What's the best part? The green wig or the pomegranate juice?
Jay Lake is running a contest to take a photo of Green in the wild. I'd say run and enter but, honestly, can anyone beat this? Kehrli, this is awesome. Dan Dos Santos, you now know where to go for your next model shoot.
Over on Tor.com, I posted quick spotlights on the five Professional Artist Hugo nominees. I asked them to send in 3 paintings from the past year and to give us a few words on their year or the work they chose to display. Come on over to see....
Massive Black is really cranking out the demos lately. Their latest, the long awaited Dan Dos Santos' book cover demo. Hurray for Dan! This has been eagerly awaited for some time now.
5 hours long. $50.00 Available as a DVD or instant download. It takes a book cover -- which happens to be Tor's Warbreaker, by Brandon Sanderson -- from concept to finish.
Order here. The buzz here. Preview below: (Warning: I am in it briefly but you can fast forward through that.)
Somehow I doubled booked judging the Society's Student exhibit with a major Sales meeting. I knew both were on Tuesday morning, you think that would have tipped me off to the fact that I couldn't go to both. Thankfully, Jesper Ejsing was in town, visiting from Denmark, and he took my place. I was bummed to have missed the judging. The student show is in many ways more rewarding (or at least, interesting) than the pro show. It's a constant balance between judging ability and potential.
I was, however, able to catch lunch with the crew. Thank god. Me skipping a meal would be a sign that the end days are a'coming. Seen here: me, Donato (mostly hidden by my big head) Jesper Ejsing, Dan Dos Santos, and Sam Weber.
Afterwards Dan and Jesper stopped by to visit. There was some shenanigans with a sword but somehow all in the room left with ten fingers and toes each. I met Jesper at last year's Massive Black's workshop. His work was great then and even better now. He mentioned doing a major overhaul of his website later this month so, I'll point you to this interview with some great step-by-steps.
I will write about this more in depth on Tor.com in the upcoming week but I have a feeling it will sell out fast -- in fact, it's already half filled by from last year's alumni -- so I wanted to mention it quickly here first. Illustration Master Class is a one week intensive class that is i-n-t-e-n-s-e!
Illustration Master Class June 15-21, 2009 Amherst, MA $1,850.00 - includes studio class, lectures, room and board.
Massive Black released this way-cool trailer for their upcoming instructional DVD, Book Cover Illustration with Dan Dos Santos. The cover in question is, Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker.
After 15 hours straight of answering emails and pressing “refresh”, I have made it through day 1 of Tor.com. What this does to The Art Department, I’m not sure. I would like to keep both running without too many posts being a simple redirect, but in the beginning the balance will be a bit off.
So, playing catch up, here are a couple of part related posts over there:
A quick interview with Dice Tsutsumi on the Totoro Project:"Our first goal for this project was, of course, to raise funds to help save the Sayama Forest, the birthplace of our beloved Totoro. However, this event has had huge symbolic meaning for us as well. It has been thrilling to see so many people come together, united by their admiration for Hayao Miyazaki's work, and to see how much art and artists can contribute to the material improvement of our shared world."
Soon there will be Dan Dos Santos’ art and sketches for a new Tor cover.
Lastly, wallpapers galore!For one week we are reoffering all of the books and wallpapers given out during our pre-reg promo. If you missed any, you have until next Sunday to grab ‘em.
For as long as I’ve known Dan Dos Santos, I know he's wanted to do a movie poster. I also know he’s a huge Hellboy fan. You can imagine his excitement when the two came together and he was asked to create a poster for Hellboy 2. Alas, if nothing else, Hollywood is fickle and they didn't run it.. This is very common, actually. The movie industry often commissions many more paintings then they expect tp use in the end. (If only books had that luxury.) But congrats to Dan for a choice commission and job well done. Art Department commentator Eric Orchard is included in the Totoro Forest Project. Congrats on that. Once again, that is a fantastic collection of work and everyone involved should feel very proud.
Last Man Standing 3, round three is up. The theme this time:Unfair Advantage. I’m a judge throughout the competition and, as usual, there are some heartbreaking decisions. (Seen here, Richard Anderson's entry.)
A highlight of my year is an annual visit to Jon Foster's Rhode Island School of Design class. His students are great, Providence is beautiful in May, Jon's extended family of friends and artists are a delight, and Jon, himself, never seems happier than when he's playing match-maker between talented peoples.
This year Greg Manchess and Dan Dos Santos did a class crit and a demo. The object of their demo happened to be the super awesome former student of Jon's, Wesley Allsbrook. Wesley, I'm excited to say, is creating a short comic story for Tor.com. It's just a big happy circle of life thing.
Rebecca has been hard at work on all the details of the Illustration Master Class. She called for a summit meeting of all the instructors to finalize the curriculum. Here we are in Society's library doing just that. And, of course, the eating Indian food afterwards.
There are only 5 positions left for the Master Class. If anyone is debating attending, now is the time to decide.
Illustration Master Class June 16-22, 2008 Amherst College Campus $1,700.00 - includes meals and housing.
New York Comic Con may only be a fraction of the size of San Diego, bit it's starting to claim some of the energy of it's left coast cousin. And hurray for that.
Tor was showing off some upcoming books and selling current ones. Clearly, loads of people are really excited about Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother. It was the buzz of the both. It'll be out next week but the Torites working the booth could have made a handsome dime by auctioning off the one advanced copy we brought. We were, however, able to give away thousands of shinny new Tor.com buttons, and it's equally clear that the buzz for the new site is getting strong. (Now we need to deliver, don't we.) I'd like to thank Dan Dos Santos for doing a painting demo at the Tor booth. (Pictures in previous post.) It can't be easy to preform in front of thousands of people, but he seemed relaxed and excited to engage the crowd.
I saw lots of great portfolios from pros and students. Artist's Alley seems more vibrant here than to does in SD, where most artist have been pushed into taking full booths. It meant I spent a lot more time there and didn't even realize how much of the rest of the floor I missed until we were breaking down.
But now: I don't mean to get on anyone's case, and I know some of the behavior I am about to describe came from some of my readers so, please take this as constructive criticism, but...
Five Ways Not to Introduce Yourself to an Art Director:
1) Don't give me your postcard and then take it back to cross out your web address because "the work there isn't good."
2) Don't let me flip through half a portfolio and then stop me mid way to say "the rest is older work, you're probably not interested, and it's not good anyway."
3) Don't show me one, and only one, image on an iPhone. In fact, unless you know I am very familiar with your work, don't show me an iPhone portfolio at all.
4) "Hi, my name is XYZ......We're MySpace friends." Followed by silence thinking I'm going to remember you off the top of my head. Hell, I can't remember the names of people I actually meet.
5) 35mm slides!? I didn't even think you could buy slide film anymore.
Guys, you’re at ComicCon. Chances of running into an art director are, well, high. You didn't just happen to run into the ADs for every major gaming, comic, movie, and publishing companies at a neighborhood barbeque, so get your ducks in a row before making that first impression.
Dan Dos Santos was sweet enough to agree to a 90 minute painting demo at the Tor booth on Saturday. He had a nice crowd around him the entire time and, despite deadline induced lack of sleep and, much worse, no Red Bull in his system, Dan created quite a lovely portrait.
Dan Dos Santos will be doing a painting demo at NY Comic Con this weekend, at the Tor booth.
This Saturday 1:00-2:30 Tor Books -- Booth# 1533
But wait, there’s more!
If you stop by the Tor booth at anytime, and sign up for Tor.com, you will be in the running to win a Asus mini computer. It’s cute as a button -- come on over, we’ll have sign-up cards at the table.
Since I have a school lecture fresh in my head, and since all up and coming illustrators want to know how to get their work noticed, I thought I relate how these two guys came into my radar.
I met Dan Dos Santos at the Society of Illustrators. He is friends with artist Steve Stroud, who is friends with rep Richard Solomon, who is friends with rep Gail Thurm, who I know through Shannon Associates. One night, at the Society, Gail invited me to dinner with the lot of them. Dan was keen on sf/f illustration, asked great questions, and later sent me a kick-as portfolio. I've been working with him ever since. (And I've been friends with Steve an Richard ever since.)
Raymond Swanland -- I saw his work in Spectrum for two or three years running and always liked it, I kept sorta looking out for a cover to work on. One day I was in the offices of National Geographic and the art director pulled out a new poster that Raymond had done for them -- a depiction of the layers of Rome. I was suddenly good-naturedly jealous. I wanted to work with Raymond. I found a cover for him fairly quickly after that.
Rebecca Guay is organizing a fantasy and science fiction illustration workshop in Amherst, Mass, and has asked me to be a lecturer. All of the instructors involved are interested in making this a highly focused and intense week of learning.
Attendees will benefit from a full schedule of classes in figure drawing from an illustration perspective, use of reference, drawing from the imagination, digital and traditional painting technique, live demos and industry q&a, as well as extensive individual one on one critique from 10am to midnight each day.
Illustration Master Class June 16-22, 2008 Amherst College Campus $1,700.00 - includes meals and housing.
Firstly: My boss, Tom Doherty (who is awesome,) has posted a quick essay on our parent company’s blog on the importance of mass market paperback books in developing new readers. In-house we know this as part of Tom’s “Horseradish and Ketchup” speech. (The idea being, if all anyone is offered is ketchup than ketchup will be the bestseller, but that doesn’t mean plenty of people wouldn’t prefer horseradish if given the opportunity.) I’m not being snarky when I say it never gets old. It’s impossible to sit next to Tom for any length of time and not learn something.
Secondly: Wow, I earned $1.67 from the bookstore! (Ham sandwich, here I come.) Thank you, whoever you are. Honestly, I didn’t expect any sales. I, myself, am extremely lazy when it comes to buying on line, for some reason walking to the bookstore seems easy whereas filling out forms is a huge headache. And I’m impatient. But I was hoping that it could build into a place that is fun to browse and waste time with. I’m actually rather surprised how good Amazon’s suggestion program is working on it. I’ve been having fun seeing what it comes up with. (At work, I’m looking up so many random titles for the job that its suggestions become meaningless.)
Thirdly: Seen here is Dan Dos Santos. He stopped in today to hand in the artwork for Brandon Sanderson’s Warbreaker. This is the piece that Dan’s tutorial video is on -- more on that when it becomes available.
I had a visit from Dan Dos Santos and Aaron Fagerstrom. Aaron has produced a number of instructional videos for Massive Black. Currently he is creating a video of Dan’s painting technique while working on a cover for new Brandon Sanderson series, Warbreaker. They did a quick interview with me to ask about working with artists in general and this cover in particular. (I dunno, I hemmed and hawed a lot -- I could be on the cutting room floor.) I’ll try to get a quick trailer when the video is ready to be released, which will be...I haven't a clue. I guess I should have figured that out before I started this. Hmmmm....
I think there should be a series of top sf/f artists all interpreting the same Bob Ross painting. I also think I need to eat something and/or get some sleep because, clearly I'm not thinking straight.
A big "thank you" to all that showed up or tuned in last night. We had a packed house and I've gotten a lot of nice email this morning. I'll do a full report tonight or tomorrow but in the meantime, I'll point you to the archived video. Yes, if you have two hours that you are desperate to kill, you can watch the whole thing. Just fast forward through the "Is this thing on?" phase -- Donato Giancola and Dan Dos Santos did an amazing job, well worth watching.
Presenting!...The next of our Wheel of Time ebook covers: The Fires of Heaven with art by Dan Dos Santos.
in the wild. I'd say run and enter but, honestly, can anyone beat this? 
