Den Eviga Eldens Magi - Project Completion!

Today I turned in the final batch of images for my extensive 'Magi' project with publisher Lilla Piratförlaget and author Patrik Bergström.

I made the image below to commemorate the sheer amount of work I created for this fantasy children's series. Like the image says: 5 covers, 45 interiors (!!!), 5 chapter headings and 1 map. I feel like I've just crossed the finish line to a long, yet satisfying art marathon.

Link: Publisher's site for this series.
Link: Author's site for this series.

Adding Light

Yesterday I received my copy of the 2008 Children's Writers & Illustrators Market in the mail. I've been reading the articles in the front whenever I need a break from painting. The ones I've read so-far are really quite informative and helpful. They even have a nice review of the basic rights that might appear in a contract.

In other news, my sister stopped by for lunch which resulted in what can best be described as a flurry of ideas for the graphic novel project. We solidified a good bit more of the plot to our liking.

More work on the Snow Queen. I'm trying to figure out what I want to do about the lighting design.

First Sketches for The Snow Queen

A bit of beginning work for the Fairytale Thunderdome competition. I still think I'm happier with the sketch than I am with the next step. Hmmm...

Nearing the End

I did a lot of little things today. I get the feeling this image is close to finished. Many of the new additions such as the sparkles, tiny flowers in the grass, and pattern on the fabric, were just neat things I decided to try out (we shall see what the client thinks).

Angelic Faces are Hard to Paint

I'm undoubtedly at the slowest strange of this painting right now, the tweaking things here and there trying to figure out what looks best. The highest concentration of work today was on his face. I finally think I have something pretty good going on, less cartoon-like with more structure and such. However, when I flipped the canvas again (right before saving these preview versions) I noticed that there is still something a bit "off" around the eyes. *sigh*

In other illustration news, I've been focusing a lot of effort on getting more organized. At the moment I'm testing out the trail version of Studiometry, a program that seems to hold potential for keeping track of billing and projects for freelance business such as mine. I also acquired a nice planner at Staples today. It's harder than one might think to find a planner that goes beyond the standard 8-5 hour delineations. 8-5? Hah, the one I found runs until 9:45 PM. Nice for those evening hour plans.

The White City in Gold

Well, this update was a little longer coming than it could have been. I guess I got all caught up in the holiday festivities with the fam. 'Twas a lot of fun, but now it is back to work. I've yet to mess with the angel's face or body again. Yesterday I worked on the "first pass" of painting/blending on the background, for everywhere but the city. Today I attempted the city, which for a small area is a big pain.

More on the Angel

Today was rather blah out, even though it wasn't particularly cold it felt like it was because of the color of the light and lack of sun.

The good news: I actually got a chance to work on art. For the first time in a few days I didn't spend the day baking cookies or wrapping. I worked mainly on "smoothing" out the angel's outfit, skin, etc, and on defining form. Tomorrow I hope to do the first pass of blending on the background.

The Color of Heaven

The biggest challenge this past week has been finding any time to do art. Christmas shopping, wrapping, cards, baking, decorating, etc, are a real time drain. Not that I don't enjoy those things. ;)

So the client decided he wanted a background, which turned out to be a greater challenge than I first thought (and, I still don't know if I've got it "right"). At least I kind of got the colors to a likable state. It's harder than you think, trying to find the right colors for Heaven.

Numerous Happenings

Good stuff happening today, despite my feeling terrible (I think I'm still getting over the flu). Got a great e-mail on a possible series of angel illustrations from a guy in California, which I'm pretty excited about.

I spent the morning re-writing my Concept Artist cover letter. I think the new version is much better (less recent grad-ish) than it was 6 months ago. I hope to get my job application off in the mail for that open BioWare Concept Artist position (in Edmonton, Canada) soon. Man, would that be a cool place to work -literally.

I also re-organized my website yesterday. I decided that it would be nice to separate the digital illustrations by type a bit more. So I put the "Children's Fantasy Illustrations" and "Science-Fiction and Fantasy Illustrations" (read: the "grown up" book covers) in their own groupings. I also added a number of composite step-by-step images, that go from sketch to final image here:

step-by-steps