New Review…

Courage and Honour, by Graham McNeill.
Black Library Publishing. Hardback, 309 pages.

Full review on Flames Rising and my blog.

Next up: Book of Secrets by Chris Roberson, an Angry Robot Publication.

Sketchy Bits…

*Fan Art all:

Space Marine vs Eldar

The land of Ulthuan

Swordmaster versus Blackguard

*Fan Art. Subject Matter is Copyright Games Workshop. No infringement of their IP is intended.

Note all are WiPs and none are completed. Unfortunately I’m driven by a number of deadlines and have little time for drawing for ME and what I want to draw. Of course, fan art doesn’t pay. Still…I could draw GW stuff all day long and I’d do it for FREE (well…or almost free). I just don’t have the chops to make it to THAT level.

Yet.

BTW…I’m also a reviewer!

Reviews up at Flames Rising:
Mechanicum by Graham McNeill.
Shadowrealm by Paul S. Kemp.

Should be posted any day now:
Tales of Heresy, Edited by Nick Kyme and Lindsay Priestley

Links to purchase these fine novels:
Tales of Heresy
Mechanicum
Shadowrealm

Previous Reviews on Flames Rising:
Road of the Patriarch by R.A. Salvatore
Promise of the Witch King by R.A. Salvatore
The Orc King by R.A. Salvatore

I also have several reviews on Goodreads, Amazon.com and my own blog, but for the most part I review for the fine folks at Flames Rising.

Pimping…

One thing I love about what I do for a living that is somewhat unconventional is being able to work with awesome people, collaborate (vs compete) and pimp out those cool people to other cool people that need talent.

What am I talking about?
Freelancing is to a certain degree very competitive. I think it’s somewhat ingrained in to the community that you have to hustle and undercut the competition in order to get gigs. I disagree with that.

I think in order to succeed as a freelancer you need to be yourself, be cool, be professional and the work will come. Maybe not as fast as the uber-competitive guys, but the work will be more solid and you’ll build a long-term relationship with the folks you work with.

It’s kind of like the “nice guys finish last” thing. I dig being the “nice guy”. I think it goes more like this “Nice guys finish after the not-nice-guys…but have better, more solid relationships and in the end are far happier.”

That’s how I work. I’m no superstar artist. I have a bit of a niche (which I’m trying to expand out of) and I’m nice and I’m more than anything professional. My shit is always done on time. I don’t take shortcuts. I always do what I’m asked to do without the “Artiste’ Drama”.

Art directors just want the job done. They want what they want with a minimum of drama. They want it right and on time. They want artists they can bank on. This makes their job easy. I’m down with that.

I’ve worked with some great ones, and it’s wonderful to pimp out my brothers (sisters) when they need a good solid artist. Hey, if I’m unavailable, I know others who can do that job! I gladly pimp out my friends who are also looking for gigs. Even if they are better than me, or anything like that. Am I worried that they’ll become my favorite art director’s pet artist? Not at all.

I think the best thing an artist, or any creative for that matter can do is let their work and reputation as a cool professional speak for itself. Definitely help out your buddies. Word of mouth recommendations are worth their weight in GOLD. You get those by being a collaborator instead of a competitor.

Just be yourself. Be cool. Be professional.

Reputation: If you build it…they will come.

More work inbound, more reviews submitted…

Got the art spec for 3 gigs at once. Going to be booked solid until July 8th.

It’s a heaping HUGE pile of work to do. I’m kind of doubling up on my usual load. It’s going to be a lot of long days, nights and weekends between now and then. (Seriously, I have 30-35 images to do between now and then)

Submitted two reviews to Flames Rising. One for Paul S. Kemp’s Shadowrealm, another for Graham McNeill’s Mechanicum.

The review for Shadowrealm is here.

The review for Mechanicum is here.

Forthcoming reviews: Dawn of War II, Tales of Heresy and Heroes of the Space Marines (all from Black Library).

I’m heading out for Maryland, Washington DC and Virginia on Thursday. Back home (and to work) on the following Tuesday.

Deadline CRUSHED!

Yep, a few days early no less.

This one was a lot of fun to do, and I think everything came out nicely. The AD is very happy with my work. I’ll be getting more return business from him.

See…this business model is WORKING!

Building long-term relationships with the folks you work with is the only way to go!

I love my job!

Periscope Down…

Aside from taking breaks on occasion…I’m going deep in order to complete a bunch of work for Rogue Games and their forthcoming  Colonial Gothic Revised Edition. I’ve got a heap of critters and character archetypes to get done. Everything is looking pretty sharp so far.  My deadline is May 1st and I’ve never missed a deadline, and not about to start now.

After this I have an Adventure Game I’m working on using the Wintermute engine as well as a variety of smaller bit pieces here and there, including a big chunk of art to do for Catalyst Game Labs for a Shadowrun PDF product…when I get the art specs. As time frees up I’d like to do the Concept Tuesdays-thing over at Art Order. I’ll also be continually hitting up folks for work. You’ve been warned.

May 1st is also the deadline for all Final Art to be submitted for Mythmere Games‘ Knockspell Magazine Issue #2. I’m doing the AD bit for that so we’re heading in to crunch time for that project as well.

Overall life is good. Busy is good. I love “busy”. I have a panel at Oddcon this Friday at 2pm on Freelancers/ Freelancing, but it looks like I won’t be staying for the con…I have work to get done.

WotC, PDFs, Retro-Clones and the Professional…

So yesterday WotC pulled the plug on their products on the PDF side of the house. No more D&D PDFs available for sale today anywhere. Bummer.

I think it’s a knee-jerk reaction to the less than stellar sales of their D&D 4E books which they “blame” on piracy, but I really believe is due to selling an expensive product in a recession.

Smaller-press publishers immediately pulled out all stops on their PDF sales. Good for them. My concern is more for the industry as a whole rather than WotC (granted, the survival of WotC means a LOT to the industry as a whole…but it’s not the whole enchilada).

So I’m doing the AD thing for Mythmere Games and their Knockspell Magazine. On one hand I like having some creative control over the quality going out the door. On the other hand, whiel I wear the Art Director hat…I’m doing no art for them. It’s a conflict of interests.

I’ve seen too many products where the AD also is a contributing artist. What happens? What’s the downside?
The AD gets his pick of assignments, fills the book with his/her art (which may not be as good as they think it is) and ends up sacrificing quality, and work for freelancers to feed his/ her own ego.

I won’t go down that road.
The job of the Art Director is to safeguard the project/ product by striving to maintain the highest possible standards inthe artwork and smoothing the road for the layout guy (who is next on the production path). To temper this AD’s also have to balance all this with trying to maintain a stable of qualified artists.

What makes an artist qualified?
Skill? That much is obvious, but even more important is how easy to work with the artist is.
Are they a primma-donna or do they do what they are assigned with a minimum of guff?
Are the communicative? Can you reach them when you need to? Do they respond when you call?
Most importantly, and I can’t stress this enough…are the punctual? If you ask for a no-shit assessment on whether they need more time…do they bullshit you, or tell the truth? I’d rather give an extension and hold up the whole project for good art and an honest artist then have the artist half-ass the job because they underbid the project.

Ultimately, like anything else the relationship between Art Director and Artist is a RELATIONSHIP. You have to work together smoothly and that takes both sides making the effort to do so. As an AD I’m looking for a stable of guys/ gals I can depend on to produce quality work …on time. Dependable people.

This brings me to a post I read on a blog regarding the retro-clone movement and products like S&W and how it’s a product made for players and talented amateurs to make for themselves.

That’s cool and all…but where does that leave me? Granted I may not be Todd Lockwood or Frank Frazetta, but I consider myself very much a professional in this industry, yet I love working on S&W and other retro-clone products. I dunno, it just left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

New Release!

Thousand Suns: Transmissions from Piper

Available today at RPGnow!

For more info about Thousand Suns check out their other products and home page.

I have an idea for a fun art project…

I’m trying to think of the venue for posting it, but the concept is there. LJ is a likely candidate.

A weekly-ish (timing is kinda “fuzzy” when it comes to art) spot on Hero/ Villain of the Week.
I’d say starting with comics but not necessarily entirely so. Choosing may rotate or vote or something between the participants.

For example next week would be say: The X-Men’s Nightcrawler.
Everyone participating does up an image of Nightcrawler and posts it. How polished you make it is up to you.

We’ve all seen similar things on LJ and the like re: Bat-Girl and stuff.

It’s not a competition (except maybe with ourselves). It’s for fun and maybe a little for self-promotion of us all. 90% of it is just for fun and sort of bringing artists together.

I think part of what brought this on is that the Late Mike Weiringo has been on my mind and he did stuff like this all the time, and I’d like to do something similar. No “rules”, no grading, no competition, just artists sketching up some cool characters we all likely know well, but have never really had much of a reason to draw.

Interested?

***UPDATE! LJ Community Weekly_Heroes created for this purpose.

http://community.livejournal.com/weekly_heroes

Enjoy!