Snowman Christmas Wishes

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays!

In celebration, I created the image below. It is a tribute to my favorite winter/Christmas movie EVER: The Snowman =)




Wallpaper Size (er 1920x1200... ie the size of my desktop. Enjoy!)

Anne Droyd Book!

I actually got this a few days ago in the mail: a printed copy of Anne Droyd and the House of Shadows. I love the design work done on it and it is always great seeing one of my digital illustrations on the real physical book cover. Thanks again Will!

Time Warriors 1: Final Cover

Just wrapped up the Time Warriors: Induction (TW1) cover! It has been added to my site, in both the gallery and shop. =)

Time Warriors 1: Painting WIP

Much more work on the Time Warriors: Induction cover... Among other things, I decided that the water snake needed more visual interest.

(Why does it not surprise me that this, my 111th blog post, falls on November 11th?)

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone! As per "tradition" I designed and carved Calvin & Hobbes Jack-o-Lanterns. =)

Time Warriors 1: Sketch

More work on the Time Warriors 1 cover. I've taken the selected thumbnail and turned it into a clean sketch.

Time Warriors 2: Final Cover

I apparently forgot to update both my site and this blog with the final version of the Time Warriors: Expansion cover, something I will remedy now:




Today I also started work on the thumbnails for the Time Warriors: Induction (TW1) cover. The selected scene takes place against the backdrop of the fabled city of Atlantis, where our heroes are battling a giant water snake.

Time Warriors 2 Cover - Update

I've been hard at work on Tom's cover. Below is an update. Also, I've been sketching away for a certain other project. For some reason I always find color sketches a blast to do. Maybe I just enjoy playing with color?

In other random news, it is no secret that I am a big-time Final Fantasy fan. So, messin' around on the interweb yesterday, I found a VG Cats t-shirt that I sooo want:




I'm still giggling...

Time Warriors 2 Cover

Working last to first, I've started on the Time Warrior: Expansion (TW 2) cover. This scene takes places in the Jurassic... where our heroes are being attack by pteros.

Time Warriors 3 Cover - Finished

I've changed and added many things since the last blog update. Below is the final cover, which I have just added to my gallery =)

Time Warriors 3 Cover - II

I've been working on fully painting TJ and Heather (the two figures in the foreground). There is probably a bit more tweaking to be done, but I'm rather happy with how they are progressing. I've also been working on the glowing circles around the time tunnel.

Time Warriors 3 Cover

An update! I've been working on the cover of Time Warriors: Division (TW 3) for author Tom Tancin (his site: Destifire Books). Today I was working specifically with the background layer, cleaning things up, smoothing, giving more form and shadow to the shapes. It's been a bit of a challenge painting a "newly built" sphinx in ancient Egypt, as my time machine is broken so I can't quite get the reference photos I want. ;)

In other news, I was so super psyched to learn of Penny Arcade's "Photoshop Hero" t-shirt. Only to find that they are out of mediums in their girly sizes! Gah! They say it'll be a couple of weeks before they get 'em back in stock.

Prism - Final

After a bit of delay, I've added the final cover painting for The Terror of Prism Fading to my site gallery. I'm really happy with the way it turned out! :)

Prism III

Another Prism cover update! Since the last update I've spent a good deal of time on cleaning/smoothing various parts. (I also lost a day's work due to a corrupt file save! Luckily, I save in sequences frequently... but still re-painting a good deal of those scales wasn't exactly my idea of a picnic.)

Prism II

An update on the Prism painting. Obviously, there is still a long way to go yet...

The Terror of Prism Fading

I've got a new project to share with you all :) This is a cover for a self-publishing author in New York. Her name is K. E. Stapylton and the first book of her YA fantasy series is The Terror of Prism Fading. Below is the progress thus-far.

Dancing in the Kitchen - Final

Alright, finished with the cover for Liz and Linda. Ta da! I also got the image up in my gallery and shop.

In other news, I've got a exciting new cover in the works for an author in New York and have another image for "the big project" on my easel.

Dancing in the Kitchen - Update 2

Second update for Dancing in the Kitchen. :)

Dancing Cover

Been moving along at a pretty good rate on the latest small press cover. This one is for a book tentatively titled Dancing in the Kitchen, by Linda Andrews, to be published by Zumaya Publications.

Illustration Friday: Forgotten

It's been a long time since I've done an Illustration Friday. This week's topic is "Forgotten." The image below was created in Art Rage 2 in 1.5 hours.

Feeding and Embedding

Ah, yes... so I just spent a good deal of the day fiddling with various methods of embedding this blog within my website. After trying many, I've settled on RSS2JAVA at least for the moment. I wanted to use FeedMorf because of the customizable CSS, but couldn't get it to display images or links correctly. Also, I downloaded a handy desktop blog program called Windows Live Writer (which I am blogging with now) after reading about it on LifeHacker.

Eboracvm Cover Finished

As the title said, the Romans are now back in Rome. Quite a different cover for me, and I'm rather happy with how it turned out. Also below is a version with the title text included.

This image has been added to my site gallery as well and is now available in my site shop as a print.

Now if you'll excuse me I have the last Sword of Truth book to finish reading...

Eboracvm Cover... Another Update

More time spent on the chain mail. Also, more work on the background.

Eboracvm Cover Update

An update for the Eboracvm cover... More painting yet to do, but progress is being made.

Eboracvm, The Fortress

I've got progress images to share from one of my current projects. This is a book cover for Eboracvm, The Fortress by Graham Clews. You can visit his site at: graham-clews.com to learn more about the book.

The next step is the actual painting part.

New Site Design Launched!

If you've visited my site in the past few days you may have seen some very curious things. Not to mention upheaval, mayhem and madness! Many many hours on my part (and I was wondering why I don't do this more often)... At any rate, I think it is now working well enough to announce a MAJOR redesign. Please take a moment to click through the new site and let me know if you encounter any funny business.

Also, I've updated my "Children's Fantasy" portfolio with a new image. It's a book cover for Anne Droyd and the House of Shadows by Will Hadcroft.

Rigs and Covers

I'm juggling three projects at the moment, two books covers and the card one. I'm also very excited about finally coming up with a nice new website design, which I am in the process of implementing. This one has MUCH more flavor to it, and I feel it better reflects my art style without stealing the show or looking too graphic design-y.

I updated my rig photo. I was quite amused to see that my last one was made on April 23rd of last year, exactly a year and a day ago.

Today also happens to be my birthday. A quarter of a century, yikes! I prefer to think of 25 as the new 15 ;)

New Computer Ordered

There is the kind of blog silence that means nothing is happening and the kind that means everything is -this is the later sort.

I've been doing a lot of good art since my last update, which unfortunately I can't share until publication. ;) But lets just say I've been putting my 8 hours in most every day.

My biggest news: COMPUTER! That's right, I'm readying for a major upgrade in the form of a completely new custom built system. I just ordered the last component yesterday and I received the motherboard in the mail today. This thing is going to be super sweet. Here are the technical goodies:

- Lian Li PC-B25B Case (ohhh... the glowing blue circle!)
- ASUS P5E WS Motherboard
- Intel Quad Core Q6600 Processor
- ATI FireGL v3600 Graphics Card
- 8GB of CORSAIR XMS2 DHX RAM
- x2 1TB Western Digital Caviar RE2 Hard Drive (for a RAID config, art and data)
- 500GB Western Digital Caviar SE16 Hard Drive (for programs and OS)
- 36GB Western Digital Raptor Hard Drive(solely for Photoshop scratch disk)
- FreeAgent Pro 1TB External Hard Drive (I already have a FreeAgent 500GB for backing up the program drive)
- x2 SAMSUNG Black 20X DVD combo drive
- CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX Power Supply
- Vista Business 64-bit

I'm going to have the shop that built my current PC assemble this one for me. I can't wait!

Going Going

It's slightly frustrating working so long on art I won't be able to show ya'll for a good year. But I am enjoying it all the same. :) After a year and a half, this is really starting to feel like a full-time job.

Things are still coming along with the picture book dummy too. I just got all of the shipping supplies via the men in brown today. I'm still awaiting the order of printed spiral-bound dummies and need to get all the the shipping labels and cover letters / query letters filled out and saved.

In other random news, I just bought Casey Stratton's newest CD called Orbit and I am really enjoying it. At the moment I am obsessed with "Your Ghost Passing By."

Not Dead, Just Highly Occupied

Don't let the fact that I've been suspiciously quite since Christmas fool you. I've been quite occupied. Mainly on that picture book I started a year ago. I've been working both on an updated 40 page dummy and the text... Which may end up as a very long poem.

Also in the works are a myriad of projects for clients, including a huge one for a fellow in Holland (and I can say no more). This secrecy stuff is rather enjoyable ;)

Oh yes, I've also just finished a brand-new logo for my Illustration business, which I plan to incorporate into my new website design.