Something shiny

ArtOrder.com Grimm Tales Challenge Wylie Elise BeckertI'm in the middle of packing and getting ready to move. Maybe I'll fill you all in on that later.  Maybe not.

In the meantime here is something wonderfully shiny to distract you.

Another challenge just finished at Artoder.com

The challenge was to illustrate one of the original Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Not the happy entertaining stories we know an love today. The dark, scary, life lesson stories.

The voting is going on now. Stop over and look through the lineup and see some great work, AND VOTE

I have a project that is in the works, that I hope to share soon, and I still have to update from Illustration Academy. Wait till you see the pictures of the studio. F'ing amazing. Oh yeah, and some of my work from the Academy.

 

 

Aaaaahhhh!

There are few feelings better than finishing a project. That moment you are done, for better or worse, and can put everything away. It's done. No judgements until tomorrow. The client, teacher, judge, etc. may kick you in the balls tomorrow, but you have done every thing you can to produce your best work.

This is a great feeling. What makes it the best for me, is knowing I can just sit down in a comfortable chair, and stare at the wall for awhile. No guilt. Time to decompress. All that time spent on the project, thinking about it every waking moment, is over. Aaaahhh! Time to empty what little brain space I have up there. I'm going to have to start filling it up again soon....sigh. I guess the decompression time is over.

Illustration Academy

I did it last year, and it was one of the greatest experiences. A month of non-stop picture making. Seriously, 16 hour days were the short ones! It was great. I slept for a day after the last week of the academy. Although that might of had as much to do with my celebrating the completion as it was exhaustion.

This year I will be going again, and with mostly new instructors (to me). Last year, the academy was held in Richmond, VA and in Kansas City. I was in Richmond. This year everyone will be gathering in KC. It will be great to see the instructors I did meet last year.

Unfortunately, due to expenses, day job, and a move coming up, I'll only be able to attend for a couple weeks. Oh well. A couple weeks is better than no Academy at all.  Check it out. It's well worth the money and time if you want to learn.

Check out that damn faculty! Mark English, John English, Sterling Hundley, Anita Kunz, Jon Foster, Brent Watkinson, George Pratt, CF Payne and more!

 

CGHUB Challenge

I mentioned this in the last post and didn't bother to post a link. I'm dumb.

Here you go. Take a look at that list of prizes!!!

It's not why we do this, but damn, it doesn't hurt.

Eowyn & The Nazgul

I just did this for the Eowyn & The Nazgul Challenge over at theartorder.com.

These challenges are quite the experience. I ended up spending a couple of all nighters at my aunt's dining room table while I was on vacation. That wasn't the plan originally. I started on it the day the contest was announced. I just had problem after problem getting it how I wanted. One day not being able to draw, the next day re-working everything I did the previous day when I couldn't draw, then a day or two of 2nd guessing my entire idea, throw in a few days of completely debilitating self-doubt and there you are at 5am the night before the deadline at your aunt's kitchen table.

In the end it turned out ok. It's not my favorite piece of all time, but I don't hate it (That happens alot).

What I really need to do is stop obsessing over a finished piece. I could keep working on any one of my pieces for the rest of my life and never be quite satisfied.

So..on to the next piece. I have some actual paying gigs to take care of that are not exciting at all, but necessary to have income.

Maybe I'll have time to fit the CGHub/ImagineFX challenge in.

Anyway, go check out the lineup of entries to the challenge. There is alot of amazing work!

http://theartorder.com/2011/05/16/eowyn-and-the-nazgul-challenge-line-up/ 

 

Welcome!

I am slowly figuring things out and putting this site together. As far as usability goes; Squarespace is as easy as I could hope for. Now I just have to figure out what I want it to look like.

So...The gallery is pretty small so far. I'm only putting things up that have been completed recently. I'm hoping to add one new image per month (or close to that).  All my other work just isn't relevant to what I'm wanting to do these days. If you must see the old stuff, you can go to my deviantart page. It will be in the links.

As for this blog....I have no idea what direction I'm going to go with this. Obviously I'll be showing what I'm working on, my latest completed work, etc...  but I would like to make this a little more than another gallery of my work. I'll be thinking on it. Maybe we will just fumble through this together and see what happens. Hopefully there will be some reason you want to add it to your list of blogs.