Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch Interior 5

Here we are, at the fifth and final day of Badass week. So Steve, you're probably wondering, of all the interior illustrations you did for Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch by Ben Thompson, which was your favorite? It's a happy coincidence that you all were wondering such a thing as that's exactly what I planned on writing about today! Without further ado, here is my favorite interior:

I know, I know. Skulls and death again?

Yes. Yes, my friends. Skulls and death again.

I remember overhearing a high school classmate of mine looking at some paintings I had up at my alma mater some years back during an alumni art show. I actually don't remember which pieces they were, but I can at least tell you that they were thematically similar to my typical fare. "Well," my former classmate said, "it's got blood in it, and it's about death, so it must be one of Belledin's."

At the time, I found it pretty jarring to be summed up in such a way. I mean, I wasn't thrown into some sort of existential crisis or anything, but having my work so neatly encapsulated kind of left me a little disappointed. Nowadays, I'm not bothered by it. Most of the blood and guts stuff that I've done just happened to have been assigned to me. I don't ask for such assignments, but I'm not in the habit of turning them away, either. As is the way of the business, successfully completing such assignments to the satisfaction of the client inevitable leads to similar work. When painting for myself, such horror imagery is not what I gravitate towards at all. Sure, there might be death lurking just under the surface, but if extrapolated to its furthest extent, to show something alive implies death anyway, so I essentially can't win.

The point I'm really slowly driving toward is that the subject matter is not the reason this is my favorite interior of the lot. The reason for my favoring it is also not because I think it's the best piece I did for the book (though it arguably is). I like this illustration the most simply because it came closest to living up to my initial vision. After working through the thumbnails then moving on to the finished sketch, I had a clear idea of what I wanted this piece to be. The end result got pretty darn close to that idea. Extremely close, in fact. It's a rare piece that I see through rose-tinted glasses.

Is it a creepy piece? Yup. Is it kind of messed up? Indeed. But I'm happy to say that this isn't an idea that came out of my head for a change. It's an idea that came out of some other guy's head long, long ago in the Teutoberg Forest. While I just happened to be the one chosen to depict it, that guy made it a reality.

Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch Interior 4

Here's another interior for the newly released Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch that I painted in oils. As was the case with the piece I posted yesterday, this piece is also more atmospheric in nature.

Here we have a painting of Kono Michiari that is done on illustration board that measures 8" x 12".

It's funny to me that I got picked to do this piece. One might have guessed that Brian Snoddy might have been assigned to it given his extensive knowledge of samurai and the fact that he actually owns authentic samurai armor. While my own knowledge isn't completely lacking, I don't have as much confidence in it. I suppose that's why I instinctively came up with a scenario that called for so much of the composition to be cloaked in shadow.

This reminds me of a similar circumstance I heard proposed by a comic book artist when I was a kid. The artist — whose name I cannot recall — was talking about human anatomy as it applies to superheroes and suggested that those folks who weren't confident in their anatomical knowledge might want to consider utilizing a superhero's cape to cover up as much as necessary to get the job done. I'm a fan of this concept, though it should be noted that shadows and cloaks aren't always being employed to disguise or conceal an artist's shortcomings. Sometimes it's just the right thing to do for that particular piece.

Sure, this one's a dark piece, and I'll admit to wanting to conceal certain details in the samurai's armor, but the shadows I've employed are just as much about the mood and reinforcing the lighting scenario that I've chosen.

Anyway, there you go. If you want to learn who Kono Michiari was and have a good laugh while doing so, or if you want to see other illustrations I did or the illustrations done by the other fine artists who contributed to the book, then I encourage you to go ahead and get a copy of Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch by Ben Thompson. You know you want to.

Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch Interior 3

So I've shown you a couple of the digital pen and ink pieces, but what of the black and white oil paintings done for Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch by Ben Thompson? Well, here's one I did for the chapter on the fall of Constantinople:

No real story here beyond the fact that it's oil on illustration board and measures 8" x 12".

I'm sure there will be some of you reading this that will be curious as to why I chose oil for this piece and the digital pen and ink for another. I wish I could tell you, but I honestly only have a vague notion. These were done about a year ago, after all.

I suppose that part of the choice came down to confidence in a given piece. I knew that I'd have flexibility with digital pen and ink on those pieces I wasn't too sure about, and could fill in large blanks while still completing them out in a timely manner. The oil pieces were more or less ready to go and often depicted some sort of atmospheric affect, which is something oil is probably better suited to dealing with. But that's about all I can recall.

Anyway, Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch — as well as author Ben Thompson's other books Badass and Badass: The Birth of a Legend — are out in stores now and and are also available on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and can be bought from an independent bookstore via Indiebound.org.

Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch Interior 2

Yesterday I stated that I decided to go digital on the five pen and ink interiors for Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch in case changes needed to be made (link). Well, if there's a piece that exemplifies what I'm talking about, then you need look no further than this one.

Sure, it may seem innocent enough, but this portrait of Master Sergeant Roy Benavidez took the longest of the lot. By far. Why? Well, I ended up doing this one twice. This was a classic case of first piece started and last piece finished. Essentially, as I completed each piece, I grew dissatisfied with this one in particular and ended up scrapping all but he head of the first version (though even that got quite a revision). I'm happy I did, too, as this one is quite an improvement over the original.

Normally I'd show you what that first version looks like, but after digging around on two hard drives, it looks like I failed to save that the piece in that state. All I can tell you is that the drawing was terrible and that there was a lot more line work muddling the piece visually. When redoing the piece, I ended up leaving out much of that stuff resulting in a much cleaner image. It could be argued that the result is too clean, but I'm happy with it nevertheless.

Anyway, if you'd like to find out about Master Sergeant Roy Benavidez's exploits and learn what makes him such a badass, you might want to pick yourself up a copy of Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch by Ben Thompson, which just happens to have been released today!

And hey, if you don't like what you've seen of the work I've done for the book, maybe you'll want to pick it up for the illustrations done by these other awesome artists:

Brian Snoddy
Matt Haley
Manny Vega
Benjamin Dewey
Miguel Coimbra
Thomas Denmark
Rhonda Libbey
and Thom Zahler

And if you're still not sure you want to buy it, maybe another look at the cover will convince you.

Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch Interior 1

I'm still amazed that the Badass books fell into my lap the way they did. What started out as the promise of interior black and white work for the first book has yielded so much more, and I'm grateful that it came together for me in such a way. Tomorrow, March 12th, the third book in the series arrives in stores. That's right, folks, you can own another bit of Badass with Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch, by Ben Thompson.

While I detailed the bits about the cover art a while back (link), I thought I'd share a few of the interior pieces this week in celebration of the new book's release. But first, I want to talk about a decision I made in regard to these interior illustrations.

If memory serves, I did five interior illustrations for the first book. Being an oil painter, it seemed natural that I paint these pieces in oil. I did the same thing for the second book, where I initially did six interior paintings. With this most recent book, I agreed to ten paintings. Now, I'd toyed with the idea of making these pieces digital on the previous books, but my instinct was always to try and paint them digitally. I never actually followed through, however, as my digital skills aren't what you'd call... good. Then, towards the end of the second book's production, a last minute illustration was required and I was asked to quickly put something together. Time was limited, so I agreed to do the illustration provided they would accept pen and ink instead. This wasn't a problem, the piece went out on time and everyone seemed pretty happy with the result.

With this third book, I was faced with a challenge. When I accepted the ten pieces, my schedule was wide open and all seemed right with the world in our Massachusetts home. As the deadline grew closer, and it became clear that our lives in Massachusetts would be turned upside-down resulting in our being dumped back into the New York metro area again, I suddenly found the timeline to be rather compressed. Given my previous experience with the interior illustrations on the other books, I knew exactly how much time I was going to need to accomplish ten paintings, and I had less than that. So, with the permission of the author, I decided to do half the pieces in pen and ink.

But then I got to thinking about things a bit, and I revised my plan slightly. Due to the potential for changes or edits (mostly of my own making), I decided to go with digital pen and ink instead. The time this decision bought me was crucial, and I was able to turn everything in on time. Thus far, I haven't heard a single complaint about the end result, either, so I guess I did okay.

Anyway, here's a digital pen and ink I did for the War of Arauco chapter of Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch.

If you want to find out about the War of Arauco as well as many other amazing conflicts throughout history (and laugh a lot while learning about it all), then you should probably buy the book. Just a suggestion.

Hey! Here's the cover:

And here's a link to the author's website where you can find out more: Badass of the Week!

Personal Work and a Plan

As promised yesterday, I'm here with some art-related stuff.

I'll give you the big picture. I've committed to a spot at Spectrum Fantastic Art Live 2 in May, and about a month ago I started to think very generally about what I'd be showing there. While it may seem kind of early to begin planning all that, I assure you that for me it is not as the quantity of stuff I plan to bring — and indeed specific pieces being excluded or included — will have an impact on how I decide to make my way to Kansas City. One scenario may require a car ride, another might allow for a plane ride and a few boxes being shipped.

Unfortunately, my planning didn't get so far as determining a means of transportation. Very shortly after beginning to ponder what might hang on my wall at the show, I realized that I'd sold much of the new work that I would like to have included. Admittedly, this is a really good problem to have. In fact, it seems like there would be nothing to complain about. And, indeed, I am not complaining. However, the fact remains that aside from one or two pieces, my wall would end up looking pretty much exactly like it did last year at the first Spectrum Fantastic Art Live.

In the past, I've not always been quite so good at keeping my walls fresh at shows like Spectrum or IlluxCon or even GenCon from year to year. But, I've grown increasingly aware of the issue, and over the last couple of years have tried to make an effort to turn that around a bit. Ideally, at shows I do annually, I would like to have at least half of the wall be fresh, and I would have been really close to reaching that minimum this far out were it not for my terrible, terrible, good fortune.

So, that explains the problem. The solution? Well, there's 30"x40" of unfinished business on my easel right now, and I'm committed to getting that done for Spectrum. Here's what she looks like at the moment:

Once again, I'm sure you'll notice that there's little in the way of new ground covered. This is due to having assignments to paint and being away several weekends for Magic tournaments over the last couple months. It's also due to the fact that the canvas has grown really loose and has become irritating to work on. The cause of this looseness, I am certain, is the dryness of the air in my house. Whether or not it's worth getting a humidifier for this lone piece is not something I've decided on yet, but I'm starting to wonder whether it might not be a good idea. Either way, I've spent a bit of time over the last week attempting to tighten the thing up a bit without going too crazy so as to keep the whole thing from tearing once the humidity ratchets up again. Fortunately, it's noticeably tighter and I'm ready to get back into it again.

What I have managed to do is to start finishing the figure. I've made a couple passes at the hand in the lap, gone over the back leg, and repainted some of the face yet again. At this point, however, I'm going to need to collect some additional reference before really breaking tons of new ground. This should be remedied next weekend, during what will amount to a reference trade between me and Matt Stewart. Do I smell a blog crossover?

In the meantime, I've begun another assignment which I'll be able to include on my wall at Spectrum, as well. It's a painting for an album cover that I'll detail at a later date. I'll probably do a few process posts as I did for the Valentine painting last year, so you all can once again witness the complete lack of planning and logic that goes into every one of my paintings.

Next week, I'll be posting some interior black and white pieces I did for the latest Badass book, Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch, in celebration of its release on March 12th (in bookstores everywhere, as well as Amazon). Hopefully you'll all dig that.

This is what Badass looks like. Well, this Badass.

Further up the line, I'm planning to do a few small, 4"x6" paintings without any plan, reference, or idea. My current plan is also to restrict the brush sizes and the time allowed for each, and just react to the marks I make until something magically appears. No idea how they'll turn out, but I'll post any that are worth posting (and probably at least one that's not). They may not end up on my Spectrum wall, but they should at least be fun.

Lastly, intermingled with the above, I'll continue to post other bits here and there. I have a couple new Frequently Asked Questions in the pipe, as well as some other posts that at present defy any clear description as they're still all over the map. Hopefully I can hammer those into something worthy of reading, but that will remain to be seen.

Today's agenda is all about thumbnail drawings for the album cover, but first I shall deftly shovel some snow. Cheers!

Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch

At long last I present you with the third Badass book cover. This one is for the upcoming third book in the series, Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch, and went down without so much as a hint of drama. IT was sweet.

Now, as with the previous two Badass covers, I was asked to paint an image incorporating multiple figures. Whereas the first book had three figures and the second had five, this one required four figures... and an airplane. So I guess it's kinda like five... sorta. Anyway, the initial figures requested were: a samurai, a Roman centurion, a Gulf War era U.S. Marine, and the Mapuche warrior Galvarino. The airplane I'd be depicting was a British Spitfire from World War II.

Just as I'd done on the previous two cover projects, I did my sketch digitally using separate layers for each figure. This is how that first sketch came out:

Sure it's a little rough, but it gets the point across and is consistent with the vibe set up by the previous two pieces. As you can see, I added a second Spitfire in the background and tried my best to flesh out the values. I submitted it and waited.

You may be wondering why I kept the various figures on separate layers. The answer is simple: people are prone to changing their minds. It happened on the previous two books, and this case was no exception. While they liked the overall feel of the sketch, they wanted me to replace Galvarino with Queen Boudica, and replace the Roman with a Greek hoplite. Old layers were turned off. New layers were created and doodled upon.

The resulting changes yielded this revised sketch:

Obviously I stole heavily from the Roman in order to create the Greek, but Boudica needed to be drawn from scratch.

A quick aside about Boudica. I was asked to make her sexy and have her showing some skin — but not too much skin. This is a common request in the industry and it's one I have a difficult time with. I know that kind of thing sells, but I'm personally just not into eye candy. It's not that I can't do it, it's that I don't like to. Reconciling what I want to paint with what I know is code for heaving bosoms can be a treacherous path to negotiate, and my primary focus was making Boudica look and feel more warrior-like than anything else. I did my best to cover all the bases and I'm happy to say that in this case I managed to paint what I wanted to and still please the client. I wish more of my experiences in such matters had gone so smoothly.

Anyway, after the revisions, this sketch is what was eventually approved.

Now, as had happened in the previous books, I was given images of the cover's design. Obviously, it was my job to work out just how the figures would live within the confines of that design. I knew from the start that my image would need to fit in the bottom half of the cover under a very large title. Also, title would be neon green.

Wuh?

Yeah. In some respects this is a blessing. I know what I'm up against visually. I can figure out a color scheme that works with the green and hopefully helps tie things together. On the other hand, it was a really bright shade of green — one that was bound to dominate my painting. Fortunately, a suggestion was made early on that the image perhaps be heavy on the pinks and purples. While this sounds like an insanely bad idea, it actually did seem to work well with the typography. So, with plan in hand, I went to paint.

Here's how it came out.

I was happier with the piece than I expected to be, honestly, and I was especially satisfied with everything that was actually going to be seen on the cover. (For reference that includes pretty much everything from the Greek guy's chest on up.) Still, there were some things that nagged at me that I wanted to fiddle with, so after a while I finally got the chance to go back into the painting and tweak some stuff.

Here's how it came out:

Most of the differences are subtle, but the major ones include a third Spitfire, some brighter highlights here and there, a larger sword in the Greek warrior's hand and a repaint of his legs. I also went ahead and signed it, which I'd forgotten to do on the first go around. The changes are really minor ones, but I felt like they made for a better painting. 'Course that's just my opinion.


The long and the short of it is that the Badass books have treated me well. I've enjoyed working on them, and I'm pretty amazed at just how well the paintings work next to one another. There's a pretty clear through-line and I'm pretty proud of that.

Incidentally, this piece will be making its debut at IlluxCon tomorrow. And while I'm plugging things, if it peaks your interest, you should check out the previous posts on all the various Badass projects (link), and maybe check out the site that's the source of it all, Badass of the Week, where you can read a bunch of cool stuff, find some info on the previous books, and maybe pick up a t-shirt or two.

Personal Piece Update 3

Two things have been eating my time. First, you've got the changes to the third "Badass" cover. Honestly, they've proven to need a lot more attention than I'd expected. Second, there's this sickness I seem to have picked up. Some sort of cold... thing. All the sinus stuff isn't a big deal—I can work around it—and while attempting to paint any kind of detail work while coughing can be tricky, it's the general fatigue that's killing me. I find myself in need of a nap mid-afternoon, but instead of taking it I fight through and am probably less productive than I'd be if I just gave in and came back after a rest. Whatever.

The good news is that I'm starting to feel a bit better. The better news is that the "Badass" cover changes are almost complete. Better still is that I should be getting the background on this piece figured out today. This might not involve as much painting as it will drawing and I'll be dusting off my old t-square momentarily. Essentially, I've decided to change things a bit, architecturally speaking. I'll flesh the changes out completely today so that I can start to get through the remainder of the painting and complete it (hopefully) by IlluxCon.

Anyway, here's a picture.

So, yeah. I should have a couple more progress shots in the coming days and hopefully at the end of the week or beginning of next a bit about the cover and why it's now different. Or something.

Ann Bonny and A Foray Into Digital Painting

I have painted the female pirate, Ann Bonny, seven times now.  The first five were for a card game called Anachronism, published by Triking Games.  That game has since vanished from the shelves of your local game store, but the images I did for that game have drummed up more work than any other images I have thus far produced.  To boot, I get requests to use to one image in particular come regularly — around two to three a year.  This is that image:

©MK3 International

As much as I'd like to sell the use of this image to the various companies and individuals that have requested it, I simply don't own the copyright.  The parent company of the publisher does, for this was a piece done as work-for-hire.

At this point, I could take the opportunity to step into the work-for-hire debate.  It's a worthy debate, indeed, and one about which I have mixed feelings.  For those not in the know, work-for-hire is when all copyright (and in some cases even the original, if one exists) are purchased from the artist.  This prevents the artist from selling additional printing rights to other clients down the road, and in some cases even restricts how the artist themselves can utilize the image (be it in self-promotion or the manufacturing of prints).  While this might seem like an okay thing provided that the monetary exchange is advantageous to the artist, the truth of the matter is that more often than not the rates offered are far below what organizations like the Graphic Artists Guild consider to be fair.

Now, having gone through the trouble of bringing everyone up to speed, I'm not going to delve any deeper into the work-for-hire topic.  Instead, I'll leave you with the pertinent information regarding the piece above.  I needed the work, Triking was my highest paying client at the time, and work-for-hire is fairly common practice in the fantasy, gaming industry.  Unfortunately, being work-for-hire and not owning the copyright myself, I now miss two to three opportunities each year to make additional monies on a piece for little to no additional effort on my part.

Thus was the case a month ago when I was once again approached about using the image.  This time, however, I put some effort into sleuthing.  You see, despite the fact that I don't own the image, I thought it worth trying to hunt down those who do — either the folks at MK3 or (if they'd been dissolved) whoever may have bought the assets from them.  After doing a bit of research, I was unable to confirm whether or not MK3, as an entity, even continues to exist.  Nor was I able to find out if they'd been bought, or folded into a new company.  I made a go of contacting the folks who used to run the company and had limited success.

What was my end game for all the legwork?  Simple.  Admittedly, it seemed pretty unlikely that I would get any money out of the deal, but I could at the very least gain exposure.  I figured at the very least, someone could make a couple bucks and my work could see the light of day and reach a new audience.

Despite doing my due diligence, as fate would have it, my search had a rather anticlimactic end.  I never managed to track down anyone who could tell me anything useful.  There was no one to point this new client to and have them work out a deal.  Even in the month since, I have been unable to confirm or refute any of the conjecture I've heard, nor have I gotten a reply from those who would definitely know something.  In short, I had nothing to tell my potential new client.

So that's it, right?  Another opportunity lost.  Well.... not exactly.  Like I said, I've painted Ann Bonny seven times.  While five of those pieces are out of bounds, I do own the rights to  the other two.  In an attempt to salvage the situation, I offered up usage to either of those versions.

Immediately the client was dismissive of one of the images.  It was the image of Ann Bonny from the original Badass book cover (link).  I completely understood.  It's part of a larger piece and really didn't work for them out of context.  The second image was a black and white painting of Ann, done for the interior of the same book.

While this image intrigued them, the fact that it was black and white was kind of deal breaker.  Still, I thought I could help them, so I did the obvious thing: I asked them if they'd be interested if I colorized the black and white piece digitally.

They were a little leery.  I don't blame them.  My portfolio isn't exactly brimming with digital work.  In fact, there are zero digital pieces in my portfolio.  Still, I assumed that between my own limited experience, and my wife's far more vast Photoshop knowledge, we'd be able to give them something useful.  To allay their fears, I offered to give them a progress shot within a couple of hours and based on that, they could run with it or kill the whole thing.  They agreed and I went to work.

The short story is that I painted over the original oil painting in Photoshop.  CS5 if you must know.  I turned the oil painting into a brown monochrome image, converted the whole thing into RGB, and painted on top of that in a new layer.  It's mostly just the paint brush and smudge tools.  Nothing fancy.  About as straightforward as my oil painting, really.

I started with the head and hands and worked out from there.  Once everything above the waist was complete, I blocked in the rest and submitted the half-finished work.  They liked it enough to ask me to complete it and I did.  A couple hours of work, an extra couple bucks made, and a lot of lessons learned.  Not a bad way to spend the afternoon.  Anyway, here's how it came out:

Admittedly, I am still new to the whole digital painting thing, and I can't say that I'm in love with it as a whole.  Painting with actual paint is an experience.  There is a smell of oil in the air.  You can feel the painting's surface through the brush much as you can feel the road through the steering wheel of a car.  All that unevenness creates all kinds of happy accidents along the way.  You can move the paint around with your fingers or a paper towel, or any number of other implements that they haven't yet managed to simulate digitally.

Digital painting lacks a lot of this.  There is no smell.  The physical surface is smooth and even.  The stylus is more a fat pencil than a brush.  It's a little colder to me.  A little less exciting.  As a result, I have resisted the industry's trend toward all things digital.

However, I do recognize that it's just another tool.  A tool that, used properly, can do great things.  I can't say as I'm to that point yet, but I've finally started giving it a real try.  My toes have been dipped, and I've even finished off a couple of assignments digitally (mostly because it allowed me to easily give more than one option to my art directors).  Whether I'll ever get to the point where I'm doing a piece from start to finish without ever using so much as a pencil... well... I'm really not sure.  For me, having the painting as an artifact — having that physical embodiment of my labor — is still important.  But, without a doubt, in this instance digital painting saved me and salvaged a situation that could have easily fallen apart.  It allowed me to do something I simply could not have accomplished with oils in the time I had to do it.  And to me, there's not a whole lot to dislike about that.

Badass Book Signing

Last night I had the pleasure of joining Ben Thompson, the author of the Badass books that I contributed work to, at his book signing in Boston.  It was the first time in my adult life that I'd ever gotten to do any kind of official book signing (having done so once in my adolescence for a project that I will eventually admit to at some point on this blog when things get slow).  It's also likely to be quite a while before the opportunity should present itself again.

©Amy Belledin

Fact is, by most rights I shouldn't have even been there in any capacity beyond spectator.  Even artists more famous than myself who've worked on books or their covers are rarely seen signing next to the books' authors at events such as this — unless, of course, the book in question happens to be a comic book.  So I consider it a real honor that the offer was made, and I didn't hesitate to say yes.

©Amy Belledin

I'd met Ben for the first time in person last year while I was spending some quality time in Seattle.  He and his wife, Andrea, were nice enough to take me out to dinner and I took the opportunity to show him the cover of his most recent book in progress.  I'd had lots of contact with him through email and such to that point, but couldn't pass up the opportunity to get to know him on some level.  He could not be a nicer, more affable, more humble human being — the kind of person that you want to see gain some measure of success (no matter how great or small).

Ben is one of those rare folks who stumbled into the success he's had and has been gracious enough to use that success to toss work to the likes of me and the other artists who have contributed to his books.  That's a rare thing, indeed, and despite his insistence that he owes me, I feel that the situation is quite the opposite.

©Amy Belledin

And so, at 7:00 pm last night, at the University of Boston Barnes and Noble, Ben gave a quick presentation to the score or so fans in the room.  This was followed by a Q&A that was more open and forthright than one typically hears, after which Ben and I sat and signed for a while.  Once every question was answered and every copy signed, we all (fans included), went out for a beer.  It is my belief that more book readings should end this way.

©Amy Belledin

Once again, I'd like to thank Ben for everything.  I wish him all the best, both in general and in his travels, and I raise a glass to the next book.

If you'd like to find out if he's coming to your area and when, you can find that information here.  If you'd like to know more about the art I contributed, everything I've written about it can be found here.

Badass Release!!!

So, I'm a day late with this one, as it actually happened yesterday, but Badass:The Birth of a Legend was released yesterday, and you can buy it wherever books are sold.  Like bookstores and such.  In celebration of the fact, I'm posting a few interiors I did for the book.  All black and white, all oil, all about 8"x10" on 10"x12" illustration board.  Pretty simple stuff.  Without further ado, the pieces:

Sinbad

White Tights

Red Dwarf

While I could explain what each of those is about, that would defeat the purpose of buying the book, now wouldn't it?  There are other pieces by other talented folks so it's worth picking up even for the art, but the writing isn't too bad, either.

There is a book tour that goes along with this book.  Ben Thompson, the author is busily shuffling about the U.S. reading, signing, and answering questions.  Allegedly, I'll be present at the book signing in Boston on March 29th.  Supposedly I'll be signing, too.  I haven't received any kind of confirmation to corroborate this, but I will be at the signing either way — even if it makes me look like a stalker or a groupie.  Further details regarding the tour can be found here.

Badass Alteration Animation

I made this for the part 5 of the Badass: Birth of a Legend story, but found it a little too distracting.  I figured it'd be a better image on its own.

Badass Movies

Behold: a promotional video for Badass: Birth Of a Legend!



While we're at it, here's the trailer for the first book:

The Many Covers of Badass, Part 5

The inclusion of Godzilla and Skeletor into the painting was the cause of most of my headaches.  This was the reason I needed the contract changed, and the reason for most of the delays.  Still, I don't often get to work with established characters, and it was a really great opportunity.  That the extra effort and frustration caused by said opportunity was for naught, was a great lesson.

Sometimes these things happen.  Sometimes simple jobs turn out to be among the most complicated.  Sometimes, you find yourself banging your head against a wall and not knowing why.  I cannot begin to understand the things that took place behind the scenes at the publisher's offices.  While the art director tried to keep me in the loop, there were many things that I was understandably not privy to.  I imagine that there were battles fought and noses bloodied, my art director wielding an emergency fire ax to chop through the line of red tape baring foes.  Or perhaps the conflict took place in a series of increasingly passive-aggressive memos.  It's even possible that the massive delays the I experienced were the result of a spontaneous outbreak of the bubonic plague that resulted in the CDC secreting away those affected and allowing no contact with the outside world until the threat was contained.  In all reality, however, it could simply have come down to folks at the publisher waiting to hear from other folks who were waiting to hear from completely different folks, causing me to wait in turn.

Alterations to pieces are part of the game.  While rarely at this scale, it's something that we illustrators must all learn to cope with.  In retrospect, I might have gotten a little precious in this case.  It might not have been so bad to have painted over Skeletor.  In fact, I'm pretty darned happy with Professor Moriarty, who currently stands as the fastest figure I've ever painted.  Still, finding a way around the problem allowed for a totally different set of lessons I might otherwise not have learned.

All the cool kids flip their collars.  You should too!

To say that I have two fully realized paintings isn't quite accurate.  I have one fully realized painting that was the original version of the cover, and a second piece that is half paint and half exposed giclee.  In my spare time, I am trying to finish off the rest of that second piece and cover the remaining surface with paint.  I'm not sure if it's worth it, but it's an interesting exercise.  While I'm not trying to recreate the first piece brushstroke for brushstroke, I'm certainly trying to make it look pretty much the same, save for improvements here or there.  When it's finished, I'll have it shot just as I did the first one, and it will likely become the master image for my records and replace the image on my site.


To be frank, I doubt that the either piece will sell.  The first Badass cover certainly hasn't, and in both cases I'll be happy no matter what should occur.  Sure it's nice to sell paintings, but it's not the end of the world to me should I get stuck with them.  After all, I destroy the really awful ones and save only what's worth saving.  Both of these are safe and one will likely be displayed.  The nice thing is that I will only need to buy one frame for both pieces and will be able to rotate the two as tastes dictate.  So I have that going for me, which is nice.

At the end of the day, I offer some advice.  First off, when dealing with copyrighted characters, always make sure you're covered legally.  If the product you're working on is a licensed product, you should be good to go.  But, sometimes you're not covered, and it's important to get that ironed out.  Many companies include clauses in their contracts that indemnify them against something the illustrator might have done, but not the other way around, so be careful what you sign.

In this case, I protected myself from the start.  I always save important emails for each job so that I can document the client's requests.  While I wouldn't necessarily have been covered without the clause I added to the contract, I would have at least had evidence in my own defense.  At the end of the day, the change in the contract was rendered moot by the final change.  So it all worked out, I guess.

A second thing I want to point out is that you should always pay attention to any part of the contract that talks about changes and alterations.  Most of the time, contracts are written so that changes resulting from the client's actions pay (often a fee to be negotiated), while changes resulting from the illustrator's actions are done at no additional cost to the client.  However, some clients I've worked with allowed themselves multiple rounds of changes in the contract — both to the sketches and finishes.  These changes paid no additional fee.  So, again, read your contract.

At the end of the day, I'm not complaining.  The author is cool, the art director is cool, the job itself is cool, it's just the situation that wasn't cool.  But every job is a gamble on some level.

Finally, a shameless plug.  The book is called Badass: The Birth of a Legend.  At least, that's what I heard it called most recently.  The author is called Ben Thompson and his website can be found here.  The paintings are called The Legend of Badass (v1) and (v2), after the book's original title.  The book is released this March 15th, and can be purchased wherever books are sold.

The Many Covers of Badass, Part 4

If you've already read part 1, part 2, or part 3, you likely see where this story is headed.

After many complications and many months, I had finally completed the book cover.  The check came, it cleared, all was right with the world.  I moved on.  Then, last fall, the move to Boston became finalized, and it was clear that my world was going to be thrown into utter chaos for a time.  As I was preparing for the move, I finally got the email I'd been dreading.

As I mentioned before, the question of whether or not Skeletor and Godzilla should be on the cover came up again, and after much discussion it was decided that they should not.  Bummer.  I liked Skeletor.  Godzilla was okay, but Skeletor came out well!

I'll get you for this, He-Man!

The art director and I discussed our options.  The publisher's first instincts were to have me alter Godzilla and Skeletor's appearance enough that we couldn't possibly get sued.  This isn't an option I particularly liked.  First off, Skeletor and Godzilla are both actually in the book.  Folks reading it would look inside, see both of them, then look at the cover and think I didn't know what the heck I was doing.  Had I ever seen these guys before?  Since when is Skeletor red?  And why does Godzilla have a beak?  These are the types of questions that would invariably come up.

Second, changing those two characters to the extent needed to avoid legal action would result in me essentially painting two new figures.  I argued that if I was going to do that much work, they might as well be other characters in the book that no one will get sued for.  Fortunately, the art director agreed.

The next question became which characters should be the replacements.  Given Godzilla's size and placement in the piece, what replaced him had to be of similar scale.  Because I'd already done one for inside the book (seen here), I proposed a dragon.  They loved it.  Skeletor's replacement was up to them, as I genuinely had no idea who among the cast of characters included in the book would fit the bill.  They came back with Sherlock Holmes' nemesis, Professor Moriarty.  Cool.  I moved on to the sketch.

A major challenge with alterations on finished pieces is that they are impossible to plan for.  One hopes that all of the kinks are worked out on a given job before one goes to paint.  This doesn't always happen, but one can't exactly leave gaping holes in one's schedule in anticipation that it might.  One needs to fill one's schedule with jobs so one can eat and pay one's rent.

This is the situation I found myself in, and my schedule was full.  Further complicating matters was the minor detail that I was about to uproot my life in New York and drag it up to Boston.  Compounding those factors was that they needed the revisions done post-haste.  In fact, I had only three days to get them the sketch so that they could include it in the catalog they use to sell books to stores and distributors.  It was going to be tight, to say the least.

I went digital with the sketch again — this time opting to work directly on top of a black and white version of the painting itself.

Again, pretty straightforward stuff.  They liked it and gave me the go ahead, but there was still a big dilemma to resolve.

When repainting much of a piece like this, one can go several ways.  One can paint directly over the original.  Or, one can just paint the replacement figures separately and blend it all together digitally.  I didn't much fancy painting over the original.  The big sticking point was Skeletor.  Unlike He-Man, I didn't want to destroy him.  At the same time, I didn't want to paint the figures separately because they'd lack a certain amount of context, and I feared that I'd need to do an awful lot of digital manipulation to make them fit into the piece color and value-wise.  I talked with a few other artists and came to a third solution: I had a giclee print made of the original cover, pasted it down onto a piece of hardboard, and did the alterations on it, rather than the original painting.

This meant that I'd have all the context of the original piece including the correct palette, value structure, and composition.  It also meant that for better or worse, I'd end up with what amounted to two original paintings.  Given the increased amount of room my new home had to offer, this wasn't much of a concern.  This option was the closest thing I could think of to having my cake and eating it too, and I'm glad I went this route.  It may not have been perfect, but having the image there saved me a lot of time on the back end and time was of the essence.

To complete the job, I would have a week at most, depending on how quickly I was able to get my studio unpacked and in working order.  As it turned out, that took far longer than expected, and I had only a few days.  So, I disappeared into my studio to paint the dragon and Moriarty, scan the piece, retouch it, and hand it in.  The deadline made, I went back to my regularly scheduled job, and eventually celebrated Christmas.

Tomorrow: thoughts, warnings, details, and conclusions.

The Many Covers of Badass, Part 3

Part 1 of this tale can be found here.  Part 2, here.  Here begins part three:

While admittedly not a He-Man fan, painting Skeletor certainly wasn't a problem for me.  I was pretty confident that I knew enough to make him relatively cool.  I whipped up a new version of the sketch and did what I could.  I even tried to keep all three furies in there, because I'm a completist.

Painting Skeletor was certainly a minor change.  The real issue was one of copyright.  While I was excited to get a chance to tackle Godzilla and Skeletor, I didn't fancy the idea of being sued for their use.  It seemed wise that I should cover myself legally.  So before moving ahead, I asked a few friends for advice.  Everyone came back with the same thoughts and confirmed my gut instinct: I needed to make sure I was indemnified in the contract against lawsuits brought on by the use of copyrighted characters.

Fortunately, HarperCollins was totally cool with it.  I needed to add the necessary language to the contract myself, but it otherwise wasn't going to be an issue.  I have no idea whether or not they felt the clause was entirely necessary, but it seemed only fair that I be covered as Godzilla and Skeletor were being included at their behest.  It took a while to iron everything out, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Time moved one, and the deadline began to loom.

Their response to the sketch above was positive, but they felt that my attempts to keep all three Furies in there was pointless.  They asked me to excise the tiny one on the right that I'd added, and gave me final approval.  Official green light in hand, I tweaked the sketch a bit for my own purposes, changing the scale of a few of the figures and cementing them all in their final positions.

There's a real subtle shift here from the image above.

I took this finalized sketch and removed most of the grayscale under painting, as well as the small fury on the right.  I then printed it out and pasted it down to a piece of hardboard.  After a day's worth of prep, the piece was ready.  I gathered up my reference, shot whatever I needed in addition to that then started slapping paint down.

Because of an assignment I was working on that required me to travel, I painted most of this piece in a hotel room.  I didn't enjoy the experience, and I don't recommend it.  I was never comfortable, and so the piece took a long time to really start flowing.  It could be argued that it never really did flow.  It was a frustrating piece to paint due to a variety of extenuating circumstances, and if I'd known what would eventually happen, I would have waited until I was back in my studio to work on it.

The short story is that everything about the job kept getting pushed back.  There were delays upon delays at just about every stage of the job.  I can't even begin to understand why, but it happened.  I figure I put more time into dealing with details than I did the actual painting, and the constant waiting got pretty frustrating.  I wouldn't go as far as to say it was a nightmare, but it was certainly among the most difficult jobs I've ever dealt with.  Such is the nature of the beast...well, this beast anyway.

Now, I want to take a minute here and point out that the art director I worked with was and is awesome.  He fought the good fight on my behalf, and I know this because he carbon copied me on almost every email he sent out dealing with the many issues I faced.  As much as he could, he kept me in the loop, and I can't tell you how rare and awesome that is.  Because of this, I never once threw a fit, or burst out in rage.  He was not the cause of any of the delays or problems that I had to deal with, and so was hardly deserving of any venom I might have spewed.

And here it is — this is the piece that I labored to produce.  It has its problems (I'm not 100% happy with Godzilla), but I'm still pretty happy with the piece.  In fact, I'm really quite proud of Skeletor in particular.

At the end of the day, I made my deadline.  The piece was finished, shot, digitized and was handed over.  The author, art director, and HarperCollins as a whole seemed pretty pleased.  However, throughout the months that followed the job, I had a nagging suspicion that it wasn't over.  I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, and drop it did.

It seems that eventually, the question of whether or not Godzilla and Skeletor should be used was raised again, and the final leg of this trip began.

The Many Covers of Badass, Part 2

Part 1 of this tale appeared yesterday and can be found here.  Part 2 begins now:

I kept in touch with the author of Badass for a variety of reasons — not the least of which is that he's a super nice guy.  Only a few months after the first book had been released, he let me know that HarperCollins was talking about a second book and wanted to know if I was interested.  Silly question.  I liked doing the black and white interiors the first go around and the cover wasn't so much like icing on the cake as having a whole second cake!  I figured that even if I didn't get the cover of the second book, I'd still be pretty happy to do the work offered.

While the first Badass book centered around historical figures, this second one was to concentrate more on mythological figures, fictional characters, and urban legend types.  No matter what I ended up working on, I knew it was going to be a fun job.

At first, I was unsure of my return as the cover artist.  I wouldn't have blamed them from moving on to another artist, even given that the first cover had gotten into Spectrum.  I never look at any gig as a guarantee, as any number of variables exist within a given job that can sink it at almost any time.  I've seen jobs fall apart, imprints disappear, and whole companies do the same.  Illustration is not for the faint of heart, after all.  Nevertheless, I got an email from the art director about the job and I, of course, said yes.

This time around, in the opening stages the art director sent me an image of an old Star Wars poster that he wanted me to use as inspiration for the flavor of the cover.  The piece would have five figures total and would include the following: Thor (the mythological version, not the Marvel version), the Furies of Greek mythology (there were at least 3), and Godzilla.

Assignment in hand, I immediately set to work and produced two sketches.  One's composition was pretty much completely stolen from the Star Wars poster.  The second was somewhere in between the first sketch and the first book's cover.  I figured it would be a good idea to give him two different options.  It's a good thing I did.

Blatant rip-off, but boy do I like this one.

A sensible alternative.

As you can see, I went with digital sketches again.  Well, partially.  This time around, I did quick pencil roughs, scanned them in, then digitally painted over them, once again keeping each figure on a separate layer.  Pretty straightforward, I think.  These are exactly as I handed them in.

If I had to choose one, I like the first version.  Despite it's being ripped off of the Star Wars poster, I really dig the flow of elements in the piece.  It has a sense of movement and really takes your eye on a deliberate trip.  Plus, there's a sense of scale there that I really like.  While I don't dislike the second one, it certainly wouldn't have been my first choice.

As is always the case, they picked the sketch I wanted to do less, citing as their reason that it would read better as a cover.  They also decided to make some changes.  They asked me to flip the piece and to show more skin on the furies — two changes I was totally cool with.

The request to flip the piece was due to a design change which would require them to put text in the upper left hand corner.  It also got rid of an issue that tends to bug me at times and that is the left-handed weapon.  While there are certainly left-handed fighters out there in the world, I saw no reason that Thor should be wielding his hammer so.  In fact, I'm not entirely sure why I did it in the first place.  I guess I was just emulating what I'd already done in the first sketch.

The request to show more skin on the furies had two reasons, I guess.  One, the furies are often depicted nude which was a step too far for our purposes.  I had intended to have them in torn gowns but that was clearly a little too conservative for the likes of a Badass book.  And so, weird leather bikinis were in order.  Or something.  I figure the second reason was blatant pandering to the teen crowd. While, I'm not in marketing, it seems a reasonable enough assumption.

You know, it's funny how flipping a piece changes it.  I'm of the opinion that it really does work better this way.  But what do I know?

Anyway, this seemed like it might be the sketch that got the go ahead.  It had everything they'd requested (no matter how poorly drawn), and the art director was really stoked.  It seemed like the stars were aligning.

So, obviously it was time to put a kink in things.  One more change was requested: they asked that I replace one of the furies with Skeletor.  While the request was simple, the ripples it caused with the job were enormous and had me banging my head against the wall on several occasions.

The Many Covers of Badass, Part 1

The cover for the book, Badass, came out of the blue.  I was originally contacted by the author to do a few interior black and white pieces, and somehow that got me the cover painting.  Or the interior paintings I handed in got me the cover painting.  I don't know.  Either way, I got the cover.

So, the art director called me and we hammered out the details.  With everything explained, I went to work.  The first sketch was terrible enough that I really don't feel good about posting it.  Suffice it to say that there were three historical figures in the piece and that they were stagnantly placed and the whole thing was boring.

They didn't like it. 

So, they asked for changes.  They wanted it to be cooler and they reduced the number of figures to two, but added a tank and a biplane.  They also changed which historical figures I'd be using.  I gave it another go and the result was less stagnant to be sure, but was so poorly composed as to make me cringe.

They still didn't like it and I don't blame them.

At this point, I felt a little nervous.  I could almost smell the disappointment on their end and I was really worried that I might lose this opportunity if I didn't make a big leap next go around.  But as luck would have it, the situation got worse.

Around this time, HarperCollins (along with just about every major publishing company), was being forced to adjust to a weaker economy.  The publishing bubble had burst and the imprint that the book was intended to be published under folded.  As I'm just a lowly illustrator, I was not kept in the loop.  I heard nothing for a month, and was fairly certain that any chance I might have had was now gone.

Apparently, Badass was safe.  There was just a bit of wrangling necessary to figure out where it should be published, and what its time line should be.  And so, after several weeks of silence, I got an email from a brand new art director, with a brand new book design, and some brand new changes for the cover.  I'm not sure whether or not I might ever have been in danger of losing the job, but I treated this clean slate as a second chance and swung as hard as I could.

Now, I'm not sure how common it is, but the art director provided me with the book's design before I'd even done the revised sketch.  The book, overall, was very deliberately designed and they wanted me to fit my three figures into the space provided — a space with a very specific size and shape thanks to the placement of the the title and the author's name.  The disadvantage was that I didn't have quite as much free rein as I might otherwise have had.  The advantage, however, was that I now had a digital file of the precise layout of the book.  I could incorporate that into the sketch and make absolute certain that my piece would fit in the space provided.

Early on, I decided to do my sketches digitally knowing that they might change one or more of the figures (something that clearly turned out to be true).  By keeping each figure on a separate layer, I could easily eliminate one while keeping the other two intact.  This decision also allowed me to play with the proportions of each figure in relation to the others and fine tune my sketch with ease. 

The new changes included eliminating the tank and biplane, but keeping one of the historical figures from the previous version, though upping the total number of figures back to three.  So, I sketched away, going for something that might begin to fit the book's name and design.  Here's what it looked like:

Pretty pathetic, I know.

The art director took the sketch and popped it into the design and pitched it to the highers up.  Apparently they liked it enough to give it the green light and I moved on to paint.

As you can see, it got a lot better after I shot reference and did my thing.  It was approved and after some digital manipulation went on to become the cover for Badass, by Ben Thompson.

I submitted the piece last year for Spectrum 17, and sent it in with a bunch of other pieces that I'd done for Magic which I was sure would have a better chance.  To my surprise, this is the piece that made it into Spectrum while the Magic pieces failed to make the cut.  Funny how things happen.  You can never predict what will end up tickling the fancy of any given group of people.  Had it been a different group of people I wonder if they might not have gone a different way.  But then, the dynamics of groups during the judging of competitions is a whole other topic.

So, you may be wondering why this post is called "The Many Covers of Badass."  "Many" implies more than one.  Indeed you are astute and correct.  It would come to pass that HarperCollins saw fit to publish a second Badass book, and also saw fit to keep the creative team in place.  Once again I'd be doing a few interiors, as well as the cover.  Once again, I'd be working with the same art director.  Once again, I'd be making changes.  But this time, I ran the gauntlet and lived to tell about it.

Badass Black and White

In the fall of '08, I was contacted to do some interior pieces for a book called, Badass.  The weird thing was that I was asked to do some black and white work.  To that point I hadn't really done any black and white work, but it was a fun project so I went for it.  The strange thing in retrospect was that I decided to do the work in oils rather than pen and ink.  I've always loved black and white oil paintings and it seemed to me to be the natural way to go.  I also looked upon the job as an opportunity to practice digital painting, which I did for my sketches.

Originally, I was told that the 6 pieces I had done would be spot images at the beginning of each chapter and should fit into a 6" x 6" square (the book has a 6" x 9" proportion).  Thus, I painted all but two of the six pieces square, deviating on the remaining two thinking that they would be cropped to fit the space.  This is where a second strange decision came in: I made the paintings 100% of their reproduction size.  They were tiny, 6" wide oil paintings.

When the book was finally released, my heart sank upon discovering that the design team decided to turn the illustrations into full-bleed images on the pages opposite the chapter starts, resulting in all of the images being severely cropped.  This wouldn't normally be a problem for me, but I had made the paintings so small that the cropped images had to be blown up in order to fill the taller space.  The printed versions were at least 50% larger than the original paintings.  The bad news is that the compositions weren't designed for the taller proportions on most of the pieces.  The good news is that the designers who'd made the decisions on where to crop had a good eye and did pretty much what I would have done.  All in all, the end result could have been worse, and I didn't complain — they offered me the cover after all!

Anyway, here is one of the interiors.  It depicts Eliot Ness and is one of the two that wasn't square.  I believe this piece suffered the least cropping.  Digital sketch first, then painting.  In case you're wondering, I did print out the digital sketch and paint on top of it, but the sketch was completely covered by the oils.

Eliot Ness sketch, full of 1's and 0's.

Eliot Ness painting, full of Titanium White and Ivory Black.

Rare Pen and Ink

Look!  There be actual illustration in this illustrator's blog!

Hot off the drawing board is a piece I did for a book interior.  I know I'm allowed to show it, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to talk about the book, so I'll keep that mum for now.  The real curious thing about my ten years illustrating in the fantasy and sci-fi gaming business is that I have only ever been asked to illustrate a dragon twice.  The odd thing here is that this drawing wasn't even for the gaming industry, but rather for mainstream publishing.  Weird.  And it's in pen and ink.  Even weirder.  The only pen and ink I've ever been paid to do.  Weirder still.

So, without further ado, I present the sketch then the finish below:

Pretty straightforward sketch.

Pretty straightforward finish.