Midsummer Promo Videos

Artist to Organizer

The problem with being an artist is that you get a good idea and you latch into it with a grip just like a Scotsman on a 5 pound note. Unfortunately when that new idea takes hold, sometimes the old ones get put to the back burner until this new priority is finished. Well, at the moment all my art has taken a backseat to this new endeavor. We are putting on our own fairy festival of sorts, reviving the 13th century tradition of Midsummer Night's Eve.

Unfortunately this means money that I don't personally have and the people we thought were going to sponsor, didn't pull through quite as much as we wanted.

We've started a Kickstarter fund for the Midsummer Night's Eve Festival. Rewards for donating include a DVD from the festival, tickets, Tee Shirts, and even portraits done by yours truly, which I don't normally do, but for this I will! http://kck.st/lXNS2T

Please help! Time is running out, and we hope to give out some cool stuff. If you just want to go to the festival, visit equalknight.com!

Cash Flow versus Love

Sometimes it seems like the best thinking is done when the rest of your brain is in autopilot. This was another one of those times as I was driving to Atlanta to get my ankle x-rayed after twisting it post-break.

I started thinking about the concept of the emotional bank account and how similar the concepts of cash flow and love flow seem to be. Perhaps that is why so many confuse the two or substitute love for money.

Like with money, it seems to take love to produce love. The investments of your parents teach you how to manage love and affection. But if you have never been loved, or never had money then the concepts of managing and holding onto it are often foreign to that person. Or it could be that the rarity of such things produces a person that wants to horde it, producing jealousy or being stingy with the person they see as a source of love. This inevitably creates a situation where they smother or drive away the goose that lays the golden egg.

It gave me time to reconsider the concept of an emotional bank account, and I thought of how some people have good credit in your eyes because they have been reliable or charitable time and time again, as opposed to people who are just bad emotional investments. Then I started thinking about those people’s accounts of love. Perhaps their balance is so low, that every penny or small increment of love that they receive goes to supporting their basic needs (or in worst case their addictions), that they never have any to give back. They basically have the emotional equivalent of a money pit, where as soon as one need is met, another arises and they are always in the hole, working to fill their own needs that they can’t possibly look beyond those to others.

In a similar vein, it made me consider supply and demand on an emotional level. This seems to be how people express their love. They tend to give what they have an abundant supply of … time, money, advice … but that might not necessarily be what is in demand. Although they are giving, because it has no demand or market, it has no value. Only that which is in demand or truly needed is what has true value to the market i.e. the person that the supplier is trying to connect to through giving.

Like with money, there are some people that if you invest your time and energy into, they will take until you are just as bankrupt as them. There are others that if you invest in them, you will always see some sort of return on your investment. In a way, dealing with people can be akin to playing the stock market. You have to know when to get out and when to invest, and you never know if one day the market is going to crash and all that you have invested will be lost regardless. But like the market, all connections with people have an ebb and flow. Some are worth it. Some aren’t.

Perhaps this seems a callous way to examine relationships, but maybe to those who have a hard time grasping the concepts but are acquainted with financial concerns, can relate to it.

Art Book

Starting this year I aim to put out a sketchbook of my art quarterly in various collections. The first one is to be released Spring 2011 and here is a video of the images within it. It focuses on Illustration work, mainly for Dragonlance / Margaret Weis Productions. It includes preliminary sketches, and art that got ordered but cut from the books. Enjoy, and I hope that you will consider picking up a copy at Georgia Renfest

What Can I Say?

There's nothing to say that hasn't already been said.
There's nothing to do that hasn't already been done.
In the end my best friend will still be dead,
and his sweet parents will still mourn a son.
The memories of happier times fade in my head,
and errors of the past can never be undone.
Clover on a grave watered by tears we shed;
An old wound renews because Spring has sprung.
There's nothing to say as the same path I tread.
There's nothing to do about walking it now alone.

In remembrance of Richard Wilhite
January 18, 1973 - March 18, 2007

Gaming Illustration Basics

Recently someone contacted me. They were embarking on their first illustration job and wanted some advice. It seemed like a good thing to share with others as well.

Illustration for Metamorphosis Alpha RPG

Portfolio - Getting the Work

Portfolios are a small collection of your BEST work. This is where you put your best foot forward to show someone what you can do. You don't want it to be filled with 100 images of your life's work. Often it does not take long for an art director to make up their mind whether you meet their qualifications or not. So ideally you want 10 - 15 quality print outs of your best work. Remember to start strong with your best piece, and to constantly update your portfolio. As you improve, so should your portfolio. Along with the representations of your art, it is good to include a cover letter, business card, and résumé. You want to ensure that if they do want your art that you have assured them of your professionalism and a way to contact you.

Many office supply places sell cheap plastic portfolios. You may want to send some to publishers or leave one with an art director so don't worry about getting the big expensive ones unless you have an appointment or interview where you will be bringing it in with you and taking it when you leave. Many art directors go to conventions such as Gen Con and have portfolio reviews. This is a great way to get contacts and feedback, even if it doesn't always lead to work.

Contracts - Covering your Art

Even if you really like the person you are working for and have a great relationship, at the end of the day, this is a job. If you don't treat it like one, it's likely they won't either. You need to be compensated for your time and work. They need to be able to rely on you to do your part. The only real protection either side has is a contract.

Always read the contract, no matter how much you trust the person. People who are weird about you wanting to go over their contract should be a red flag.

There are things that you want to ensure when you are doing illustration. First of all, they are receiving "first publishing rights" and that is all. You want to retain the original (unless they include that and pay for it), the copyright (unless it is shared because of copyrighted characters), retain promotional rights to display your work, and you want to make sure that you have the right to make prints. Your art should remain your art, and they do not own the image itself. If they do, they should pay handsomely for it or no deal.

Honestly, illustration on its own, is often not where one makes their money. Often you get paid by how big the image is printed such as a quarter page is less than a full page. This really has no bearing on how much time and materials goes into the production of the artwork, just what the publisher has to pay for that image. Publication does make the prints and original more valuable, and basically offers advertising for your work. This is why it is worth it, and where you make up the money. The exception is for cover artwork which pays much better than interior illustration.

Speaking of money, it's good to have a time limit on when you should be paid, after they receive the finished, approved work, around 30 days is normal. The industry can be a little remiss about that part, which is why a contract is a necessary evil even with good people.

The Art Order - Receiving the Work

The first thing you will often receive is an art order and deadlines for preliminary sketches and probably the finished piece. The art order will include a description of the image content, and often what size it will be printed. If you are doing an 8th of a page image, it's often not worth doing a huge 18x24 inch painting. Save yourself the time and effort for the bigger pictures.

The purpose of preliminary sketches are to ensure that you are on the same page with the publisher before you delve into the paint and make a finished product. These don't have to be full shaded drawings, but good enough to present all the elements requested in the art order. Don't get too caught up in them, because inevitably, you may have to change it several times before you ever get to creating a finished piece.

After you have finished the artwork, you still have to get it to a file format that the publishers can use. If you have done a large oil painting and need it scanned, you may have to take it in to have it done. You're looking at somewhere between $50-$100 for a high quality scan, so make sure that you are being compensated enough to make it worth the investment before you go painting big! There are two places I recommend in the Southeast for getting this done. In Nashville http://www.chromatics.com/ and in Atlanta http://www.colorchrome.com/

Most publishers have a place to upload the finished digital image these days. Usually the suggested file format is a TIF for quality. Make sure that the file name matches the name on the art order.

Prints - Making your Money

Now that everything is sent in, hopefully meeting the deadline, you may have to wait till you can make prints to sell. Some publishers insist that you not publish prints until after the book has been released. Once you have the green light you can sell them on the web, either through your site, or there are other sites that will do them for you such as Deviantart.com, Cafepress.com, and Zazzle.com . There are also places that you can get things printed and send product to you such as sidekickprinting.com.

Still, for those to work, you will need to promote yourself. A good way to do this is in person. People will not hunt you down over the internet to buy your art if they don't know that you exist. This means conventions and art shows. This is expensive, and a risky investment. There's really no way to tell if a convention will be worth the investment or not. However, most conventions have an art show, where you can mail in your artwork. This gets it out there for your audience to see, even if you can't be there. Also art shows usually have art tables in the art show that are less expensive than the vendor rooms.

There's no real secret to making it in this business, and there is a lot of competition out there. The people I know that are making it, are exceptionally busy and hard working people. They travel constantly and have a thick skin to the politics of any industry. It's not all roses, but it can be very rewarding. Few things are as rewarding as when you see someone happy, because of something that you made, or when you hold a book in your hand for the first time with your art on the cover.

Best of luck to anyone out there starting out in this industry!

IRON!

Today, I did something I had never done before, out of the blue. My brother now has a plasma cutter. He showed me how to use it, and 15 minutes later, I turned a piece of scrap iron into the picture you see. This is my first attempt. I had to get used to how close to hold the torch without touch the metal, and learning to work through the visor to protect my eyes, but once I got the hang of it, it was amazing and I hope to have more of these in the future. I'm very excited about this new medium and seeing just what I can do with it :)