's some truth to what's being said to you.  I know that that is certainly the case whenever the urge to become defensive wells up within me during critique.  And, believe it or not, learning to take criticism helps make you better at giving it.  This, in turn, makes you better at receiving critiques, and so on.  Look, I know it's tough to have someone point out the flaws in a piece you've labored over and poured a bit of your soul into, but believe it or not, there's an excellent chance that whoever is trying to drive that stake through your heart is doing it to make you a tougher vampire.

Learn When Not to Self-Promote
There are some excellent resources out there on self-promotion.  I'm not going to link any, because I fail at research, but I know they're out there because people have told me about them, and I believe everything everyone tells me.  What I'm getting at is that it's a deeper topic than this post can accommodate and I think it's sometimes more valuable to touch on what not to do.  The gist is, there's a time and a place for everything.  Learn when to self-promote, and when to just plant the seed of self-promotion — the I'll-catch-up-with-you-tomorrow-and-we-can-talk-about-it, kind of thing.  This is a tough tightrope to walk, and it's something I think you have to learn through experience, but my rule of thumb is that if it feels natural to the occasion to whip out my portfolio or start handing out my business cards, then fine.  If it's going to result in any kind of awkwardness, I'll try and find a way to plant a seed.  If that still feels awkward, I leave it for another day and carry on.  There are definitely those who feel that's too passive and that you should be a touch pushier, but it's just not in me.  Figuring out what feels comfortable to you can take a while, but it's a necessary thing.  Just remember that there are times when you need to skip the used car salesman routine, and if you're asking yourself whether or not this is one of those times, it probably is.

Learn To Be Careful Of What You Shoot At

There's a lot of art out there I don't like.  There are some of my fellow artists who annoy me to no end, and I likely do the same to them.  And I've worked under some nightmare scenarios with companies I'd never work with again.  Despite all this, I try not to talk much about any of them.  At least not publicly.  Sure, I believe everyone is entitled to their opinion and are free to express it, but I try and avoid yammering on about many of my professional opinions when out amongst my peers, and especially on the internet.  Why?  Well, just as you can be fired from a job for writing the wrong thing on Facebook, you can lose a client doing the same.  As far as I'm concerned, the internet is akin to a soapbox and megaphone, only your voice carries much further online.  It's best to assume that anything said about anyone will eventually get back to them.  So, I avoid saying anything I wouldn't otherwise say publicly to a person's face.  Sure I might gripe and commiserate behind the scenes with a few people I hold as confidants (an important thing to have), but like it or not ripping another artist or their work, or complaining publicly about a client can come back to haunt you.  You never know who their friends are and how vengeful they can be.  This business is hard enough, try not to make it harder.

Learn To Feed Your Head
While I can't say this is a common thing, I can't exactly say it's uncommon, either.  I've heard tell tale of artists cloistering themselves in order to keep influences away.  They want to keep their work pure.  While I understand the mentality, I also think it's pretty flawed.  Becoming a hermit limits you to what's in your own head.  But if you take as much in as possible, you have a whole world to explore and more fodder than you could ever consume in a lifetime.  I suggest taking it all in.  Roll everything around in your mind a while, try each thing on and see what fits.  It is all going to be churned through that lovely, unique brain of yours, so you'll always be present in what comes out.  Your brain will filter every tidbit you cram in there, your hand will drive every stroke.  And weaving all those disparate, corrupting influences together will be your own sensibilities, your own will.  Feed your head, feed your heart.  It's what the beast needs to grow, and if the beast doesn't get what it needs it will whither and die.

That's it!  I swear.  If you managed to get through all that, color me impressed.  And while this advice is free (except for all the time you've spent reading that you'll never get back), it may not necessarily be any good.  Which is what I'll be talking about next time.

Ann Bonny and A Foray Into Digital Painting

I have painted the female pirate, Ann Bonny, seven times now.  The first five were for a card game called Anachronism, published by Triking Games.  That game has since vanished from the shelves of your local game store, but the images I did for that game have drummed up more work than any other images I have thus far produced.  To boot, I get requests to use to one image in particular come regularly — around two to three a year.  This is that image:

©MK3 International

As much as I'd like to sell the use of this image to the various companies and individuals that have requested it, I simply don't own the copyright.  The parent company of the publisher does, for this was a piece done as work-for-hire.

At this point, I could take the opportunity to step into the work-for-hire debate.  It's a worthy debate, indeed, and one about which I have mixed feelings.  For those not in the know, work-for-hire is when all copyright (and in some cases even the original, if one exists) are purchased from the artist.  This prevents the artist from selling additional printing rights to other clients down the road, and in some cases even restricts how the artist themselves can utilize the image (be it in self-promotion or the manufacturing of prints).  While this might seem like an okay thing provided that the monetary exchange is advantageous to the artist, the truth of the matter is that more often than not the rates offered are far below what organizations like the Graphic Artists Guild consider to be fair.

Now, having gone through the trouble of bringing everyone up to speed, I'm not going to delve any deeper into the work-for-hire topic.  Instead, I'll leave you with the pertinent information regarding the piece above.  I needed the work, Triking was my highest paying client at the time, and work-for-hire is fairly common practice in the fantasy, gaming industry.  Unfortunately, being work-for-hire and not owning the copyright myself, I now miss two to three opportunities each year to make additional monies on a piece for little to no additional effort on my part.

Thus was the case a month ago when I was once again approached about using the image.  This time, however, I put some effort into sleuthing.  You see, despite the fact that I don't own the image, I thought it worth trying to hunt down those who do — either the folks at MK3 or (if they'd been dissolved) whoever may have bought the assets from them.  After doing a bit of research, I was unable to confirm whether or not MK3, as an entity, even continues to exist.  Nor was I able to find out if they'd been bought, or folded into a new company.  I made a go of contacting the folks who used to run the company and had limited success.

What was my end game for all the legwork?  Simple.  Admittedly, it seemed pretty unlikely that I would get any money out of the deal, but I could at the very least gain exposure.  I figured at the very least, someone could make a couple bucks and my work could see the light of day and reach a new audience.

Despite doing my due diligence, as fate would have it, my search had a rather anticlimactic end.  I never managed to track down anyone who could tell me anything useful.  There was no one to point this new client to and have them work out a deal.  Even in the month since, I have been unable to confirm or refute any of the conjecture I've heard, nor have I gotten a reply from those who would definitely know something.  In short, I had nothing to tell my potential new client.

So that's it, right?  Another opportunity lost.  Well.... not exactly.  Like I said, I've painted Ann Bonny seven times.  While five of those pieces are out of bounds, I do own the rights to  the other two.  In an attempt to salvage the situation, I offered up usage to either of those versions.

Immediately the client was dismissive of one of the images.  It was the image of Ann Bonny from the original Badass book cover (link).  I completely understood.  It's part of a larger piece and really didn't work for them out of context.  The second image was a black and white painting of Ann, done for the interior of the same book.

While this image intrigued them, the fact that it was black and white was kind of deal breaker.  Still, I thought I could help them, so I did the obvious thing: I asked them if they'd be interested if I colorized the black and white piece digitally.

They were a little leery.  I don't blame them.  My portfolio isn't exactly brimming with digital work.  In fact, there are zero digital pieces in my portfolio.  Still, I assumed that between my own limited experience, and my wife's far more vast Photoshop knowledge, we'd be able to give them something useful.  To allay their fears, I offered to give them a progress shot within a couple of hours and based on that, they could run with it or kill the whole thing.  They agreed and I went to work.

The short story is that I painted over the original oil painting in Photoshop.  CS5 if you must know.  I turned the oil painting into a brown monochrome image, converted the whole thing into RGB, and painted on top of that in a new layer.  It's mostly just the paint brush and smudge tools.  Nothing fancy.  About as straightforward as my oil painting, really.

I started with the head and hands and worked out from there.  Once everything above the waist was complete, I blocked in the rest and submitted the half-finished work.  They liked it enough to ask me to complete it and I did.  A couple hours of work, an extra couple bucks made, and a lot of lessons learned.  Not a bad way to spend the afternoon.  Anyway, here's how it came out:

Admittedly, I am still new to the whole digital painting thing, and I can't say that I'm in love with it as a whole.  Painting with actual paint is an experience.  There is a smell of oil in the air.  You can feel the painting's surface through the brush much as you can feel the road through the steering wheel of a car.  All that unevenness creates all kinds of happy accidents along the way.  You can move the paint around with your fingers or a paper towel, or any number of other implements that they haven't yet managed to simulate digitally.

Digital painting lacks a lot of this.  There is no smell.  The physical surface is smooth and even.  The stylus is more a fat pencil than a brush.  It's a little colder to me.  A little less exciting.  As a result, I have resisted the industry's trend toward all things digital.

However, I do recognize that it's just another tool.  A tool that, used properly, can do great things.  I can't say as I'm to that point yet, but I've finally started giving it a real try.  My toes have been dipped, and I've even finished off a couple of assignments digitally (mostly because it allowed me to easily give more than one option to my art directors).  Whether I'll ever get to the point where I'm doing a piece from start to finish without ever using so much as a pencil... well... I'm really not sure.  For me, having the painting as an artifact — having that physical embodiment of my labor — is still important.  But, without a doubt, in this instance digital painting saved me and salvaged a situation that could have easily fallen apart.  It allowed me to do something I simply could not have accomplished with oils in the time I had to do it.  And to me, there's not a whole lot to dislike about that.