Tuesday 1110 - Drowning

AARGGHH!

trying to get ready to hit the road for IlluxCon.

My computer is acting up, the emails keep piling up, and I've got a ton of art to review before the end of the day.

So it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to write again today. We'll see if the schedule breaks loose a little later on...maybe I can dash down a few thoughts.

Otherwise, check back over the coming days for images and thoughts from IlluxCon!

Friday 1106 - Week In Review

So happy it's Friday! I've got so much fun stuff to look at from this past week.

This week in the magazine we saw a change in the publishing model. We shifted from a 3 day a week release schedule to a 5 day a week release schedule. That ups the ante for getting the articles released, and ups the number of articles that require art. Luckily, I've got access to a talented pool of artists. Check out what went live this week...

Dragon® magazine

Warlord Essentials
Artist: David Rapoza
I love working with David. He hits the concept well, he gets the IP and where I'm trying to go with the characters. We has a great knack of giving the pieces life and energy. I hate Jeremy Jarvis for snatching him up so quickly for Magic. David...come away from the light!

Hint: If you want to get noticed by Jeremy...do stellar work for D&D®, let us fall in love with you, and he will come knocking on your door. It happens all too often.


Roles: Defenders
Artist: Alex Aparin
Alex is a new find for me. I just started working with him this month. I found his submission in ArtDrop, and was happily floored when I received his first illustration for D&D. I waited all of about 5 minutes before I showed him off to the rest of the D&D AD's...and hoped that Jeremy wouldn't notice him right away.


Class Acts: Wizard
Artist: Sarah Stone
I started working with Sarah last month, and haven't regretted it for a moment. She brings a very fresh look and feel to D&D. All of the other D&D art directors were amazed that I took a chance on her. Not because she didn't have skill and talent, but rather because her portfolio had such an anime look to it. I was confident she could hit what I was looking for when I saw what she was doing for Sarah Robinson over a Paizo Publishing. Hit it she has.


Power Play: Martial Power
Artist: Tyler Jacobson
I was introduced to Tyler through Irene Gallo at Tor Books, and I have enjoyed our burgeoning relationship since that day. He has several images in this months issue...I love the Deva piece he did for Power Play: Divine, but you'll have to wait to see that one.


Class Acts: Rogue
Artist: Sarah Stone
I've already mentioned Sarah, but I have to share a story. I'm a simple kind of a guy, and simple things make me smile. In this case, it was praise for this image from the Editor-in-chief, Chris Youngs. His prime direction for this piece was "I want to see a character that makes me say 'I want to be that character'". Apparently Sarah caught that vibe well enough that he said "damn, I want to play that character!" Nice...


Dungeon® magazine

Chaos Scar: The Brothers Gray
Artist: Patrick McEvoy
Cartographer: Sean Macdonald

Patrick is another recent addition to the stable. He clinched his place on my go-to list when he delivered on a killer tiefling piece a few months ago. Now I look forward to finding something new and interesting to push his ability to find a dynamic point-of-view. This was a tough one, with both foreground and background elements of interest. His decision to use the time of day to create the dramatic lighting worked out very well.

Sean was a name that was handed to me when I took over magazines. I have enjoyed working with him since starting in this position. The hardest task I have is keeping him busy - he's so darn fast!


Expeditionary Dispatches
Artist: Wayne England
I've worked with Wayne for a while. I always loved the items and environments he created for D&D. One day he asked me to let him do some figurative work for me, and I haven't regretted the decision once. When he talked to me last month and asked to start doing some magazine work - I hesitated. Obviously, not because of his skill or quality, but rather becuase of the crushing schedule we often have for magazines. Since Wayne works traditionally, it adds some stress and strain to the process. Wayne assured me he could get the paintings done, and shipped across the globe within my time frame. He's never steered me wrong before, and he didn't this time either.


Hope you enjoy the pieces. Till next week...


Go Forth. Create!




To Be Seen...
Got questions, or want to see a discussion on a particular subject. Drop me a line at ArtDrop Questions.

Don't forget that you can also send your art submissions to Wizards of the Coast at ArtDrop Submissions. Please make sure that your submissions do not total more than 5 Mb, or your email might get bumped.

Thursday 1105 - friendly help

I was thinking about the role of an art director the other day, and I suddenly realized that we need to watch out for our egos. Aside from the obvious reasons -- where a rock star mentality diminishes your value to the process -- there is the whole aspect of our position that we depend upon others for nearly all aspects of our job. Whether it is depending on a illustrator to take the words of an art order and breath life into them, a graphic designer to execute upon a visual strategy that we dream up, or any of a million other places where we depend upon others to lend our role credibility. I realized this as I was talking with one of the R&D folks about a new game we have in development (Don't start sending me emails asking anything about it. That's all I'll say on the issue). The discussion made me look at myself, honestly, and realize all the things I CAN'T do. Yet, my job is so dependent on being able to have a solid relationship with folks that can accomplish all of those necessary items.

My wife and I often talk about having our egos "right sized". Personally, I prefer to do the homework myself to keep my ego in check. It's a whole lot less humbling and painful than when an outside force has to step in and deflate my big head. I hate the way that feels. I hate it even more when I look back on the situation and realize it needed to be done. Yeah, I really hate that...

The flip side to having that crazy ego issue is keeping a state of gratitude around me. I find it pretty tough to get all puffed up on myself when I realize what all the people around me accomplish -- and how their accomplishments "make me look good." Whether it is the AD that has the ability to pull amazing quality from a particular artist, the artist that steps in at zero hour and hits a home run, the graphic designer that deals with the crazy amounts of feedback and changes and still creates an amazing design, the R&D guy who takes the time to explain a power to me so that I can provide better write-ups to the artist, the brand guy that takes my hand and leads me through a P&L (profit and loss) document so that I can understand better the business constraints of a product, or the fan that pulls me aside and unloads on me about the latest race I helped concept - all of those folks are absolutely necessary for me to do my job well. If I lose sight of that, I'm lost. Who do you rely on? How does you ego affect those relationships?

What does all of this have to do with the world of publishing?
Everything...
Nothing...

I got some more emails in the last couple of days that have seen some successes due to their participation in ArtOrder. I think that is really cool, and I sure enjoy reading about their successes. It reinforces the idea that we are all dependent on each other in many ways, and how grateful I am that I am able to help out in some small way.

I read about an experience a young artist had at an convention with an art director - and what a horrific experience it was. Horrific in the sense that the AD's ego was the only thing on display - rather than the artists work. What a shame...both for the AD and for the artist. Makes me glad I don't work with, or for that AD.

I'm looking forward to going to IlluxCon next week - both as an art director, and as a fan boy. It'll be great to rub elbows with old friends, industry icons, and aspiring artists. I can't thank Patrick enough for taking a chance and offering me an invite. Now I just need to earn my keep, and make him happy he invited me.

Each of those situations deal with the relationships we build, and how our ego can come into play.

...and all of this brings me to a question I received yesterday.

Anna Christenson asks:

"I've been thinking of ways to follow up with art directors that I've worked for to see if they are happy with my work and would hire me again. As such, I was wondering from an art director's point of view how a short yes or no answer survey would go across- something that would hopefully answer that question of whether they would be interested in hiring me again, or if there is something better that I as an artist could do in the future when working on their product. Or would it be better to just wait and send out new samples of my work every 3-6 months?

Maybe that question from a different angle- is there any type of follow up you like to see, or commonly see, from illustrators after the first time working with them?"

That's an interesting question Anna. I've never received any kind of 'survey' about an artists work, or their working relationship. Would I be open to it? I think so. If it were short and concise, I'd probably be up for it.

That raises an interesting point though. How many times do you guys talk to an art director after the fact? I can count on one hand the number of times I've had an artists talk to me after a project to get feedback about either their artwork, the process, or the working relationship. I wonder if that says more about me, more about the artist, or more about the "expected" relationship between and AD and an artist? That's a question I don't have an answer for.

What I normally get from an artists, especially a first-time artist, is a note about how much fun they had with the project and how they hope that they can get more. I like getting those. It makes me feel good, but the cynical side of me just wants to believe they say that to every art director that can give them work. I hate the cynical side of me...it takes the fun out of a lot of stuff :)

There was a time when I did some surveys with the artists to see what they thought about how I was doing my job. It was eye-opening. It taught me a lot about my expectations, my communication style, and my assumptions. In some ways it was a little crushing. There are some aspects of my personality I thought were strengths...and it wasn't always seen that way by the artists. Very humbling...

So if you want to do surveys, or ask for feedback - make sure you take a deep breath before you start reading the replies. Sometimes they can be a hard pill to swallow. More so when you realize the feedback is honest and true.

One bit of advice:
After you read the feedback - just let it sit.
Don't react to it. Don't judge it. Don't dismiss it. Just listen to it
...and learn.

"No one can persuade another to change. Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside. We cannot open the gate of another, either by argument or emotional appeal."

~ Marilyn Ferguson

Go Forth. Create!




To Be Seen...
Got questions, or want to see a discussion on a particular subject. Drop me a line at ArtDrop Questions.

Don't forget that you can also send your art submissions to Wizards of the Coast at ArtDrop Submissions. Please make sure that your submissions do not total more than 5 Mb, or your email might get bumped.

Wednesday 1104 - Hurakan, pt 5

Hurakan, pt 4 is over...long live Hurakan, pt 5!
Okay, maybe that was a bit cheesy, but I'm getting really excited about wrapping up this challenge. Note to self: long arc challenges are informative, but they are looong! Not to mention, if you caught my post the other day concerning my changing role, then I've got a new focus...and I want to focus some of the challenges towards finding artists that can help me in that role. (nudge, nudge)


New Challenge
Concept Name: Hurakan: god of storms - Part 4
Due Date: November 15, 2009, Noon PST
Concept Description:
Do you remember the description of Hurakan? If not, swing by and check out the original post.

An in case you don't remember the steps in the 5 part process we are using:

Here's how the challenge arc is going to go:
Phase 1 character silhouettes (completed)
Phase 2 character thumbs (completed)
Phase 3 Black and White detailed character drawings & compositional Book Cover thumbnails (completed)
Phase 4 Character color roughs & Black & White Book Cover detailed drawings (completed)
Phase 5 Final color Character development & Book Cover color rough
Phase 6 Book Cover Final

Were moving into phase 5. This part of the challenge has two parts to it:
Part 1 - Character, final color
Part 2 - Cover, color rough

Part 1
We coming down to the end of the line with our characters. It's time to pull out all the stops and do the final render on our character. Do you remember the dwarf that Kieran Yanner was working on last week? Well, he took his tight drawing and his color palette, and gave me a tight render. Now I've got myself a solid concept piece. Something that I can either develop further, drop into a style guide, or use for the basis for further explorations. In case you missed it, here was the progression - rough, tight drawing, color palette, final render


Part 2
So we've played with our composition, we've looked at the details of the image - now it's time to take the lessons learned and start looking at the palette of the image. While you working on this portion of the challenge - remember that our marketing professionals have told us that they think that blue and green will be big colors next season. Think about how you will let this information influence your color decisions. It is also very important to think about how hue and contrast will affect the visual impact of the image. It will either enhance, or detract from your composition and overall image quality.

Details:
For part 5, I would like to see the final character render, and the detailed cover drawing with it's color palette in a single file - no larger than 1600 x 1600 pixels. Arrangement and presentation is up to you.

Requirements:
Image should be submitted as RGB, jpg format files. A link to the image should be sent to Hurakan challenge - Part 5. Do not send attachments! Be sure to include the following information in the body of the email:
Name (as you want to be listed in the challenge)
Website URL

The Judging
There will not be any judging, per se. I will select submissions for discussion and critiques only. The goal of these challenges is to build towards the final judged book cover challenge.

Speaking of...keep your eyes peeled for upcoming announcements concerning our judging panel for the final segment of the challenge!


From ArtDrop
I've been seeing a lot of stellar submissions at ArtDrop lately, and it feels like a great time to grab a submission and throw it into the spotlight. I've been watching this artists work for a bit, and she keep stepping up her game. One of the things I appreciate about Nicole, is that she updates her website pretty often. There's nothing I hate more than to get a note from an artists about the "great work they are doing", and when I go to their website it hasn't been updated for two years. Shameful!

Nicole Cardiff
website





Go Forth. Create!




To Be Seen...
Got questions, or want to see a discussion on a particular subject. Drop me a line at ArtDrop Questions.

Don't forget that you can also send your art submissions to Wizards of the Coast at ArtDrop Submissions. Please make sure that your submissions do not total more than 5 Mb, or your email might get bumped.

Tuesday 1103 - Hurakan, pt 4

Welcome to part 4 of the ongoing Hurakan challenge. The details for this portion of the challenge can be found here. We're getting closer to the final round...

Take a few minutes and wander through this weeks entries, and post a comment about what you like, or think needs some work.

Hurakan, part 4 lineup

Adam Lane
website


Allen White
website


Brian LeBlanc
website


Brian McElliot
website


Bryan Fowler
website


Colin Ashcroft
website


George Semionov
website


Heather Hudson
website


Jason Zampol
website


Jennifer Kearney
website


Joshua Venis
website


Kaisa Tuulenkari
website


Liz Clarke
website


Nigel Davis
website


Oleg Saakyan
website


Peter Tikos
website


Ryan Hall
website


Scott Flanders
website


V Suppan
website

Swing back tomorrow to get the low down for Hurakan, part 5


Go Forth. Create!




To Be Seen...
Got questions, or want to see a discussion on a particular subject. Drop me a line at ArtDrop Questions.

Don't forget that you can also send your art submissions to Wizards of the Coast at ArtDrop Submissions. Please make sure that your submissions do not total more than 5 Mb, or your email might get bumped.

Monday 1002 - transistions

I missed you guys on Friday.

Instead of spending the first couple of hours writing for ArtOrder - I headed over to the doctor office for my annual physical. Lot's of pokes and prods, and a clean bill of health! Woo Hoo! Okay, he did tag me about losing some weight, and exercising more, but if that's as bad as it gets - I'm good.

Welcome to November
I've been both looking forward to, and dreading, the approach of November. This month, I hand off the torch for one my responsibilities here at Wizards of the Coast. As of today, Keven Smith will be taking over the AD duties for Dungeon® and Dragon® magazines. I'll finish up the commissions I've got out there, but Keven is taking over all ongoing work. I know he'll do great, and that all the artists will have a blast working with him.

Myself, I trying to hand off more of the tactical tasks, and trying to focus more on the strategic roles of my position. I will still be picking up product as needed, and doing all of the world building (concepting), but I will be focusing more on the brand building, and community building aspects of my job. Hopefully, I'll also get to work a few less hours as well!!


Dipping into ArtDrop
Since I don't have any outstanding questions at artdrop - I think I'll just showcase an art submission I received over the weekend.

Drew Whitmore
website




Go Forth. Create!




To Be Seen...
Got questions, or want to see a discussion on a particular subject. Drop me a line at ArtDrop Questions.

Don't forget that you can also send your art submissions to Wizards of the Coast at ArtDrop Submissions. Please make sure that your submissions do not total more than 5 Mb, or your email might get bumped.

Thursday 1029 - mailbag

Dipping into the mailbag

David Still writes:

"You often say that one thing you're looking for in potential new artists are that they know the D&D universe. I've never played a game of D&D in my life - I only know the Games Workshop universe. If I'm hoping to do work for Wizards in the future, would I need to immerse myself in D&D completely, playing lots of games and really get to the soul of the game, or would reading up on style guides and looking on what other artists have done be enough?"

You're right. I do say that a lot.

Do you have to be a D&D player to "get" or understand the universe? Nope. I worked in advertising for a number of years, and I would have to create collateral material for companies that did everything from producing goods to developing weapons for the government. Did I have to like yogurt, or know how to build a missile? No way.

What I did have to do was be willing to do the research - get to know my clients, their needs, their products, their customers and their customers needs. Without knowing those things, I could make wonderful and beautiful collateral...from a graphic design sense, but it wasn't necessarily effective.

Let's look at an example.
You mentioned Games Workshop. What a great set-up!! Games Workshop and Dungeons & Dragons both play in the fantasy sandbox. Both brands have similar character races. Both brands borrow heavily from mythology and classic fantasy motifs, and yet both brands have separate and distinct "universes". If you had been doing work for the WoW card game, and had a portfolio full of their images - I would be able to acertain whether you understood figure work, weight and form, dynamic motion, etc. In other words, I could make a judgement on your basic illustration skills. If you jump that hurdle, you're half way there...
Now I just need to understand that you get my universe too. Do you understand that an elf in D&D is different from an elf in WoW? Do you get that the color palette is different? Do you understand that realistic form and anatomy is more the norm, than the more stylistic anatomy and form in WoW? I have to look at your portfolio and wonder if you can make that leap. Better yet - I would like to be able to look at your portfolio and see a piece or two that SHOWS me that you can illustrate my world.

'Cause, truth be told, I usually don't have the time to take a big chance on someone. I've got to see something that lessens the fear that I'm going to hit my deadline and be stressing out trying to figure out how to guide you from the painting position you are in -- to the illustrative position I need you to be in. There is nothing more horrifying than opening up a package, or downloading a file and going "uh oh!". When you face the reality that you are looking at a deadline, and realize that you, alone, have to stand up and take accountability for the quality of the work that you will be putting into a product. Well, hopefully you'll forgive us poor Art Directors when we hem and haw, and decide to take a safe road with a known entity.

Will knowing how to play the game make you a better illustrator?
Doubtful.

Will knowing how to play the game give you more exposure to the product? To the brand? To the customers? To the challenges the product faces in the marketplace?
Hell Yes!

Will knowing how to play the game offer you insights, as an illustrator, when I talk about game mechanics that have to be illustrated?
Potentially

I guess the bigger question should be - are you interested in learning about the game? If you could care less about the game, the brand and it's customers...then my suggestion is to go find some different subject matter. Find something you have a passion for. Something that gets you jazzed, and makes you want to get involved with the products you are working on.

Life is too short not to have a passion for what you do.

...and I want to work with folks that love my brand nearly as much as I do. But that's just me being selfish. I like what we both get out of the relationship when we both love what we are doing.


Hurakan, pt 3
This is going to be a bit quick. I'm feeling a bit under the weather, and am having a little trouble focusing. So don't take it personally...it's just me being tired.

Claudio Pozas
website
First off, let's slap Claudio on the wrist for not following the directions for two of the pieces.
Bad Claudio!

Pros
• Back cover seems to support the text well. Not to busy, but has some visual interest
• Composition is adequate
• The spine has some visual interest. #2 has a visual motif that ties into the rest of the cover well (swirling winds)
• Figure tends to be prominent
• Personifies the idea of a bad storm (hurricane)
• #1 tilt to horizon gives some motion

Cons
• Figures tend to be straight on, upright, and rather static.
• Figures are centered in the frame of the front cover - again, rather static presentation.
• What is the story here? Big mean guy makes hurricane, and...? Perhaps you can give us a hint of the conflict. Give us a sense of danger and impending doom. What is going to get me to pick up the book?

#3 has a nice global peril vibe starting to take shape. That is something you might be able to push.
#1 has some potential as well. What if there were some itty bitty navel ships worked in to give this guy truly impressive scale? What if we saw hints of a metropolitan city under the water - so we get the sense that he has just washed over NYC or Tokyo (why do all the monsters beat up those two cities?).

Look forward to seeing more.


Go Forth. Create!




To Be Seen...
Got questions, or want to see a discussion on a particular subject. Drop me a line at ArtDrop Questions.

Don't forget that you can also send your art submissions to Wizards of the Coast at ArtDrop Submissions. Please make sure that your submissions do not total more than 5 Mb, or your email might get bumped.