Interview with Chet Phillips

On "itsartmag" I found an interview with a successful Illustrator who's dabbled in Illustration for movies, magazines, cartoons and even trading cards. He originally started with woodblock prints it sounds like, but transitioned to a digital program called Paint. He found this program to be less restrictive than other digital media and found it to be a smooth transition between traditional tools and digital media. Partly because he had a stable client that was in a company dealing heavily with technology. He does admit abandoning sketching will never happen, but the program makes quick work with the same style he's developed. I was happy to see Phillips discuss his degree in fine arts instead of multimedia, so I don't feel so alone in my desire for more handheld work. The interview was cool also to see how he balances his time, doing some email and comission requests, then moving to work, next working on promotion, and then working on new things he wants to start.

Illustrator Resources

I found some Illustrator portfolios for different types of illustration here.
Here is some concept art for a new MMO (Massive multiplayer online game) thats in beta testing called Aion.
I also found a site with a collection of concept artists here.

As far as where I'll be getting my news from for my blog posts I found an Illustration News site called ispot.
~~Unfortunately ispot, upon closer look, doesn't have much news on it. But it is a sight for new illustrators who want to hear about opportunities in the world to show their stuff. I found a different website, though not specifically for illustration, does have good articles in many different fields. itsartmag

Yay for the internet and all its wonderful resources :D

Summer Reflection

I can't say this summer was productive for me artisically. However I did quite a bit of creative writing and brainstorming about how to best create work for the Illustration field. I did find an amazing magazine with the top 200 illustrators world wide in it. It, unfortunately was spendy and I wasn't able to get a copy. But it was extremely encouraging and exciting to see how many Illustrators are making it in that field and to see how many styles there are. They also had them listed by venue, some working for books, others for magazines and such.
I also found this awesome website that shows all the art galleries in Minneapolis, theres so many! So I hope to visit them, a few during school, but especially during this summer after I graduate.

As far as vision casting for this semester. I've really been interested in fantasy enviornments, places that push reality and physics. I'm a dungeon master for Dungeons and Dragons so I get quite a bit of inspiration from that. So I might see if I can expand on the enviornments I've already sketched up, but that work might fall more into my printmaking. For life drawing I want to show the range of human development and type I'm able to draw. I feel like this is key to any employer who would higher me for illustration.

Life drawing 3

Skin/muscle study

Skin/muscle study

Dynamic Body Sketches