I can't pay you now, BUT...

About once a month I get the exact same message from a different naive creative type. Each and every one of them has this AMAZING story idea. It's going to be better than Lord of the Rings and Star Wars combined and change the way society thinks about storytelling. They're thinking graphic novel. A logical place to start. They just need an artist. They saw your work and you're exactly what they're looking for. And then the inevitable:


I can't afford to pay you now, BUT! You'll get 50% of the profits! 


Wow! All they need is for you to draw the entire thing, spend months of your life working tirelessly to create a massive body of work for zero pay with the empty promise that the project will be profitable enough for you to recoup the money lost drawing the damn thing?! Where can I sign!?


I have a large enough collection of these emails that I figured it was time for me to put my foot down. 


First, to the artists:
You wouldn't ask a mechanic to build you a truck for free with the promise that he'll get a percentage of all the money you make on deliveries.
You wouldn't ask a janitor to clean your office building for free with the promise that he'll get a percentage of all the business done in the building. 
Artists, you are professionals and deserve to be paid. If you're going to work on something for free, it will be your OWN passion project (hell, I'm working on mine). Promises of future profits are not going to feed you, clothe you, or fund your own project. If you get a request like this simply thank them for their interest, and decline.


Second, to the people who send these requests:
If you are truly passionate about this project, and believe in your heart of hearts that it will be as big as you say it will, GO FIND INVESTORS. Find people with money who believe in your project too. Take their money and give it to the artist of your dreams and watch the beautiful artwork pour in. Are investors not interested in your project? Maybe it's not as good as you thought it was. OR, maybe it's time to get a second job and start saving up enough money to keep an artist on commission?


In the end, there are thousands of creative people out there with incredible ideas. We all just need to respect each other enough to value hard work.

Scarlet

Our little girl, Scarlet, was born last week. She's happy and healthy with a dark head of hair. I painted this image for her and will be putting it up in her room. I've had the name Scarlet in mind for years and it comes from the Bible, Proverbs 31 (A Wife of Noble Character). In describing this incredible woman of great character and quality, this one verse in particular caught my eye:

"She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet."

Digging into the research, the use of "scarlet" refers to scarlet dyed wool, as it is double dyed to get the intense color. It seems to be a poetic way of saying her household is clothed doubly, layered against the cold. Regardless, the imagery of a family walking through snow in bright scarlet cloth became firmly lodged in my head. So, Scarlet is a name that is both visually striking and nods to a beautiful book in the Bible, Proverbs 31.

...waiting...

any day now

Fantasy reference fiesta

Thank goodness for dedicated nerds and their glorious costume galleries.

Skyrim

Honestly, I can't remember the last time I had this much fun with a videogame.

Vacation in Italy

It's been wonderful.

My Lord of the Rings

I hadn't fully mourned the loss of MY Lord of the Rings until now.

Peter Jackson's films were amazing and definitive and I love them, however it wasn't until I tried to read through the books again that I fully understood how definitive they were. Millions of dollars and hundreds of talented artists fleshed out Tolkien's world in a way my imagination never could. As I read I found that every character and location had been replaced by actors, Weta's sculptures, New Zealand's beautiful landscapes. It's all great, but it broke my heart to realize that mine was gone.

This image is one last hurrah. One last artistic foray into my own vision of the story when Middle Earth was the Canadian Rockies I grew up by, the soundtrack was by Loreena Mckennitt and the players were all made up.

It was funny and sad to see that even this attempt to recreate my image of the characters was tinted by the films. Oh well, I'll always have them tucked away on a shelf in my mind.

Assassin

Just a bit of exploration. I've been enjoying these hoods lately.

We are NOT taking the wizard.

Sitting around a camp fire, my friends and I talked about wizards. Wizards, if they were real, would be the worst people. Dabbling in all sorts of grim abominations for dubious ends. They'd be the last people you'd ever hire for a quest, and then only in utter desperation.

MDK

Galactus, Eater of Worlds

A quicky based on a conversation Tom and I had a year ago.

Galactus is a problem. In comics he's fantasic, a giant purple techno-demi-god that stands around vaguely menacing planets. When it comes to translating him into movie form, or even movie-caliber comic form (Ultimate: Galactus) he's been turned into a space-dust-storm and swarm of giant metal bugs respectively.

Tom suggested I read up on his backstory, and it turns out that Galactus is the only living creature to have lived before our universe and survive the big bang.

We may have been a little hopped up on Hellboy, but we started thinking it would be great if Galactus looked alien, ancient, and gargantuan. He could be loosely human shaped, enough that legends of him could have mistaken him for a massive man.

Sister

My sister came by for a visit, and it's her birthday, so she got drew'd.

Sean Beaner

Pirate

Okay, so the Tablet I picked up is the ASUS Eee Slate EP121. I've been loving the mobility. It works like a charm, it's got the blue tooth key board so I don't get slowed down trying to work around all my hotkeys and shortcuts.

For this one, I think there's a spectrum of complexity when it comes studies and I wanted to try something more complex. This is trying to translate reference material into my typical concept art "blueprint" style instead of a quicker traditional painting approach.

studizing

In order to familiarize myself with the new tablet I've been doing some photo-reference work. New medium = time to do some life drawing. Observational drawing forces you to really open up on a new medium, giving you challenges you wouldn't have chosen for yourself.

Anyway, here:

Courtyard

I love the way the light hits our building. It bounces around and creates these fantastic graphic shapes everywhere.

Watching a movie

Picked up a Tablet PC (ASUS 121 something or other) and to break it in I started doing some painting from life. This is a portrait of my wife watching Weird Science for the first time.

Doodles

Some of my latest doodles. Really trying to work on anatomy, foreshortening and action. Concept art can rarely be dynamic so it's easy to lose touch with drawing characters in motion.

Birth of Athena

This started as a figure drawing, but once it became Athena I couldn't help but polish it up a bit.

some practice

trying to get back to the basics

Disneypocalypse

So, here's the weirdest thing I've drawn in a while. My wife and I have been watching some classic Disney movies and it got me thinking about the short-lived gigantic final forms some of the villains take. Maleficent, Jafar and Ursula in particular spend seconds as massively destructive titans. It got me thinking about what would happen if they were able to spend days, even weeks as apocalyptic monsters. Then I started to wonder what would happen if you had to deal with all three at once. You'd probably want to limp away and wait until they finished one another off.

Cheetara

I was never really into Thundercats as a kid and there are dozens of amazing redesigns of these characters. Despite both of these solid reasons, I sketched this up anyway. The only purpose it served was to experiment with some exaggerated anatomy.

Some of the cast of Dragon Age II

Big Version

From left to right:
Varric, Cassandra, Anders, Aveline, Sebastian, Fenris, Bethany (with her early short blond hair), Merrill, Isabela and Flemeth.
This isn't the full cast, just a selection of characters I was involved in concepting. Thankfully, at Bioware the spirit of collaboration is a cultural norm. It can often be tricky to tell where one artist's work ends and another begins. I wanted to call out the Dragon Age II concept art team, a group of incredibly talented bastards:
Ben Huen
Casper Konefal
Ville Kinnunen
Steve Klit
Ramil Sunga
Nick Thornborrow
Also awesome but no longer at Bioware:
Joy Ang
Sung Kim

Medusa

My brother's friend suggested we "draw Medusa as the protagonist"

Why?

If you have a moment, i'm curious to hear your opinion.

Why do you make art? Why do you CONTINUE to make art? What keeps you going?

Tapestry of Fail

For the sake of artistic therapy i'm uploading some of the illustrative failures of 2010. It feels cathartic to air out this dirty laundry. These images fell appart on my, or just didn't excite me enough to continue them.
*sigh*
It actually feels good to get them out. It's like purging.

Portrait

Hibernating on a cold December morning, drawing my wife as we watch Kids in the Hall.

Uh...Earl? You okay, Earl?

...Why are you looking at me like that, Earl?

Date Night

Coming back after a fun night out.

Fireside chat

Something random, drawn for fun as I listened to a Tolkien lecture series. The lady is based on my wife and the wolf is probably just a result of wanting a dog.

Northerner

My favorite graphic novel of all time is Mike Mignola's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. I love the big, red headed northerner, Fafhrd. This isn't specifically him, but I was definitely thinking of him as I drew it. Experimenting with simplicity. I keep flipping between two mindsets. I want to create a million quick images, then I want to creat a handful of super-rendered images. In the end i'm sure i'll settle on the million and quick end of the spectrum.

Batman and Ivy

This was really nothing more than a figure drawing exercise that got WAY out of control. Now it's Batman and Poison Ivy. Batman is wearing a modified balistics mask and S.A.S. style gear.

Country Walk

A Lord and his Lady go for a long walk through their valley. I love drawing bullshit fantasy characters. It's so liberating to make everything up.

Reboot continued

Dragon Age II

This image was just posted, so I figured I'd put it up here as well. It's the first concept of mine from Dragon Age II to be released. There a lot of incredibly talented people working on this project, and I think everyone is going to be impressed.

The best villain ever

Maleficent from Disney's Sleeping Beauty is the best villain ever. She's deadly, cruel and beautiful (without dressing like a tart, so you can take her seriously). I've always been a little fascinated by her so for fun I thought i'd explore some ideas about her past. Her 16th birthday, and overlooking her freshly conquored territory.

Sauron

My brother suggested I read the full history of Sauron. It was fascinating, his story is so complex and tragic. I wanted to draw a version of him in his mostly-human form, forging the One Ring. I wanted to making him look like an angel or demi-god in human form, beautiful but scary. His costume is meant to reflect elements of his full armor in the movie (that design was just too awesome to ignore). It's also meant to be somewhat androgynous, as it's a handy way to show that a character is beyond human gender considerations. His arms are coated in ash from the forging process, but that's also a nod to his admiration of Morgoth, who's hands were permanently burnt when he stole the Silmarils. His eyes are like the Great Eye, to keep this design connected to his final form on Middle Earth.

reboot reboot

We watched Reboot religiously when we were kids. We recorded episodes and watched them over and over again. I was recently reminded of the series, so I went back and watched through all of it again. Say what you will about the dated graphics, they knew how to tell a story.

Maybe the third beer was having an effect, or maybe I was just hit with a wave of sentimentality, but I started drawing my versions of these now iconic characters. I got so into it I stayed up scrawling under a single lamp until I crashed at 3am.

What I wanted to do was draw the characters using some of the knowledge I’ve gained over the years as a concept artist. I’ve noticed some unfortunate trends in the industry that I feel are my duty to oppose. Reboot is an excellent subject for study because they had some very strong designs to start with. They knew they were working within certain technical limitations and they found a design language that suited it perfectly. Bold graphic shapes, appealing material contrast, etc... We no longer face many of those limitations. My major concept was:

Redesign the characters to enhance their role in the narrative, while maintaining the strong, simple graphic language.

My goals for each were as follows (from left to right):

Enzo – Chaotic good. He’s young, energetic, and undisciplined. Shirt un-tucked, hair a mess. He was raised by his sister after his scientist-father died (he still refuses to take off his father’s lab coat). He craves action and adventure, and rarely touches the ground. The kneepads come in handy frequently.

Mouse – Chaotic neutral. She’s a mercenary with special talents. She’s a hacker, an escape artist, an infiltrator. While she’s learned to look out for number one, Bob’s natural charisma is making it hard for her to resist caring for his cause. I made her smaller, like a mouse. The hood helps her seem more guarded, more thief-like. She’s a little harder to trust. In the show she has vibrant orange hair. Since I don’t know why the did that (stylistic whim?) I decided to make it a darker version of her skin like Dot and Enzo. I put the orange in her hoodie instead.

Bob – Chaotic good. Guardians are like a military organization. Bob is a young member, spontaneous, reckless, and a radical thinker. His charm has been his best asset, though his guardian key tool “Glitch” comes in at a close second. I put him in a uniform, but he’s not too particular about regulation. I made Glitch a full glove because in tough situations it is Bob’s right hand. Literal, thy name is Matt.

Dot – Lawful good. She’s an intelligent, ambitious woman. A business owner, forced to step into the role of mother to her younger brother Enzo. Ever since she saw her father die in a lab accident, she has tried to control as many aspects of life as possible. She’s always three steps ahead of everyone else, which makes her a brilliant strategist, but she is definitely at odds with
Bob’s seemingly careless attitude. I wanted her to dress as cleanly and sharply as possible. Her hair is pressed down. She’s trying to keep everything in order.

Megabyte – Lawful evil. The viral strategist. He plots, he schemes, he watches his diabolical plans unfold from his tower fortress. While he is physically capable, he prefers not to get his hands dirty. He’s still an imposing figure, but I toned his bulk down a little, gave him a regal (rather than animalistic) pose. I love the hip-sphere, and his head fins. Those two elements were too good to loose. Megabyte has always been a favorite of mine so I couldn’t change those elements. For him and Hexadecimal I came up with a reverse fade color scheme. Blue and red, but inverted for each. They share the same genes, but they are worlds apart. Again, literal, but to me those designs end up giving the most payoff.

Hexadecimal – Chaotic evil. Megabyte’s viral sister. She represents destruction, havoc, anarchy. Life and death are just as good, as far as she’s concerned. I made her crown more twisted, and gave her some of Megabyte’s anatomy (they are related, after all).

exhilaration experiment

I saw "how to train your dragon" and loved it. Some of the flight scenes were exhilarating, like those all-too-rare flying dreams. This is an attempt to get some of that feeling of vertigo and exhilaration in an image. Might try a few more versions later.

Deja Thoris and John Carter

I used to draw Lord of the Rings characters a lot. Then the movies came out and fullfilled every artistic question I had. I haven't drawn anything from it since. Knowing that a Pixar version of John Carter of Mars is coming, I figure I might as well get my drawings out now.

Lord Time

Just having fun. Spending every day running between fantasy and sci-fi, steampunk feels like a nice vacation genre.

Mass Effect 2 concept art

Here is some of the concept art I did for Mass Effect 2. I'm so proud of the entire team, and very thankful to have been involved in such an awesome game.