1. "Can you introduce yourself for the
people who don't know you?"
Well, I’ve always had an aptitude and love of drawing
since I was little. I spent a lot of
time reading comics and watching classic horror films. The art in comics inspired me and I sketched
a lot when I was young. My grandfather
was a commercial artist and used to do beautiful marker renderings of my
favorite superheroes for me when I would sleep over.
I knew very early on that I wanted to be an artist. Luckily, my high school had a pretty
extensive art program which gave me a good introduction to a variety of
mediums. I’m thankful for all the
training and encouragement I received while there.
I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and I wanted to go
to a college close to home to get more formal training in art. When I heard that Northern Illinois
University had a working comic artist teaching there, I enrolled. I studied under Mark Nelson (a comic and
fantasy artist), and his enthusiasm towards art and his gracious efforts to
open some doors lead to a very rewarding career as a freelance illustrator,
first inking comics, then mainly illustrating for role playing games.
At age 33, I moved to Southern California to expand my
horizons a bit, both personally and professionally. I worked at Westwood Studios, a video game company, doing concept
and in-game art for Nox, Nox Quest, Red Alert 2, and Yuri’s Revenge. Two years
later, I’m out freelancing again full time as a concept artist for the film
industry, doing fantasy art, and working on personal projects.
2. "In which games have you published
artwork? In which do you think you've accomplished "real good
stuff"?"
I’ve done tons of stuff! Which is pretty cool.
Some of my bigger contributions were to Dragon Magazine, both covers and
interiors, as well as several TSR game lines. I was one of the main interior
artists on Dark Sun, the Monstrous Compendiums, and a host of other Advanced
Dungeons and Dragons books. I’ve done a bunch of stuff for FASA,
including covers,
color interiors and b+w ink drawings for the Shadowrun, Battletech, and
Earthdawn universes. I’ve also worked
on various CCGs, including Magic the
Gathering. I’ve also had my work
published in Spectrum 5 & 6, The Art of Shadowrun and The Art of
Forgotten Realms.
I hope that I’ll continue to grow and my best work will
be my most current work, but I did do some of my best work during my 4 years as
a staff artist for FASA. The art director, Jim Nelson, was an artist himself and afforded me a lot
of room to experiment artistically. I
grew a lot, especially with my oil painting.
I did some of my best work for them.
I was also freelancing during that time and got to do some covers for
smaller companies where they gave me a lot of latitude, creatively. Those are some of my favorite pieces.
3. "How did
you like working at Westwood Studios?”
Before I started at Westwood, I had never been on the internet and
had only a cursory knowledge of computers.
The job there has helped me grow tremendously in that area. Which is a lot of fun! I learned a lot from my colleagues at
Westwood; especially Phil Robb, Jason Zirpolo, and TJ Frame. (check out their
sites in my link section).
I’ve become fluent in PhotoShop and 3D Studio Max (a 3D
modeling program) and have been making models and textures for video
games. The nice thing is that this
knowledge also translates well for web design as well as other areas and has
really broadened my horizons. But, as
much as I enjoy making images on the computer, I’ll never abandon my love for
traditional drawing and painting.
4.
"Which living fantasy artists do you really appreciate?"
I respect a lot of the artists working in our field, and
try to learn something from all of them.
Some of my favorites would be Brom, Jeff Easly, Rick Berry, Mark Nelson,
Dave McKean, Mike Mignolia, Phil Hale….I could go on forever! There’s so many people doing nice stuff out
there.
However, Bill Sienkewitz will always hold a special
place in my heart. He was my #1
influence growing up. I still greatly
admire his gutsy approach to painting and drawing. He is often fearless in the way he puts down a mark, and has a
lot of energy to his line. He’s one of
my all time favorites!
5. "What's your goal when doing a
painting? Do you put a lot of personal
touches in a piece even when an art director's instructions are tight?"
Well, I think I end up doing that whether I consciously
try to or not, but I think more than anything I try to come up with a character
or environment or action scene that is evocative and exciting. Or maybe creates a mood, whether that be
action or a creepy feeling deep in your gut.
I also like to challenge myself to use light and color
expressively to help heighten the mood and push me in new directions as an
artist. Most of the time, the growth is
gradual, but always personally rewarding.
6. "Of all the illustrations you’ve done,
which is your favorite?”
That’s a hard one.
And it changes a lot. I find a
lot of joy in many of the illos I do.
Sometimes a simple black and white ¼ page illo, that I took a lot of
chances with, gets closest to the way I want to draw and I like it because it
represents a time of growth and that’s a lot of fun for me! I have a lot of parts of illos that I really
like because of that. Sometimes I
really like a painting because of a particularly scary character I created.
7. “What
mediums do you use?
For black and white illos, I like to do pen and ink
drawings. I use a crow quill pen on
Bristol board. Sometimes I add tone to
the drawings with black watercolor paint.
I do pencil line drawings and marker renderings for concept work. And for color, I paint oils on gessoed
masonite. I also like the results I get
with gouache on really slick hot press illustration board.
8. "Are you into comics? games?"
I used to be into comics a lot! I bought the mainly for the art and it seems
that there isn’t as much chancy stuff being done these days, so I don’t buy
them too often. I was a big toy
collector, but have slowed down on that too.
I do enjoy small amounts of everything now like movie, books, comics,
toys, you name it.
9. “Any
last thoughts?”
Yes,
I’d like to say thank you to everyone who has every supported me in my efforts
to pursue a life as an artist. And that
I really appreciate when someone is genuinely interested in my work. I hope that I my work will continue to
delight and inspire (and scare) the folks out there, as much as other artist’s
work has inspired me. Look for great
things from me in the future.
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