A little Update, Memorial Day

I hope that all of you are having a good Memorial Day weekend! Hopefully we can enjoy some time off with our families, maybe get caught up a little bit on chores, and also take a moment to remember those that have left us...

Running a little behind this week. Lots of work at home, plus just being busy with friends. It's all worth it every day though. Fortunately I have today to get caught up here, so I wasn't up until 3:00 in the morning and had to go to work as well. Ha-ha-ha!

Like I said, It's been a busy week. I made a point to pus aside a little time to work on this illustration though. Not much, but it's a step in the right direction, and I think it's almost done. Another hour or so of work on the background, and I think I can call this guy finished. I changed the grass... I didn't feel that the last try really worked, (the texture of it with the gradients and also the sheer denseness of it was really distracting. I also added the foreground path, and finished the garden walls. As I'm looking at it right now, the right side is looking a little bare, maybe I'll plant some azaleas or wisteria this week to fill it in.

Have a happy, fun and safe memorial day, and I'll talk to you soon!
Your friend
Jeffrey

There Is No Holy Grail

I am not perfect. I do not claim to be. I strive to be better at the things that I do. There is no Holy Grail that will make that easy for me. It's hard work.
I have a couple of reasons for doing this blog. The first is as a platform to both develop my portfolio and to display it. I also try to have an educational element to it... both showing off artists and designers that I enjoy and admire, and (hopefully) talking about tools and techniques that I use from time to time. Lastly, I do this blog as a sort of documentation of my progress as an artist moving toward freelancing.

I want to mention that it's not always easy. I've been bogged down with work (both during the day and freelance at night) as well as the fact that it's summer, and my daughter is mobile and awake more of the day. My personal stuff is at the bottom of the list, and usually comes late at night. Bed sometimes wins. LOL.

Anyway, tonites post comes to you for a couple of reasons. 1.I was too busy to do much worth showing you... Actually, I did a lot, but am not ALLOWED to show you. 2. I got a couple of e-mails from a friend who is wanting to get some use out of his degree, but isn't sure about where to start. He is in a similar position as me time-wise. Working, Family/kids time, etc... So I'm not really sure about this, but here goes. His questions, my responses as I see them.

These answers are just my opinion from my current vantage point. I am not full time freelance, I do not have cut and dry answers.

"Jeff I wanted to know how one would start trying to get jobs on CA I saw there are low level freelance jobs to working for free. What do you know about this stuff? Help a brother out. I just want to know the good, bad, and ugly of it. Thank you"

As with any job type situation, you have to apply for it, and show that you can do the job you are being asked to do. This is a public forum, so to "Apply", all you have to do is post in the thread saying something like "Hey! I'm interested in doing this project, and I think I'm a strong candidate for it because_(Fill in the blank)_. Please view samples of other projects that I've worked on here _(fill in the blank)_. Samples don't have to be crazy, and you don't need a huge, Laser Awesome website for them either. Your blog, CA sketchbook, or Flickr account would all be fine. It is important to have them though, and that they be FINISHED. If you are wanting comic work, do some finished pencils showing Characters interacting in a story framework. Also do some inked pages. Maybe even download penciled pages by other artists and ink them, so you can show how you would ink another artists work.

If you need some "get up and go" to feel like this is a real project, try doing some of the P.O.W. (Panel of the Week) activities in the community activities forum. Activities are fun, and a good way to pad your portfolio. You can also get some good feedback from those guys.

Having a portfolio/samples of your best work is really REALLY important. Nobody will hire an artist without seeing their work first. And honestly, if they did I would seriously think about whether it was a good idea to work for them. LOL.

The job forum is set up so that you can check out possible jobs based on what you feel comfortable charging right now. Many people start in the low paying section, because that way you can prove your worth before (to yourself as well as potential employers) before you start taking on bigger jobs with more responsibility and more pay.

Generally working for free sucks. The upside is that you can build some credibility, experience, and a portfolio from doing this kind of work. The important thing here is to remember that there is a reason you are doing it. It's not just hobby work. Just because it's non-paying does not mean that it should be treated with less respect than any other job.

Both of these options are for people who want quality work, but can't really afford to pay for it. So the mutual benefit is exposure and experience.

I hope this makes sense and helps.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

"I want to know how you do it man? How do you find the time... Especially with the little one. What are your words of wisdom on that. I thnk I'm going to use the structure of the skillful huntsman to come up with a portfolio and story and try to get work from there, obviously start small, but go to it. now I just need deadlines and motivation :) So how do you dig deep?"

This is a harder question, but it's really about desire and discipline. It's also about being able to break down both your day and your projects into smaller pieces. I'm going to give you a breakdown of my "typical" week day.

I get up at around 6:30, get dressed and pack lunches... Basically get Abby and me ready to go. We all pile in the car at around 7:30, I'm at work Between 8 and 8:30, and I'm there until 4:15(ish) then I go and get the girls, and come home (5:15), Make dinner and eat (6:30), Get Abby cleaned up and ready for bed (7-7:30) and then spend some time with Amy until 9 or 9:30. This means that I have 1 hour and 30 minutes to work on my own stuff before bed. That includes checking e-mail and surfing for whatever. (Freelance deadlines will sometimes change this around, and Amy is wonderful about supporting my dropping out of existence when I have to)

I know I have a lot of projects on EVERY burner. So I dance between them, and do a little at a time. I put stuff off when I need to. But the important thing is that I honor my commitments first. I spend a few minutes scribbling and doodling. I'll work on some pose studies at Posemaniacs, or ink a drawing or work on some coloring or vectoring, but it's little bits. I don't have enough time to commit to doing a ninety minute warm-up drawing. If I was down here all day, every day, then sure I'd warm up for ninety minutes, but I'm not. So I don't. I warm up for five minutes and then work on something.

This goes back to what I was saying at the top of this monstrosity of a post that I applaud anyone who sat though... THERE IS NO HOLY GRAIL. So many people are out there looking for that one supply, that one book, tutorial, video, paper, pencil, snarfblatt... whatever, that will make it EASY for them to be a good artist. That thing DOES NOT exist. It's about hard work. It's about dedication.

It's about wanting it so bad you want to live it.

Think about what you want to do. If you want to be a concept artist, and work on defining the look of characters and worlds, then by all means use the skillful huntsman book as a structural guide to building that portfolio. It's a good book, with good work.

If you want to do comics, do some pages. If you need an idea, check out the P.O.W. community activity on conceptart.org. They give out a plot summary and you have a couple of weeks to turn out three pages. It's a good way to get some work behind you and into a usable portfolio, and you might make some good friends to hold you accountable for it.


Sorry everybody. I think I've rambled on long enough for one day. I hope everything is going well for you all. If you have any questions or comments... or if you want to call me an ass that doesn't know what he's talking about, feel free to drop me a comment. Until next time, take care and be good.

Your friend
Jeffrey.

What You Talkin' About?: Lorenzo! and Studio Blink Twice

"When I look at the sketch work of an artist, it is always the working lines that hold the most interest for me, as they show an idea as it is just taking shape, when it could go any number of ways and when the creativity and imagination of the artist holds the most potential."
I first saw Lorenzo!'s work in his sketchbook on ConceptArt.org. I was blown away. This guy is doing art that is both loose, and yet clean. His art is highly detailed, but simplified down to what it needs to be. It holds together equally well as black and white line art, and as more finished, rendered grayscale and color pieces. Just... wow.

Looking a little bit closer, he's also working very hard, and apparently LOVING every minute of it. That's one thing that comes across in his sketchbook, and his blog in the way he talks about his work. It also seems to shine through in every line and gesture... Lorenzo! truly loves what he's doing.

Founded in 2003 by the Etherington brothers, Robin and Lawrence (Lorenzo!'s "real" name), Studio Blink Twice was a "total change of direction from the whole touting-art-and-words-to-publishers-who-weren't-all-that-interested, to Self-publishing". Working in black and white, the animal comedy story "Malcolm Magic" launched as a bi-monthly title in January 2004. "Our intention is a simple one; we want only to create beautiful things. Blink Twice is committed to breathing excitement and fun into paper, pixels and people’s minds."



I've been following the sketchbook for quite a while now, and I'm always excited to see new work. Recently, Lorenzo! self-published through Lulu (A Laser Awesome self-publushing/print-on-demand website) the first volume in a brand new series of art books, "El Sketchbook Lorenzo: Volume One". What an excellent little book! Weighing in at just over 100 pages, it is packed to the gills - cover to cover - with drawings, sketches and processes.

It's really cool to see the process that artists go through when they are working on concepts and finished drawings, and I look forward to checking this book out over and over again. If I were to have anything bad to say about it, it would be that I would've liked a little bit of commentary to go along with the images, but at the end of the day he was trying to keep costs down (which I appreciate) and it's an ART BOOK! Given the choice between some text, and more pictures, I think he chose wisely.
One last cool thing about both his blog, and his sketchbook on CA... Demos! this is another reason I can easily forgive the lack of text in the book. LOL. Every so often, Lorenzo! posts pictures of his workspace and works in progress... as they are progressing. Even better, sometimes they include detailed text embedded in the .jpg for convenient theft (erm... I mean... um... well...) viewing later when you are trying vainly (LOL) to emulate his working style.

This is something that I personally love about the inter-web (and you kids better count your lucky stars at how easy you have it). It seems like when I was a lad, everything (techniques, processes, even ideaology) was closly guarded. I remember getting issues of "Starlog" or "Wizard" magazines reading the fluff articles with the creators "behind-the-scenes" and studying grainy little photos of their studios hoping to spy the Holy Grail. That one thing that made them better. Or at least to get an idea of how to do some of the stuff that they knew how to, and I didn't...

Well, it looks like I've started rambling, so that's a good time to cut things here short. I hope that I've piqued your interest in the Etherington Brothers, and Studio Blink Twice, and that you'll go and check them out. Also, as a side, I hope they inspire you check out the possibilities of self publishing your work through companies like Lulu, or Ka-blam!. There's a lot more flexibility out there now than the old model of working and hoping to get noticed by Marvel or something. There's still some hustling involved, but I think it's worth it, and possibly more rewarding in the end.

Until next time, take care and be good!
Your friend
Jeffrey

More WIPs... But not new ones, LOL!

This illustration is really becoming appropriate... I just looked back in the archive log, and it's been over two months since I posted any progress on it. It's so easy to move on to other projects, and lose a little focus. I promised in my last post that I would work in earnest towards finishing some of these other projects before I move on to more new ones. Sometimes, that kind of kills me... Ha-ha-ha! I have so many ideas for things I want to draw and write about, but it doesn't always seem like I have time. And then by the time I get to them, my interest has waned somewhat.

This is really something that I've been struggling with, and I know that others have too. Finding time to get the personal work that will move your career (and life) forward, in a world that seems to fill in all of those gaps for us. It's partly about discipline... being able to say "No." to things like facebook and TV sitcoms. These things have their place, but mustn't consume all of the free time we have. It's also partly about realizing that we can't do it all in one go, (much as I'd like to... I know I don't have that kind of stamina) but should instead set aside a lot of little blocks of time to work. If it carries over and we don't want to stop, that's fine. It's much harder though, to commit to a large block of time than to a small one.

At any rate... I can feel this post turning into a ramble, so I'll stop there and talk a little bit about the work. I added the grass and started working on the garden wall this week. I'm not totally sure how I feel about it yet. I think there are still some kinks to work out of it, but progress has been made, and I'm glad of that! LOL.

I also did a little work on this illustration. Fleshed out the dad a lot. I think he's mostly done, except for his kite. Next I'll work a bit more on the girl. I'm thinking, instead of doing a painted background, I might put them in a vectored one. I'm not totally sold on that idea yet, but I definitely want some vectored elements in there.


I'm going to be starting up with the "What you talkin' about?" Wednesdays again this week. I feel pretty lazy for missing them pretty much all last month, but I think part of it was that I'm not totally settled on the new format for this blog... I sometimes worry that there isn't enough of my own work in here. I guess the best remedy for that, is to start doing more work and posting it, huh? We'll see...

Until next time, take care and be good! Talk at you Wednesday!
Your friend
Jeffrey

Abigail

So, I have a confession to make this post. I was going to get more work done this weekend to show you all, but all I have is this linework drawing of Abigail... That I did tonight. Okay, I started it last night, but that's not really the point. I got "Rampage: Total Destruction" for my PS2, and while it IS Laser Awesome, I also wasted about 4 hours and was up until two in the morning playing it. On the more productive side of things though, I did get the first four pages of the script for the next issue of the Doom Crew comic written this week. I'm trying to avoid a punch in the stomach from my friend Justin, LOL.

I feel like I've been showing a lot of works in progress, without having much finished work, or even getting to the finished stuff, lately. I just wanted to let you all know that I noticed the backlog of unfinished work too.
Some more promo document work here. This is the main character abigail. I thought about showing the reference photo I took for this drawing... but decided to spare us all that embarrassment. I have a pretty good Idea where I want to go with this illustration, and I'm pretty excited about experimenting with some of these new ideas! Hopefully, I'll have something more to show and talk to you about that soon.


I did this illustration to put in the artshow at the Archon science-fiction, and gaming convention last year in Collinsville, IL. It's a little earlier incarnation of the Abigail character. It's always interesting to me to look back a little ways, and see whether I've grown. I don't think I'd do this illustration the same way now that I did then, so I have to say that I'm in a different place today. That is part of what this search is all about.

I have one last thing before I go. I'm thinking about changing the name of this blog... I know in the grand scheme of things that the name dosen't really matter, but there we are. The original intent has changed, and I think I have too, so I don't really think that the current name really reflects the nature of what this is about. Just wanted to give you all a heads up. It may be a week away, or a month, or just three days. I'm not sure yet. I'm still mulling it over. Do I take this thing too seriously?

Until next time, take care and be good!
Your friend
Jeffrey

Self Portrait and a WIP

Today's Abby's first birthday, so I'm feeling kind of reflective... thought maybe I'd go ahead and do a self portrait to share. The beard is getting kind of out of hand, I think I may go ahead and trim it this week. Ha-ha!
I also got the base colors done on the mountain king illustration... Overall, I'm pretty happy with the color palette. I'm thinking basically green and gold for the mountain kingdom, with a little purple. It's been a crazy busy week, so I didn't have much time to get anything else done. Next week, I hope to have a little more progress on this guy, plus a couple of icons. If I'm feeling especially energetic I may start work on another character as well. We'll see, LOL.


I hope everything's cool in your part of the world! Until next time, take care and be good!

Your friend
Jeffrey

Abigail and the Doom Crew: The Mountain King

...And he was a fierce, seemingly unstoppable warrior. However, there was a regretful sadness in his eyes.

So I started working on the Promo/Style document for the Abigail and the Doom Crew story. This is partly a way (I guess) to put off some of the work on the actual comic, but also I need to get my thoughts together about the story as a whole (Major characters, Plot summary, Future plans, and Back story). This also is going to work double duty as a design portfolio project, and elements for my web presence/marketing for the finished book. Mario is putting in so much work, and we really need to be able to be unified in our promo efforts.

First character is the Mountain King. The first member of the Doom Crew that young Abigail confronts. He is the keeper of the Scepter of Power, as well as some closely guarded secrets that will help shape our young protagonist. I'm really excited about this first story arc, and am in the first stages of writing it, but there are a couple of kinks that I still have to work out.

This is my first pencil drawing of the character, with some graphics to go along with him.
Today, I did a clean ink line drawing of him that I am going to use to make a colored graphic of him. I also did the Rhino silhouette to use as a graphic element alongside the others in the promo materials. (I did not do the bird in that graphic, I got it out of a free vector sample pack from GoMediaZine. Which is a really cool design company and blog that I am planning on featuring soon.) I still need to do some final icons for the mountain element, as well as some sample patterns and color guides for the Mountain style. So that is my goal for this week, and then I am moving on to Water.

Okay, that's it for right now. Until next time, take care and be good!

Your friend
Jeffrey

What You Talkin' About?: Portland Studios

We want to be consumed with something beyond ourselves.

Portland Studios isn't concerned with the next big leap, the next wave, the magic bullet. We strive for a collective body of work that displays a habit of excellence.
Hopefully behind our art, people might perceive the shape of truth, the romance of order, the virtue of beauty, and the goodness of goodness.

It's a big job, but that's the plan.

Sometimes, I run across something on the interweb that just inspires me. I found the Portland Studios website through the blog of Justin Gerard, Quick Hide Here. Interested in Justin's work, I wanted to see more of it, so I followed up to the where he works, which was conveniently linked in the sidebar.

From the opening screen, I was hooked. Elegant design, with a warm brown pallette and textured background brings to mind old books, a warm kitchen, and a hot pipe. Add to that the charming "soundtrack", and it just draws you into the experience. I'm not usually a fan of music on websites, but the music for the Portland Studios site is tasteful, not overpowering, and like I said, adds to the experience. Also on the home page right now is a short animation, illustrated by Justin Gerard that was just wonderful.

The Portland Studios site is easy to navigate, with tabs for Home, People, Work and Contact. Also there are links to their blog, as well as a company store where you can purchase apparel, textures, books, and brushes.
The Work (portfolio) section is split up into the companies three main areas of expertise. Illustration, Animation, and Interactive. It displays as a pile of snapshots in a Flash interface. When you click on a picture, it enlarges into a full view. All of the work is impressive, and really puts paid to their claim of striving for a collective body of work that displays a habit of excellence. We could all take a page from that book.

Like I said, this site really invites you to explore, and explore, explore. There's just enough information to leave you wanting MORE. So, in that vein, I did... and for all you lazy people out there I have provided some links to blogs by members of the Portland Studios team. I hope you enjoy checking them out as much as I have. All in all, I was/Am very impressed with Portland Studios as a company, and as a site. I feel inspired to push with renewed resolve in my own work, and also that this is maybe another sign-post towards where I want to go in the next couple of years.

I'll be in again soon. Until then, take care and be good!
Your friend
Jeffrey

Links:
Portland Studios: www.portlandsrudios.com
Blog: blog.portlandstudios.com
YouTube: www.youtube.com/portlandstudios
Justin Gerard: Quick Hide Here
Cory Godbey: light night rains
Ben Kammer: Tide Is Level
Mark Johnson: WMD Boom

Fun with Banners

So I've been thinking for awhile about opening up an Etsy shop. Actually, a real long while. The problem is, most of my physical work is five to ten years old, or else just sketchbook pages, and pretty much all of the newer stuff is digital. I realize that I am totally capable of doing a high quality print of any of my digital art to sell, and that is one of the things that I am looking into doing.

Also, I did some looking around, and there are graphic designers there selling banners and avatars, business cards and logos. That's an option as well, but I worry about selling graphic design work at crafters prices. I don't mean that in a nasty way at all, but looking on there, a lot of the work is marked at 5 to 10 dollars that really should be three times that. If you crank them out, and sell a lot of "premades" I think you can do okay, but it just feels like that's devaluing a skilled labor, and that sort of thing just tends to compound on itself. So it's something that I'm thinking about, but I am just not sure about.

A third option, and I'm just not sure that this fits into the sites regulations, is doing illustration work and selling as clip-art for scrap booking and graphics supplies. That way I can get paid over and over for one piece of artwork, and it doesn't devalue the work that I did. Like I said, I'm not sure that this is something that would be allowed, but I feel like it should be. The possibilities here extend into digitizing it into embroidery files, and also using it for screen printing and custom books, etc... It's a thought, but I have more work to do before I'm ready to really pursue it.

I made a couple of banners for myself, for the etsy shop, and also I'm using the second one on my CG Hub profile.
There's things that I like about both designs, but I have to admit that the bottom one is probably stronger. The cleanliness of the text and logo in general better represent my design aesthetic. I think this is going to be a good year for me, and I'm slowly working my way towards some of my goals. I'm hoping to squeak an extra post in this week, but if things don't quiet down a little bit, I may not be able to. So, until Wednesday for sure, and maybe sooner. Take care and be good.

Your friend
Jeffrey

What You TAlkin' About?: Pose Maniacs

Well... I missed Sunday's post. Oops. It's so tempting to get down about it, and miss Wednesday too, but that's a slippery slope. I'm tired, but I'm going to get this done.

Todays post is about Pose Maniacs. Or more specifically about their 30 seconds drawing section.

Randomly displayed from 19,440 different poses and angles, the images from Pose Maniacs are both high quality, and inoffensive. That shouldn't matter I guess, but I just want you all to know (as if you couldn't tell from the sample image) that while the figures are not clothed, there is no way that they would be confused for porn. Ha-ha! Another thing that I would like to note, is that the site is mixed Asian and English text, but it dosen't take too much poking around to find what you are looking for.

This is directly from the site:

"Get ready in front of the screen with a pencil and a paper. Press the start button. The models shown will change every 30 seconds. Your skill will surely improve if you do this training every night and day, with 2 sets of 5 minutes(10 poses).


What's this training for?

The idea of thirty seconds drawing app is based on a special training method introduced in "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards."

Basically, the idea is that by observing and drawing quickly, we are able to bypass the concrete left side of our brain and access the creative right side. Effectively observing what we see, rather than interpreting it.

Another aspect of this exercise that I find useful is using it as a warm up. Sometimes in the evenings, I am uninspired, and tired... the last thing I want to do is commit to getting my sketchbook out and drawing for thirty or ninety minutes. With the Pose Maniacs 30 second drawings, I can commit to 5 minutes (six small drawings) and if I'm still "too tired" then I can quit. Often though, I find that all I really needed was to get the ball rolling. I do my five minutes of sketches and then work for another hour or more before calling it quits for the night. Sometimes we just NEED a little constructive goof off time to actually be more productive.

Okay, I hope you all had a great week, and I'll talk at you again on Sunday. Until then, take care and be good!
Your friend
Jeffrey

What You Talkin' About?: Skottie Young

Maybe you'll find this a little ridiculous, but I think all week about what I'm going to post on Wednesdays. It's mostly questions like "Should I post about this artist, who I think is really cool?", or "Oh! I saw this cool technique, maybe I'll talk about that!", or even "Well I got all these bookmarked pages, maybe I'll start with my command bar, and start talking about them. I look at them every day, so Obviously I think they're worth seeing..."

Then sometimes something comes up and I get really excited about it. And that's what makes the cut.

Today, I sat down to check the e-mails, and see what's up on the inter-web, and Skottie Young posted again. Always a good time, but this time it was special. It's a video post. It's only like 15 minutes of footage of him drawing and talking, but it's always cool to see inside the process of somebody you admire. Plus Skottie's pretty funny. Double bonus.

I first heard of Skottie on a Sidebar Nation podcast, and really enjoyed his frankness, his sense of humor, and... I guess you could say general personability. He seems like the kind of guy I'd like to hang out with for awhile, have a few beers and shoot the breeze. One thing that always comes across, whether it be in his blog, his Podcast, "The Devil and Me", or his art is how much he enjoys what he's doing. I really hope that this video-casting becomes a regular thing for him.

Okay, so I'm still super busy trying to get a project out the door for a client. So until next time, take care and be good!

Your friend
Jeffrey

Links: www.skottieyoung.com
devilandme.com
www.sidebarnation.com

Abigail and the Doom Crew: A Prologue

So. Last June(ish) my buddy Mario, creator of Pagan Zoetrope called and said he was working on a comic, and had found a place to publish it. Awesome! For the entire time I've known Mario, he's been working on a few different IP's on the side, and Pagan Zoetrope is one of the ones that we'd been talking about for a few years now. It's basically a (loosly) autobiographical acount of a group of highschool and college bound people in the fictional town of Warrensville, Kansas. Obviously not where we're really from, but close enough. There comes a time when a grain silo is a grain silo, and a cow pasture is... a cow pasture. Lol!

At any rate, Mario called and told me that he had this story, and he was finally ready to go forward with it. He'd begun posting it on Drunk Duck in strip form, and had found an indy publisher and a distributer. I know, you're telling yourself "This is Sunday. Jeffreys posts are supposed to be about what's going on with him this week!" Okay, okay! Don't get all worked up about it. Jeesh!

Let me get to the point. Mario said he knew I had some stories bouncing around in my head that I'd been working on since he's known me, and maybe we could pool our resources, get some exposure together, and get both of our stories out there. How would I like to do a double feature book with him, like some of the old Marvel "back-to-back" comics with his story on one side, and mine on the other. Never being one to turn down more work, I of course agreed. So in my spare time (which seems to be ever-shrinking) I put together a four page prologue to the larger story of Abigail and the Doom Crew, along with a cover, and a page of some of the Abigail concept art.

This week, I finally got my hands on the printed version of the book, and it looks incredible. So, I thought I'd share it with you all today, and If you like what you see go to comics monkey and order a copy.


I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed working on it. Until next time, take care and be good!

Your friend
Jeffrey

Links:www.paganzoetrope.com
Pagan Zoetrope on Drunk Duck
Pagan Zoetrope on myspace
Ka-Blam
Comics Monkey

What you talkin' about?: Concept Art House

Concept Art House LLC is founded on the idea that great art does not come from an assembly line in an outsourcing factory, rather it comes from passionate individuals who truly enjoy their craft and believe in the products they produce.






Today's post is about Concept Art House. I was going to post about them in the next couple of weeks anyway, because not only do they do stellar work, but I am also a member of their team as a graphic designer. Recent events bumped them up to the top of my list. I don't know if anybody noticed, but I missed my post on Sunday. I was swamped with work, which is a good thing. Even better is that the work I was doing isn't under NDA so I can actually show it, and use it in my portfolio.

Maybe it reminds me of my days as a picture framer, or when I worked as a gallery assistant hanging shows in the Art Center Gallery, but I LOVE being a graphic designer. and I love working in print. It's really hard to describe how fun it is arranging elements and cutting out pictures and layering them to show everything off at its best. And to top it all off, getting to see and work with so much fantastic artwork is the icing on the cake.

Headed up by James Zhang, who got his as a concept artist for Lucas Arts working on titles such as Star Wars:Star Fighter, Gladius and Star Wars:Republic Commando. From there he went on to work for Factor 5 as a lead artist, and then to VP of a major game-art studio before finally breaking away to form Concept Art House.

As a company, they do high quality concept art across the full spectrum, including Fantasy, Science Fiction. They do Stunning 3d assets as well as high impact illustrations for game companies such as Wizards of the Coast and Blizzard. The website offers a good selection of artwork, as well as a consistantly updated blog. My only complaint is that the blog is in chinese, so I can't read what they have to say about the artwork, but it's straightforward to navigate, and there is a lot of great stuff to look at.

I hope you like the brochure, and I hope that all is well with you. Until next time then, take care and be good!
Your friend
Jeffrey

What You Talkin' about?: Lines and Colors

It’s my delight in that feeling of wide-eyed discovery that has prompted me to create Lines and Colors.
"Lines and Colors" is (I think) the first blog I really started paying attention to. Also, since Charley Parker updates daily, it is part of my daily routine. Get home, check e-mail, check "Lines and Colors"... In his bio, Charley says "...I’m only writing about things I like. It’s my hope that I can introduce you to some visual art gems that you may not be aware of, or perhaps tell you something you didn’t know about someone or something you’re already familiar with. (And maybe you can do the same for me.)" That's one of the great things about this blog. His interest and passion for the artists and sites always comes across in his posts.

I don't want to say that the featured artist is always one that interests me. Fairly often they don't. That being said, there are far more times when there is somebody featured that really captures my imagination. There is always a well researched, and informative body of text with the collection of one or three examples of the artists work. Also, at the end of the post, Mr. Parker is very good about providing links to more information/images by the artist. The wealth of inspiration and information contained in the "Lines and Colors" blog make it more than worth checking on a daily basis.

Okay, until next time. Take care and be good.
Your friend
Jeffrey

Links: www.linesandcolors.com
Charley Parkers web comic: Argon Zark!
Website: www.cparkerdesign.com

What I did on Vacation...

Have you ever thought it would take less time to get something done than it actually did? I went into my spring vacation with thoughts of how much stuff I was going to get done, and how nice it would be to finally have the time to do it. Ha-ha-ha! Seriously, though. I did get a few things done. I would've gotten more done, but... well I'll tell you about that in a minute.

I got a little bit of work done on the "time" drawing. Literally. Just a little bit. There were so many other things going on that I just didn't have the time and energy to start vectorizing this yet. I did talk to my friend Ryan about this illustration though, and he mentioned that he wished I had done something more with the smoke. Worked it around and integrated it into the drawing a little bit more.

It's not too late to do that (it's not finished 'til it's finished and all) and I am thinking about it. Compositionally, it might help balance it all a little more, and add another diagonal, criss-crossing with the shape of the wall. I still have at least this week to think on it, so maybe I'll at least try it and see if it works.

Okay, now here's part of why I didn't get everything I'd planned on doing done. Tuesday night I get this "Viral" activity in my mailbox on Facebook. Just in case any of you don't know what this means these are marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message. Basically, any time you forward an e-mail, you are participating in viral marketing of some sort. So here were the directions:

album cover
1 - Go to "Wikipedia." Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to "Random Quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.


3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop, Gimp or similar to put it all together.

Sounds kind of cool. I figured I'd at least see what came up in the randomness. Well I dipped three times, and the stuff that came up was just so cool, that I thought I'd actually try to do a couple of really nice album covers out of them. Just to note. While I DID follow the directions for getting the information, and didn't cheat, I did add to and edit the pictures a little to fit the needs of my album concepts.
On "Gene Roof", I cropped the photo, added the light and sparklies coming down from the flower, and extended the stem just a tad.
"Ekstraklasa 1972-73" got a major overhaul. The original photo is on the right, and I added all of the rest of the graphic work on the final image on the left. Over all, I think both album covers turned out really well, but they took up most of my first day just messing around and trying things. I guess I learned something though, and I don't begrudge the excersise at all.
I am pleased to be able to show the drummer for the animal band. I thought a rhino would be really cool, and it would also be neat to have this huge drummer looming over a seeming small drum set.Lastly, I have a little work in progress for this weeks Illustration Friday topic "Breezy". I also plan on using this for my blog header for the month of March. So I'll have it done in the next day or so. So keep a look out for it!

I didn't do anything at all on the computer on saturday. First off, I spent the whole day at the St. Louis Pipe show. This might sound silly, but it was REALLY cool. There are soooo many different sizes, shapes, and styles of pipes out there. Some of them are kind of clunky and ugly, but most are just beautiful and elegant. Real works of art. It's hard to explain, but I guess it's kind of like going to an art fair and checking out the ceramics. There are just so many craftsmen and artisans out there doing simply wonderful work, inspired by nature, fashion, design and culture.

The other reason, is that I was suffering from pretty bad eye strain from working on the computer, playing video games, and watching movies. Vacations can sometimes be harder on us than actually going to work, ha-ha! I hope you all had a good week, and that this one is even better. I'll talk at you again on Wednesday, if I don't sooner! Take care and be good.

Your friend,
Jeffrey Johnson