*sounds of boards breaking*

been doing morning warm up sessions at work, simple pen sketches and the like, lil studies to keep my skills honed. In any case Im planning on doing more studies on top of the usual at home before work just to push it that much more. My muse of late: Bruce Lee. I dont think i need to justify or explain why. >:P

payment upon publication... finally. (made it rain right into my checking account :P ), pieces published, so i thought to show some of the work that ive been doing w/Paizo.. if you go to my cghub page you can see the spread sheet version... but for here i just chose some of the ones that I really enjoyed. Not sure if my speed is such that im making these things pay out properly... given that these types of illustrations have standard rates and the like... but im certainly getting there. :P I think right now im averaging around 2-3 hours on the portraits and maybe 4-5 on characters... some a bit less...some a bit more.

been awhile...

I received my first significant check from my first significant freelance job not too long ago... and then this morning i also received two copies of said work inside the pages of one of Paizos Pathfinder books. That came as a complete surprise as I didnt know id get to see the actual work in print form, that was pretty neat. In any case gave me an excuse and safe bet to show a piece from that art order: This was a half page illo wherein i had to show some creepy town just doing its creepy thang...

The funny thing about receiving this art job was that I consider myself primarily a character artist.... figurative work... and this piece which payed the best of the bunch had no mention of any characters... (obviously you see i snuck a partial one in :P) so it was both a surprise to get it given that my portfolio has no scenes in it nor really any backgrounds for that matter, but I also took it as a challenge and nod to the art director for seeing through just the surface details and into what i was capable of. :) This i hear is not quite the norm with ADs because they dont really care for guess work when choosing artists for their particular project(s). They want to see as close to what the art job requires as possible and hire therein accordingly...

In any case it was fun to push myself and I think it came out pretty decent and made me want to push myself further to better my backgrounds in pieces thereafter.

Ill probably post some more of what Ive been working on as they are being published soon... in the mean time when I have a chance, hopefully ill be able to whip out some new portfolio pieces as I really want in with some D&D action and or Magic.... maybe get in on some WOW bidness..... but ultimately some cover work for say maybe.... Tor? ... all in good time. ;)

revamping an old character illo that just never got the attention it deserved. That was part inexperience with the software and part just plain being rusty.... but hey i put my digital bookmark on it and on a rainy day like today, perfect time to jump back on it. :) In any case i dropped it back down to gray scale and will start smoothing things out from there...

burly tomahawk

Finally finished this one off, another notch on the portfolio belt. Im not sure how many no/white background characters Ill be doing after this as I realize that its really difficult to later ad in a background vs. from the get go and likewise having a background enables a bit more Chiaroscuro given the ability to push and pull with light and dark along the edges... hmm... :) I have several more character pieces that just need some wacom lovin to finishem up and hopefully ill get to them soon, whether or not i make them more illustrations vs. rendered concepts remains to be seen... :P

Got my 3rd Paizo gig in a row, feeling pretty good to be doing some fairly steady freelance, but I also realize were i doing this full time id have to be knocking out portfolio pieces side by side with my current freelance assignment because until i start landing cover work or just bigger jobs it would be very difficult to make a living... But i suppose thats relative. In any case, the other interesting bit of art bidness info is at least with RPG companies, at least with my experience so far, is that its payment upon publication.... or more so a bit after publication. Soooo for instance if Im doing steady work for a company, a good batch each month and payment is not for 3-4 months after each deadline... before I get my first check I could very well have thousands of dollars in what is essentially IOU's... makes for something to look forward to when the cycles finally overlap, when im getting checks for jobs i completed months ago, kind of like finding cash in your pocket.... a lot of cash. :P In any case, its definately something im noting for when i really start upping my output and perhaps seriously consider quitting my non art day job... Got to have money in the bank to hold up for the inbetweens of jobs and payments.....

Been a little bit.... HOWEVER i havent just been sitting twiddling my toes.... most twiddle the thumbs yes... not I, it was toe twiddles.. err.. i mean the absence of.... in any case: :P The bottom image was from a test i did for new gaming company... Two versions of the same character aimed at different audiences... I later realized that this particular company wanted me to be more "cute" and vector based... Needless to elaborate upon... i didnt pursue that avenue further. >:P

The top image is a Portrait sketch that i didnt use from a batch that I JUST finished from my first major illustration gig with Paizo! I was very surprised when i got an email from the art director as I had sent out my "hey, check out my folio" months prior... but hey, ive listened to enough podcasts and read enough stories to know thats not entirely uncommon... be that as it may I was still pleasantly surprised. The job went smoothly and i got a follow up gig, so im feeling pretty chum with my freelance illo self. :P

viking roids

had this little guy sitting in my analog SB and thought Id breath some digital life into him. Sometimes Its just burlier to go sans armor. :P