Adventure!

 My sister, Casey and I. She was kind enough to travel along with me to Indianapolis, Indiana to visit GenCon. As my artist star rises, so must my physical presence in the art and fantasy gaming world.

The convention was almost overwhelming. Thousands of people, booths, games, costumes and more filled the convention center, itself a hulking conglomeration of football field sized rooms. It was pretty awesome, regardless.

 The main reason for my trip was to meet Brent Evans in the flesh. He's my art director at Catalyst for Shadowrun, and someone who's wisdom has already helped me grow levels beyond where I was. Up until now, I've only ever shared email exchanges with the man, our most emotive moments being colons and parentheses. It was a happy surprise to find Brent was just as gracious and well spoken in person.

 Here is one of the most recent projects I got to work on. This is the demo box for Shadowrun: Crossfire, a card game. And is that... could it be?

 My artwork on the back cover? Boom. Well, since this cat got let out of the bag, let's see him in full resolution, yes?

Since this painting was meant to be on a small card (see the size of my fingers in comparison?), my main challenge was stripping away needless detail and building an immediately discernible image.

The Recycle Project

I'll be visiting GenCon in Indianapolis tomorrow. So, that should be fun. In preparation for the event, I ran out and picked up a little portfolio book and printed my current portfolio. I still had my old portfolio prints, so it was great fun being able to physically compare the two. I realized there are themes I like to revisit.

Sometimes I revisit a subject because I don't feel like the first time through did it justice. Way back when, Jon Schindehette had an Art Order contest called D&D Pin-up. He wanted to see D&D characters (preferably tieflings) in a sort of classic pin-up pose. So I gave him this half-assed Gil Elvgren style piece.

At the time I didn't think it was half-assed, but I knew that if I could revisit the subject, I'd give it my whole ass. So I did:

Sometimes I revisit a subject from a different angle. In Fahrenheit 451, there's a moment in the books when a woman sets herself on fire in front of Montag. I thought that'd make a cool cover, so:

A few years later, I wanted to be more conceptual with the cover. The real catalyst for Montag was the girl Clarisse, so I tried playing around with the idea a bit. This piece is already on its way out of my portfolio, so maybe I'll give it another go soon...

Sometimes I like many aspects of a project even though I change everything else about it. Here, I've kept only the perspective.

Originally, I was going to just replace the guy with Link, and say hey, Water Temple. But I hate the Water Temple. Also, so much of my art fades to black that it gives a very claustrophobic feeling to my work, so I wanted to open it up and give the piece room to breath. This was one of my first digital projects, and I'm still happy with it.

Last but not least, sometimes I revisit a project because it's just fun to paint. One of the great joys of being an artist is producing work year after year and seeing how much you've grown and changed. This project is one of my most stark comparisons.

When I finish a painting I'm particularly proud of, it is inconceivable to me that I could do any better.

But what do I know?