Do you listen to music while you paint? If so, what do you listen to?
That this question has been asked of me as many times as it has is kind of surprising. No real commentary there, I'm just honestly surprised... Yeah, so I guess I'll just answer it then.
While I do sometimes listen to music while painting, more often than not I have a movie or television show playing. I always pick something that's somehow tonally or thematically linked to the painting or paintings I happen to be working on. The longer it is, the better. That way I don't have to get up, as often. Also, tv shows with a "play all" option are always preferred over the ones that don't for the same reason.
Some of you may wonder how I am not distracted by what's on the tv. Simple: I don't get distracted because I've seen it before. I never, ever watch something for the first time while working (barring the random sporting event that I may have tuned into). So, it's always stuff where I know what's coming.
The biggest reason I prefer movies over music is that I like to have something that I can look away to that cleanses my mental palette. While painting, I can end up staring at a piece for hours with few breaks. This can sometimes cause me to lose perspective and end up with some mediocre drawing or painting that I only come to see after walking away — be it for lunch or at the end of the day. If I have a movie on, I can watch it periodically for a minute or so at a time, allowing me to reset my brain enough to get a fresher look at my painting when my eyes finally return to it.
As for what kind of movies I watch, you'll find a lot of James Cameron, Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson, Ridley Scott, David Fincher, and Michael Mann in my collection. Television shows include a lot of Futurama, Venture Brothers, the Simpsons, and South Park, as well as Rome, Deadwood, Band of Brothers, the Pacific, and Battlestar Gallactica. Probably a lot of obvious and stereotypical stuff, but it gets the job done.
Regarding sporting events, despite they're being live, I don't get distracted for two main reasons. One, I'm not really that emotionally invested in them. Two, you can gauge well what's worth looking at by the roar of the crowd and can rest assured you'll catch anything you missed in the instant replay. Still, I find football and baseball good background fodder — even without the emotional or tonal link as mentioned above.
Now, every once in a while, music will be more appealing to me. I can't say whether it's linked to the tides, the day of the week, or that some glow stick in my brain has snapped and caused my feelings on the subject to shift temporarily. So what do I listen to on these occasions?
Sometimes it's film scores. Sometimes it's classical. Most of the time, it's rock or alternative. I'm a big fan of classic rock (something that now apparently includes the 80's according to my local classic rock station). I'd say that The Who is probably my favorite band, but things like the Strawbs, Queen, and Bad Company come up a lot. I still listen to stuff from the grunge era, and I've even gotten into some 80's pop... You know, I guess I'll listen to just about anything as long as it's not country, isn't too repetitive, too electronic, or too grating. I'm not very big on jazz, nor am I big into the blues, but I'll even listen to them should the piece I'm working on feel like it's required. Fact is that my musical tastes were molded in the 80's and pre-boyband 90's. Even so, I've tried to keep up with stuff that's actually been released in the last decade, so I'm not totally out of the loop but at the same time am by no means an expert.
On any given day you can find any given thing playing in my studio. I like to keep changing things up, much the same way that I keep changing up aspects of my process. I guess I'm kind of fickle, and I find that I get bored pretty easily, so by staying out of any regular pattern I somehow manage to keep the boredom at bay.
If anyone reading this has a question they'd like answered in the ongoing FAQ series, by all means ask it in the comments section below.
The Work and Musings of Illustrator Steven Belledin
Monday, February 7, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Badass Alteration Animation
I made this for the part 5 of the Badass: Birth of a Legend story, but found it a little too distracting. I figured it'd be a better image on its own.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Badass Movies
Behold: a promotional video for Badass: Birth Of a Legend!
While we're at it, here's the trailer for the first book:
While we're at it, here's the trailer for the first book:
Friday, February 4, 2011
The Many Covers of Badass, Part 5
The inclusion of Godzilla and Skeletor into the painting was the cause of most of my headaches. This was the reason I needed the contract changed, and the reason for most of the delays. Still, I don't often get to work with established characters, and it was a really great opportunity. That the extra effort and frustration caused by said opportunity was for naught, was a great lesson.
Sometimes these things happen. Sometimes simple jobs turn out to be among the most complicated. Sometimes, you find yourself banging your head against a wall and not knowing why. I cannot begin to understand the things that took place behind the scenes at the publisher's offices. While the art director tried to keep me in the loop, there were many things that I was understandably not privy to. I imagine that there were battles fought and noses bloodied, my art director wielding an emergency fire ax to chop through the line of red tape baring foes. Or perhaps the conflict took place in a series of increasingly passive-aggressive memos. It's even possible that the massive delays the I experienced were the result of a spontaneous outbreak of the bubonic plague that resulted in the CDC secreting away those affected and allowing no contact with the outside world until the threat was contained. In all reality, however, it could simply have come down to folks at the publisher waiting to hear from other folks who were waiting to hear from completely different folks, causing me to wait in turn.
Alterations to pieces are part of the game. While rarely at this scale, it's something that we illustrators must all learn to cope with. In retrospect, I might have gotten a little precious in this case. It might not have been so bad to have painted over Skeletor. In fact, I'm pretty darned happy with Professor Moriarty, who currently stands as the fastest figure I've ever painted. Still, finding a way around the problem allowed for a totally different set of lessons I might otherwise not have learned.
To say that I have two fully realized paintings isn't quite accurate. I have one fully realized painting that was the original version of the cover, and a second piece that is half paint and half exposed giclee. In my spare time, I am trying to finish off the rest of that second piece and cover the remaining surface with paint. I'm not sure if it's worth it, but it's an interesting exercise. While I'm not trying to recreate the first piece brushstroke for brushstroke, I'm certainly trying to make it look pretty much the same, save for improvements here or there. When it's finished, I'll have it shot just as I did the first one, and it will likely become the master image for my records and replace the image on my site.
To be frank, I doubt that the either piece will sell. The first Badass cover certainly hasn't, and in both cases I'll be happy no matter what should occur. Sure it's nice to sell paintings, but it's not the end of the world to me should I get stuck with them. After all, I destroy the really awful ones and save only what's worth saving. Both of these are safe and one will likely be displayed. The nice thing is that I will only need to buy one frame for both pieces and will be able to rotate the two as tastes dictate. So I have that going for me, which is nice.
At the end of the day, I offer some advice. First off, when dealing with copyrighted characters, always make sure you're covered legally. If the product you're working on is a licensed product, you should be good to go. But, sometimes you're not covered, and it's important to get that ironed out. Many companies include clauses in their contracts that indemnify them against something the illustrator might have done, but not the other way around, so be careful what you sign.
In this case, I protected myself from the start. I always save important emails for each job so that I can document the client's requests. While I wouldn't necessarily have been covered without the clause I added to the contract, I would have at least had evidence in my own defense. At the end of the day, the change in the contract was rendered moot by the final change. So it all worked out, I guess.
A second thing I want to point out is that you should always pay attention to any part of the contract that talks about changes and alterations. Most of the time, contracts are written so that changes resulting from the client's actions pay (often a fee to be negotiated), while changes resulting from the illustrator's actions are done at no additional cost to the client. However, some clients I've worked with allowed themselves multiple rounds of changes in the contract — both to the sketches and finishes. These changes paid no additional fee. So, again, read your contract.
At the end of the day, I'm not complaining. The author is cool, the art director is cool, the job itself is cool, it's just the situation that wasn't cool. But every job is a gamble on some level.
Finally, a shameless plug. The book is called Badass: The Birth of a Legend. At least, that's what I heard it called most recently. The author is called Ben Thompson and his website can be found here. The paintings are called The Legend of Badass (v1) and (v2), after the book's original title. The book is released this March 15th, and can be purchased wherever books are sold.
Sometimes these things happen. Sometimes simple jobs turn out to be among the most complicated. Sometimes, you find yourself banging your head against a wall and not knowing why. I cannot begin to understand the things that took place behind the scenes at the publisher's offices. While the art director tried to keep me in the loop, there were many things that I was understandably not privy to. I imagine that there were battles fought and noses bloodied, my art director wielding an emergency fire ax to chop through the line of red tape baring foes. Or perhaps the conflict took place in a series of increasingly passive-aggressive memos. It's even possible that the massive delays the I experienced were the result of a spontaneous outbreak of the bubonic plague that resulted in the CDC secreting away those affected and allowing no contact with the outside world until the threat was contained. In all reality, however, it could simply have come down to folks at the publisher waiting to hear from other folks who were waiting to hear from completely different folks, causing me to wait in turn.
Alterations to pieces are part of the game. While rarely at this scale, it's something that we illustrators must all learn to cope with. In retrospect, I might have gotten a little precious in this case. It might not have been so bad to have painted over Skeletor. In fact, I'm pretty darned happy with Professor Moriarty, who currently stands as the fastest figure I've ever painted. Still, finding a way around the problem allowed for a totally different set of lessons I might otherwise not have learned.
 |
| All the cool kids flip their collars. You should too! |
To say that I have two fully realized paintings isn't quite accurate. I have one fully realized painting that was the original version of the cover, and a second piece that is half paint and half exposed giclee. In my spare time, I am trying to finish off the rest of that second piece and cover the remaining surface with paint. I'm not sure if it's worth it, but it's an interesting exercise. While I'm not trying to recreate the first piece brushstroke for brushstroke, I'm certainly trying to make it look pretty much the same, save for improvements here or there. When it's finished, I'll have it shot just as I did the first one, and it will likely become the master image for my records and replace the image on my site.
To be frank, I doubt that the either piece will sell. The first Badass cover certainly hasn't, and in both cases I'll be happy no matter what should occur. Sure it's nice to sell paintings, but it's not the end of the world to me should I get stuck with them. After all, I destroy the really awful ones and save only what's worth saving. Both of these are safe and one will likely be displayed. The nice thing is that I will only need to buy one frame for both pieces and will be able to rotate the two as tastes dictate. So I have that going for me, which is nice.
At the end of the day, I offer some advice. First off, when dealing with copyrighted characters, always make sure you're covered legally. If the product you're working on is a licensed product, you should be good to go. But, sometimes you're not covered, and it's important to get that ironed out. Many companies include clauses in their contracts that indemnify them against something the illustrator might have done, but not the other way around, so be careful what you sign.
In this case, I protected myself from the start. I always save important emails for each job so that I can document the client's requests. While I wouldn't necessarily have been covered without the clause I added to the contract, I would have at least had evidence in my own defense. At the end of the day, the change in the contract was rendered moot by the final change. So it all worked out, I guess.
A second thing I want to point out is that you should always pay attention to any part of the contract that talks about changes and alterations. Most of the time, contracts are written so that changes resulting from the client's actions pay (often a fee to be negotiated), while changes resulting from the illustrator's actions are done at no additional cost to the client. However, some clients I've worked with allowed themselves multiple rounds of changes in the contract — both to the sketches and finishes. These changes paid no additional fee. So, again, read your contract.
At the end of the day, I'm not complaining. The author is cool, the art director is cool, the job itself is cool, it's just the situation that wasn't cool. But every job is a gamble on some level.
Finally, a shameless plug. The book is called Badass: The Birth of a Legend. At least, that's what I heard it called most recently. The author is called Ben Thompson and his website can be found here. The paintings are called The Legend of Badass (v1) and (v2), after the book's original title. The book is released this March 15th, and can be purchased wherever books are sold.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
The Many Covers of Badass, Part 4
If you've already read part 1, part 2, or part 3, you likely see where this story is headed.
After many complications and many months, I had finally completed the book cover. The check came, it cleared, all was right with the world. I moved on. Then, last fall, the move to Boston became finalized, and it was clear that my world was going to be thrown into utter chaos for a time. As I was preparing for the move, I finally got the email I'd been dreading.
As I mentioned before, the question of whether or not Skeletor and Godzilla should be on the cover came up again, and after much discussion it was decided that they should not. Bummer. I liked Skeletor. Godzilla was okay, but Skeletor came out well!
The art director and I discussed our options. The publisher's first instincts were to have me alter Godzilla and Skeletor's appearance enough that we couldn't possibly get sued. This isn't an option I particularly liked. First off, Skeletor and Godzilla are both actually in the book. Folks reading it would look inside, see both of them, then look at the cover and think I didn't know what the heck I was doing. Had I ever seen these guys before? Since when is Skeletor red? And why does Godzilla have a beak? These are the types of questions that would invariably come up.
Second, changing those two characters to the extent needed to avoid legal action would result in me essentially painting two new figures. I argued that if I was going to do that much work, they might as well be other characters in the book that no one will get sued for. Fortunately, the art director agreed.
The next question became which characters should be the replacements. Given Godzilla's size and placement in the piece, what replaced him had to be of similar scale. Because I'd already done one for inside the book (seen here), I proposed a dragon. They loved it. Skeletor's replacement was up to them, as I genuinely had no idea who among the cast of characters included in the book would fit the bill. They came back with Sherlock Holmes' nemesis, Professor Moriarty. Cool. I moved on to the sketch.
A major challenge with alterations on finished pieces is that they are impossible to plan for. One hopes that all of the kinks are worked out on a given job before one goes to paint. This doesn't always happen, but one can't exactly leave gaping holes in one's schedule in anticipation that it might. One needs to fill one's schedule with jobs so one can eat and pay one's rent.
This is the situation I found myself in, and my schedule was full. Further complicating matters was the minor detail that I was about to uproot my life in New York and drag it up to Boston. Compounding those factors was that they needed the revisions done post-haste. In fact, I had only three days to get them the sketch so that they could include it in the catalog they use to sell books to stores and distributors. It was going to be tight, to say the least.
I went digital with the sketch again — this time opting to work directly on top of a black and white version of the painting itself.
Again, pretty straightforward stuff. They liked it and gave me the go ahead, but there was still a big dilemma to resolve.
When repainting much of a piece like this, one can go several ways. One can paint directly over the original. Or, one can just paint the replacement figures separately and blend it all together digitally. I didn't much fancy painting over the original. The big sticking point was Skeletor. Unlike He-Man, I didn't want to destroy him. At the same time, I didn't want to paint the figures separately because they'd lack a certain amount of context, and I feared that I'd need to do an awful lot of digital manipulation to make them fit into the piece color and value-wise. I talked with a few other artists and came to a third solution: I had a giclee print made of the original cover, pasted it down onto a piece of hardboard, and did the alterations on it, rather than the original painting.
This meant that I'd have all the context of the original piece including the correct palette, value structure, and composition. It also meant that for better or worse, I'd end up with what amounted to two original paintings. Given the increased amount of room my new home had to offer, this wasn't much of a concern. This option was the closest thing I could think of to having my cake and eating it too, and I'm glad I went this route. It may not have been perfect, but having the image there saved me a lot of time on the back end and time was of the essence.
To complete the job, I would have a week at most, depending on how quickly I was able to get my studio unpacked and in working order. As it turned out, that took far longer than expected, and I had only a few days. So, I disappeared into my studio to paint the dragon and Moriarty, scan the piece, retouch it, and hand it in. The deadline made, I went back to my regularly scheduled job, and eventually celebrated Christmas.
Tomorrow: thoughts, warnings, details, and conclusions.
After many complications and many months, I had finally completed the book cover. The check came, it cleared, all was right with the world. I moved on. Then, last fall, the move to Boston became finalized, and it was clear that my world was going to be thrown into utter chaos for a time. As I was preparing for the move, I finally got the email I'd been dreading.
As I mentioned before, the question of whether or not Skeletor and Godzilla should be on the cover came up again, and after much discussion it was decided that they should not. Bummer. I liked Skeletor. Godzilla was okay, but Skeletor came out well!
 |
| I'll get you for this, He-Man! |
The art director and I discussed our options. The publisher's first instincts were to have me alter Godzilla and Skeletor's appearance enough that we couldn't possibly get sued. This isn't an option I particularly liked. First off, Skeletor and Godzilla are both actually in the book. Folks reading it would look inside, see both of them, then look at the cover and think I didn't know what the heck I was doing. Had I ever seen these guys before? Since when is Skeletor red? And why does Godzilla have a beak? These are the types of questions that would invariably come up.
Second, changing those two characters to the extent needed to avoid legal action would result in me essentially painting two new figures. I argued that if I was going to do that much work, they might as well be other characters in the book that no one will get sued for. Fortunately, the art director agreed.
The next question became which characters should be the replacements. Given Godzilla's size and placement in the piece, what replaced him had to be of similar scale. Because I'd already done one for inside the book (seen here), I proposed a dragon. They loved it. Skeletor's replacement was up to them, as I genuinely had no idea who among the cast of characters included in the book would fit the bill. They came back with Sherlock Holmes' nemesis, Professor Moriarty. Cool. I moved on to the sketch.
A major challenge with alterations on finished pieces is that they are impossible to plan for. One hopes that all of the kinks are worked out on a given job before one goes to paint. This doesn't always happen, but one can't exactly leave gaping holes in one's schedule in anticipation that it might. One needs to fill one's schedule with jobs so one can eat and pay one's rent.
This is the situation I found myself in, and my schedule was full. Further complicating matters was the minor detail that I was about to uproot my life in New York and drag it up to Boston. Compounding those factors was that they needed the revisions done post-haste. In fact, I had only three days to get them the sketch so that they could include it in the catalog they use to sell books to stores and distributors. It was going to be tight, to say the least.
I went digital with the sketch again — this time opting to work directly on top of a black and white version of the painting itself.
Again, pretty straightforward stuff. They liked it and gave me the go ahead, but there was still a big dilemma to resolve.
When repainting much of a piece like this, one can go several ways. One can paint directly over the original. Or, one can just paint the replacement figures separately and blend it all together digitally. I didn't much fancy painting over the original. The big sticking point was Skeletor. Unlike He-Man, I didn't want to destroy him. At the same time, I didn't want to paint the figures separately because they'd lack a certain amount of context, and I feared that I'd need to do an awful lot of digital manipulation to make them fit into the piece color and value-wise. I talked with a few other artists and came to a third solution: I had a giclee print made of the original cover, pasted it down onto a piece of hardboard, and did the alterations on it, rather than the original painting.
This meant that I'd have all the context of the original piece including the correct palette, value structure, and composition. It also meant that for better or worse, I'd end up with what amounted to two original paintings. Given the increased amount of room my new home had to offer, this wasn't much of a concern. This option was the closest thing I could think of to having my cake and eating it too, and I'm glad I went this route. It may not have been perfect, but having the image there saved me a lot of time on the back end and time was of the essence.
To complete the job, I would have a week at most, depending on how quickly I was able to get my studio unpacked and in working order. As it turned out, that took far longer than expected, and I had only a few days. So, I disappeared into my studio to paint the dragon and Moriarty, scan the piece, retouch it, and hand it in. The deadline made, I went back to my regularly scheduled job, and eventually celebrated Christmas.
Tomorrow: thoughts, warnings, details, and conclusions.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
The Many Covers of Badass, Part 3
Part 1 of this tale can be found here. Part 2, here. Here begins part three:
While admittedly not a He-Man fan, painting Skeletor certainly wasn't a problem for me. I was pretty confident that I knew enough to make him relatively cool. I whipped up a new version of the sketch and did what I could. I even tried to keep all three furies in there, because I'm a completist.
Painting Skeletor was certainly a minor change. The real issue was one of copyright. While I was excited to get a chance to tackle Godzilla and Skeletor, I didn't fancy the idea of being sued for their use. It seemed wise that I should cover myself legally. So before moving ahead, I asked a few friends for advice. Everyone came back with the same thoughts and confirmed my gut instinct: I needed to make sure I was indemnified in the contract against lawsuits brought on by the use of copyrighted characters.
Fortunately, HarperCollins was totally cool with it. I needed to add the necessary language to the contract myself, but it otherwise wasn't going to be an issue. I have no idea whether or not they felt the clause was entirely necessary, but it seemed only fair that I be covered as Godzilla and Skeletor were being included at their behest. It took a while to iron everything out, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
Time moved one, and the deadline began to loom.
Their response to the sketch above was positive, but they felt that my attempts to keep all three Furies in there was pointless. They asked me to excise the tiny one on the right that I'd added, and gave me final approval. Official green light in hand, I tweaked the sketch a bit for my own purposes, changing the scale of a few of the figures and cementing them all in their final positions.
I took this finalized sketch and removed most of the grayscale under painting, as well as the small fury on the right. I then printed it out and pasted it down to a piece of hardboard. After a day's worth of prep, the piece was ready. I gathered up my reference, shot whatever I needed in addition to that then started slapping paint down.
Because of an assignment I was working on that required me to travel, I painted most of this piece in a hotel room. I didn't enjoy the experience, and I don't recommend it. I was never comfortable, and so the piece took a long time to really start flowing. It could be argued that it never really did flow. It was a frustrating piece to paint due to a variety of extenuating circumstances, and if I'd known what would eventually happen, I would have waited until I was back in my studio to work on it.
The short story is that everything about the job kept getting pushed back. There were delays upon delays at just about every stage of the job. I can't even begin to understand why, but it happened. I figure I put more time into dealing with details than I did the actual painting, and the constant waiting got pretty frustrating. I wouldn't go as far as to say it was a nightmare, but it was certainly among the most difficult jobs I've ever dealt with. Such is the nature of the beast...well, this beast anyway.
Now, I want to take a minute here and point out that the art director I worked with was and is awesome. He fought the good fight on my behalf, and I know this because he carbon copied me on almost every email he sent out dealing with the many issues I faced. As much as he could, he kept me in the loop, and I can't tell you how rare and awesome that is. Because of this, I never once threw a fit, or burst out in rage. He was not the cause of any of the delays or problems that I had to deal with, and so was hardly deserving of any venom I might have spewed.
And here it is — this is the piece that I labored to produce. It has its problems (I'm not 100% happy with Godzilla), but I'm still pretty happy with the piece. In fact, I'm really quite proud of Skeletor in particular.
At the end of the day, I made my deadline. The piece was finished, shot, digitized and was handed over. The author, art director, and HarperCollins as a whole seemed pretty pleased. However, throughout the months that followed the job, I had a nagging suspicion that it wasn't over. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, and drop it did.
It seems that eventually, the question of whether or not Godzilla and Skeletor should be used was raised again, and the final leg of this trip began.
While admittedly not a He-Man fan, painting Skeletor certainly wasn't a problem for me. I was pretty confident that I knew enough to make him relatively cool. I whipped up a new version of the sketch and did what I could. I even tried to keep all three furies in there, because I'm a completist.
Painting Skeletor was certainly a minor change. The real issue was one of copyright. While I was excited to get a chance to tackle Godzilla and Skeletor, I didn't fancy the idea of being sued for their use. It seemed wise that I should cover myself legally. So before moving ahead, I asked a few friends for advice. Everyone came back with the same thoughts and confirmed my gut instinct: I needed to make sure I was indemnified in the contract against lawsuits brought on by the use of copyrighted characters.
Fortunately, HarperCollins was totally cool with it. I needed to add the necessary language to the contract myself, but it otherwise wasn't going to be an issue. I have no idea whether or not they felt the clause was entirely necessary, but it seemed only fair that I be covered as Godzilla and Skeletor were being included at their behest. It took a while to iron everything out, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
Time moved one, and the deadline began to loom.
Their response to the sketch above was positive, but they felt that my attempts to keep all three Furies in there was pointless. They asked me to excise the tiny one on the right that I'd added, and gave me final approval. Official green light in hand, I tweaked the sketch a bit for my own purposes, changing the scale of a few of the figures and cementing them all in their final positions.
 |
| There's a real subtle shift here from the image above. |
I took this finalized sketch and removed most of the grayscale under painting, as well as the small fury on the right. I then printed it out and pasted it down to a piece of hardboard. After a day's worth of prep, the piece was ready. I gathered up my reference, shot whatever I needed in addition to that then started slapping paint down.
Because of an assignment I was working on that required me to travel, I painted most of this piece in a hotel room. I didn't enjoy the experience, and I don't recommend it. I was never comfortable, and so the piece took a long time to really start flowing. It could be argued that it never really did flow. It was a frustrating piece to paint due to a variety of extenuating circumstances, and if I'd known what would eventually happen, I would have waited until I was back in my studio to work on it.
The short story is that everything about the job kept getting pushed back. There were delays upon delays at just about every stage of the job. I can't even begin to understand why, but it happened. I figure I put more time into dealing with details than I did the actual painting, and the constant waiting got pretty frustrating. I wouldn't go as far as to say it was a nightmare, but it was certainly among the most difficult jobs I've ever dealt with. Such is the nature of the beast...well, this beast anyway.
Now, I want to take a minute here and point out that the art director I worked with was and is awesome. He fought the good fight on my behalf, and I know this because he carbon copied me on almost every email he sent out dealing with the many issues I faced. As much as he could, he kept me in the loop, and I can't tell you how rare and awesome that is. Because of this, I never once threw a fit, or burst out in rage. He was not the cause of any of the delays or problems that I had to deal with, and so was hardly deserving of any venom I might have spewed.
And here it is — this is the piece that I labored to produce. It has its problems (I'm not 100% happy with Godzilla), but I'm still pretty happy with the piece. In fact, I'm really quite proud of Skeletor in particular.
At the end of the day, I made my deadline. The piece was finished, shot, digitized and was handed over. The author, art director, and HarperCollins as a whole seemed pretty pleased. However, throughout the months that followed the job, I had a nagging suspicion that it wasn't over. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, and drop it did.
It seems that eventually, the question of whether or not Godzilla and Skeletor should be used was raised again, and the final leg of this trip began.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
The Many Covers of Badass, Part 2
Part 1 of this tale appeared yesterday and can be found here. Part 2 begins now:
I kept in touch with the author of Badass for a variety of reasons — not the least of which is that he's a super nice guy. Only a few months after the first book had been released, he let me know that HarperCollins was talking about a second book and wanted to know if I was interested. Silly question. I liked doing the black and white interiors the first go around and the cover wasn't so much like icing on the cake as having a whole second cake! I figured that even if I didn't get the cover of the second book, I'd still be pretty happy to do the work offered.
While the first Badass book centered around historical figures, this second one was to concentrate more on mythological figures, fictional characters, and urban legend types. No matter what I ended up working on, I knew it was going to be a fun job.
At first, I was unsure of my return as the cover artist. I wouldn't have blamed them from moving on to another artist, even given that the first cover had gotten into Spectrum. I never look at any gig as a guarantee, as any number of variables exist within a given job that can sink it at almost any time. I've seen jobs fall apart, imprints disappear, and whole companies do the same. Illustration is not for the faint of heart, after all. Nevertheless, I got an email from the art director about the job and I, of course, said yes.
This time around, in the opening stages the art director sent me an image of an old Star Wars poster that he wanted me to use as inspiration for the flavor of the cover. The piece would have five figures total and would include the following: Thor (the mythological version, not the Marvel version), the Furies of Greek mythology (there were at least 3), and Godzilla.
Assignment in hand, I immediately set to work and produced two sketches. One's composition was pretty much completely stolen from the Star Wars poster. The second was somewhere in between the first sketch and the first book's cover. I figured it would be a good idea to give him two different options. It's a good thing I did.
As you can see, I went with digital sketches again. Well, partially. This time around, I did quick pencil roughs, scanned them in, then digitally painted over them, once again keeping each figure on a separate layer. Pretty straightforward, I think. These are exactly as I handed them in.
If I had to choose one, I like the first version. Despite it's being ripped off of the Star Wars poster, I really dig the flow of elements in the piece. It has a sense of movement and really takes your eye on a deliberate trip. Plus, there's a sense of scale there that I really like. While I don't dislike the second one, it certainly wouldn't have been my first choice.
As is always the case, they picked the sketch I wanted to do less, citing as their reason that it would read better as a cover. They also decided to make some changes. They asked me to flip the piece and to show more skin on the furies — two changes I was totally cool with.
The request to flip the piece was due to a design change which would require them to put text in the upper left hand corner. It also got rid of an issue that tends to bug me at times and that is the left-handed weapon. While there are certainly left-handed fighters out there in the world, I saw no reason that Thor should be wielding his hammer so. In fact, I'm not entirely sure why I did it in the first place. I guess I was just emulating what I'd already done in the first sketch.
The request to show more skin on the furies had two reasons, I guess. One, the furies are often depicted nude which was a step too far for our purposes. I had intended to have them in torn gowns but that was clearly a little too conservative for the likes of a Badass book. And so, weird leather bikinis were in order. Or something. I figure the second reason was blatant pandering to the teen crowd. While, I'm not in marketing, it seems a reasonable enough assumption.
You know, it's funny how flipping a piece changes it. I'm of the opinion that it really does work better this way. But what do I know?
Anyway, this seemed like it might be the sketch that got the go ahead. It had everything they'd requested (no matter how poorly drawn), and the art director was really stoked. It seemed like the stars were aligning.
So, obviously it was time to put a kink in things. One more change was requested: they asked that I replace one of the furies with Skeletor. While the request was simple, the ripples it caused with the job were enormous and had me banging my head against the wall on several occasions.
I kept in touch with the author of Badass for a variety of reasons — not the least of which is that he's a super nice guy. Only a few months after the first book had been released, he let me know that HarperCollins was talking about a second book and wanted to know if I was interested. Silly question. I liked doing the black and white interiors the first go around and the cover wasn't so much like icing on the cake as having a whole second cake! I figured that even if I didn't get the cover of the second book, I'd still be pretty happy to do the work offered.
While the first Badass book centered around historical figures, this second one was to concentrate more on mythological figures, fictional characters, and urban legend types. No matter what I ended up working on, I knew it was going to be a fun job.
At first, I was unsure of my return as the cover artist. I wouldn't have blamed them from moving on to another artist, even given that the first cover had gotten into Spectrum. I never look at any gig as a guarantee, as any number of variables exist within a given job that can sink it at almost any time. I've seen jobs fall apart, imprints disappear, and whole companies do the same. Illustration is not for the faint of heart, after all. Nevertheless, I got an email from the art director about the job and I, of course, said yes.
This time around, in the opening stages the art director sent me an image of an old Star Wars poster that he wanted me to use as inspiration for the flavor of the cover. The piece would have five figures total and would include the following: Thor (the mythological version, not the Marvel version), the Furies of Greek mythology (there were at least 3), and Godzilla.
Assignment in hand, I immediately set to work and produced two sketches. One's composition was pretty much completely stolen from the Star Wars poster. The second was somewhere in between the first sketch and the first book's cover. I figured it would be a good idea to give him two different options. It's a good thing I did.
 |
| Blatant rip-off, but boy do I like this one. |
 |
| A sensible alternative. |
As you can see, I went with digital sketches again. Well, partially. This time around, I did quick pencil roughs, scanned them in, then digitally painted over them, once again keeping each figure on a separate layer. Pretty straightforward, I think. These are exactly as I handed them in.
If I had to choose one, I like the first version. Despite it's being ripped off of the Star Wars poster, I really dig the flow of elements in the piece. It has a sense of movement and really takes your eye on a deliberate trip. Plus, there's a sense of scale there that I really like. While I don't dislike the second one, it certainly wouldn't have been my first choice.
As is always the case, they picked the sketch I wanted to do less, citing as their reason that it would read better as a cover. They also decided to make some changes. They asked me to flip the piece and to show more skin on the furies — two changes I was totally cool with.
The request to flip the piece was due to a design change which would require them to put text in the upper left hand corner. It also got rid of an issue that tends to bug me at times and that is the left-handed weapon. While there are certainly left-handed fighters out there in the world, I saw no reason that Thor should be wielding his hammer so. In fact, I'm not entirely sure why I did it in the first place. I guess I was just emulating what I'd already done in the first sketch.
The request to show more skin on the furies had two reasons, I guess. One, the furies are often depicted nude which was a step too far for our purposes. I had intended to have them in torn gowns but that was clearly a little too conservative for the likes of a Badass book. And so, weird leather bikinis were in order. Or something. I figure the second reason was blatant pandering to the teen crowd. While, I'm not in marketing, it seems a reasonable enough assumption.
You know, it's funny how flipping a piece changes it. I'm of the opinion that it really does work better this way. But what do I know?
Anyway, this seemed like it might be the sketch that got the go ahead. It had everything they'd requested (no matter how poorly drawn), and the art director was really stoked. It seemed like the stars were aligning.
So, obviously it was time to put a kink in things. One more change was requested: they asked that I replace one of the furies with Skeletor. While the request was simple, the ripples it caused with the job were enormous and had me banging my head against the wall on several occasions.
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