Happy Holidays 2013

Another year is nearly complete. Have a safe and happy holiday. See you in 2014.


My cheap knock-off of the masterful painter Frank Frazetta and his iconic Death Dealer. This was a quick screw around image that I started this morning and ended up being fully painted by the end of the day. There were many breaks for cookies, ninja battles and fun with the kids.

Speedy Speedy

Speed is a crucial part of being an Illustrator (and of course quality). There are lots of other components too of course but speed has been a particular weakness of mine until recently. The average painting, like the two below in this post, used to take me a couple weeks worth of time to complete. These days I have been averaging about 2 days, sometimes less for small images like these. Why the sudden speed up? A lot of priceless advise has sunk in over this past year. Attending Spectrum and Illuxcon, speaking with the other artist and getting portfolio reviews really pay off.

Here are a couple new pieces fresh off the art table. Both images are for Jolly Roger Game's Cthuhlu's Vault. It is nearing the 1/2 way mark. More post (because its the only project I can share at the moment) with tentacled Lovecraft art coming up next week.


---- Also I was one of the few who were able to snag a showcase table at the Illuxcon 8! Wow, lots of work to do to prepare.

Disturbing Serum, 8.5"x6"Acrylic on illustration board. ©2014 Jacob Walker

Hungry Ghoul, 8.5"x6"Acrylic on illustration board. ©2014 Jacob Walker

Evil Hat

Awhile back I had the pleasure of doing a few black and white interiors for Evil Hat Games. Fred Hicks and the Evil Hat team are great to with. Of the images I did, I like this retro alien companion guy the most. The image called for black and white but I chose to do the original with a spot color behind him just for fun. The other images were done this way too. His feet remind me of Bossk, so don't let that smile fool you…

"Alien Companion"
From Strange Tales of the Century RPG
Evil Hat Games

A Couple Touch Ups

After attending many shows this year and speaking with lots of creatives I was shown and picked up on many things I have been doing poorly. The two images below are ones that I chose to go in and touch up after considering them done. Dan Dos Santos and Lauren Panepinto both gave me some great advise on how I treat edges. This was a major flaw for me. Most images were rendered at the same detail level from front to back. And oh the rim lighting was out of control. I was like a kid who just got photoshop and put lens flairs on everything. Sigh.

The Green Wizard

Touch ups included removing rim lighting around fingers, adjust the hue of the face and adding he Cthulhu medallion. Also I should mention I these were scanned on two different scanners.

The Haunted Woods

This piece also had a lot of unnecessary rim lighting as well. Steve Prescott was kind enough to suggest  adding some additional depth by extending the tree line into the background. He also suggested a few color shifts and again softening some edges. Spot on advice, though Im not sure I went far enough. I pushed the darks a bit more too, added some more details to the spooky ghost stuff. 

There always seems to be more that can be done to an image but you have to stop somewhere and start working on the next piece right? As I write this I see plenty more opportunities for improvement, all the way down to the composition, but….

Monster, Moving and Illuxcon 6

Moving is always a big undertaking. It presents lots of unforeseen snags and sometimes great opportunities. In August, my wife was offered a job just outside Indianapolis and we decided to relocate. That meant I had to leave a really good job and was unprepared for my next step. That step being freelancing full-time as an illustrator and designer. I have relaunched my graphic design site, www.jw-dsgn.com. The big lessen from all this was to always be prepared for an opportunity.

Image above is my rendition of Nyarlathotep, the Lovecraftian horror, done for Cthuhlu Vault card game by Richard Launius. Kickstarter campaign will be up soon and game release will be summer 2014. Love this stuff! More images in next post.

Unfortunately Con season is over but that means it is time to apply what I learned and push out some new work. Last month attended Illuxcon for the first time. I was happy to meet Pat and Jeannie Wilshire who put on the most amazing show! The quality and quantity of art was overwhelming. I am already looking forward to next year. After the show I was refueled and painting happily.

Quick Monster

One of these might pop out of the ground at any moment... Be ready.

Origins 2013, "Best Color Art with Traditional Media" award!

I have attended Origins for many years but this year was the first time I have ever had a booth. It was great for many reasons.

Perhaps the best part of the show was the time spent chatting with the other artist, most of which I had not met before. In particular Charles Urbach and Ed Beard Jr. were great about giving me advise and direction.  I really enjoyed meeting Larry Elmore and his buddy Travis Lewis for the first time and chatting with Talon Dunning who I met at last years show and bumped into at Spectrum last month. I also had drinks and ate with Jim Dietz, the Jolly Roger Crew and Richard Launius.

At the booth I met lots of great people. I sold several pieces and had a couple commisions, which covered a good deal of my expenses. A few companies approached me about upcoming projects and art shows too.

The highlight of the show was winning "Best Color Work in Traditional Media" for the image above. The judges were Larry Elmore, Charles Urbach and Ed Beard Jr. Its pretty humbling to have your work judged by peoples whose work you have been enjoying for the past 20 years.

The first annual Origins gaming calendar featured a piece of mine too.

It was a great show and a wonderful experience!

Spectrum Fantastic Art Live 2

Wow!

Last year I was saddened and a little frustrated when I was unable to attend the first Spectrum. When tickets went on sale for this years' show I bought one immediately. Im so glad I did.

The show had nearly every living illustrator that I follow, many of the top art directors in the fantasy sic-fi world and lots of enthusiast. In the first 5 minutes I was having drinks with John Foster and a handful of other incredibly talented people during the thursday night meet and great in the hotel. Next morning I heard the laugh of one of the Sidebar guys and was then introduced, talking and showing my work to Adrian and Dwight. Those guys are as much fun in person as they are on the show! I also met Sam Weber of the Your Dreams, My Nightmares interview podcast.

Drew Baker asked me awhile back if I would be interested in helping out at his booth, covering for breaks and clean up at the end of the show. He is such a talented and hard working artist, and a very nice guy too. I learned a lot and enjoyed hanging out with him. I also hit it off with Jeff Miracola who gave me one of his prints after talking shop and then reviewed my work and introduced me to  Jon Schindehette. And again, what a nice guy.

Saturday night's award show was the Emmys of the illustration world. The show really opened me up to how tight knit a community this is. All these artist and art directors go out of their way to help advance each other like one large family. The show was fantastic (as the name implies). All the nominees where so good. Brom won the much deserved Grand Master award. Go Brom!

On Sunday I was able to get portfolio reviews from Dan Dos Santos and Lauren Pinapento. Both pointed out some areas for me to work on and were very encouraging. Both reviews where pretty inline with where I thought my work is at. Each pointed out how to push it to the next level with a few simple adjustments to focus and lighting. I guess thats where more reference will help.

In short, I feel rejuvenated. I met so many interesting and talented artist and made lots of new friends while looking at some of the best fantasy and sci-fi art in the world. You cant get any better than that!

New website

JW-illo.com

After 8 to 10 years of the same old portfolio site, I felt a fresh design was way past due. It has been so long since I have done any serious code that I had no idea where to start... so I called my buddy Aaron Tanner. A few weeks later I swapped a light table for some code, and began to populate the new site. Aaron's help made this project so much more enjoyable. If you have not seen his handiwork, visit Melodic Virtue to view his work with Ween, Tin Man Brewery and more. Thanks Aaron!

Crypt Ripper - lunch sketch

This is quickly adding up to be the busiest year on record for me (see list of events below). I'll be having my first art show table at Origins this year. I asked the Ninjas over at Ninja Mountain Podcast for some advice on this subject (episode 119) and later chatted a bit further with Drew Backer about prints and pricing etc. I have lots of fun work ahead of me. Part of having an artist booth at Origins (in exchange for a drastically reduced booth fee) is to give an art class in their art college. Im preparing a short demo on acrylics that recaps most everything I have learned over the past year. I'll discuss materials, prep work, some basic painting techniques and it will hopefully be somewhat informative. Im also going to do a test run of the class at Comic Quest in the near future. My next post will have more info on that.

Im still working away on an incredibly fun project that I hope will be announced at Origins this year and will most likely come out in 2014. It has 80+ images to paint (holy crap!) and I could not me loving it more. I will try to share a few along the way if I can get the OK from the publisher. I will have some at Origins for sure.


Family Vacation Kickstarter - Live (19 days left) http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1649598142/family-vacation-a-game-by-philip-dubarry

Arts Council of Doom - April 20th show
More on that soon.

Spectrum Fantasy Art Live - May 17th-19th
I maybe booth sitting and helping out Drew Baker this year.

Origins Game Fair - June 12th-16th
will have art booth and demoing my painting technique

Comic Quest Game Day - July 20th
will have art booth and be doing sketches

Gen Con Indy - August 15th-18th

Illuxcon - November 11th-15th
Nearly all my art heroes under one roof, cant wait!

Color Study

Im working on my new top secret project... so here is an image from it. I can't reveal what the project is until its announced later this summer. This fun little monster does not give away the theme at all so I thought I would share it, or rather my new method of doing color studies. I have always hated doing color studies but suck at figuring out the color on the board. So I was trying to figure out a way to make color studies fun. This one is on a magic the gathering card. Just take some Acitone and apply some elbow grease and you can take the ink right off the card. They make great painting surfaces and when your done, well, there just neat little mini-paintings. On the back I list the colors I used so that its a good future reference too. Spending an hour or so here I think will save several hours on the real painting and make for a better piece.

I love painting monsters....

Happy New Year