Hybrid Artifacts

Book cover for 'Monday Luck'.
( Art under the link )

My latest book cover is now finished.
( Art under the link )

Here is a little more about the book mentioned in my previous post.

http://tattooedartgirl.livejournal.com (Barbe Saint John http://barbesaintjohn.com) approached me to ask if I would like to be in the book, so its started off as Barbe's labour of love (it also has some of her own art in it, so well worth getting on the strength of that alone) who teamed up with Dr Grymm (http://www.drgrymmlaboratories.com/2009/04/doctor-grymms-steampunk-heart.html)to publish the final book.
Having had a chance to have a look through it now its a fine book filled with all sorts of fascinating gadgets, art and costume and probably a bit of a 'must have' for those who are into anything Steampunk.

Its available on Amazon as well as at Qbookshop.

So - thanks to Barbe for thinking of asking me to contribute!

I have been refraining from putting this artwork up even though I created it last year since it was intended to go in a steampunk book that has only just recently come into print and I didn't want to jump the gun and post before it would be available.
( Art under the link )

In my last post I mentioned I was working on another cover for Immanion Press http://www.immanion-press.com, and here it is...

( Click me! )

Another cover for Immanion Press http://www.immanion-press.com

( Art under the link )

I have just recently finished another book cover for Immanion Press http://www.immanion-press.com The artwork and my layout for it are under the cut. Past Tense is a essentially a time travel story set between the modern day and Roman Britain( Click here for the art! )

I was at the World Horror Convention recently and the subject of 'paint vs pixel' came up in one of the panel discussions - my own feeling is that while the debate focused on the problems of digital art for covers (problems? what problems?) and ended up with several very talented traditional artists raising a whole set of what they saw as problems with using digital art (lack of primacy, problems of uniqueness, preservation of art and also a perceived ability to create with less or even no real talent) all of which I think are fairly easily countered, they seem to have missed the issue that is affecting the careers of illustrators most.

It isn't the rise of digital art - it is the increasing use of stock photography by publishers. This very directly affects illustrators ability to get work and dramatically affects levels of pay in the industry at the top of the scale when the big publishers start doing it in preference to hiring an illustrator. I recently came across this link (below) when reading http://dragonsfandango.blogspot.com (Vincent Holland-Keen was also at the World Horror Convention):

http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2006/05/too-much-of-good-thing.html

It demonstrates the central problem of using stock images quite nicely. To be fair, some artists do licence their art for multiple uses (Les Edwards, whose work I have admired for years and who was one of the panel at the convention debate on 'paint vs pixel' does this a fair bit). I think it's less that the same image is being used and more a general sense that it is being used because quite frankly nobody cares that strikes me. People use art by illustrators like Les because they love it - it never feels slapped on as something 'that will do' when it is re-used, while this sort of stock re-use does (at least to me). Some discussion started to touch on it here http://community.livejournal.com/cover_artists/3421.html#cutid1

I am curious to discover what people think (I have cross posted with http://community.livejournal.com/cover_artists ).

I have been disgustingly busy with my temp work and have not really had the time to make an entry about the World Horror Convention which I went to a while back now. So it's high time I did.

Storm Constantine suggested I go along to it and as it was a great opportunity to meet her as well as to do a bit of networking, I did. I am very glad I went, though it unfortunately coincided with part of my computers motherboard falling off and I had to work on getting that fixed/replaced which as my PC was rather old meant replacing almost everything. My PC was out of action for a week or two because of that.

The convention was great - I met lots of people and made some new friends. A large number of business cards got passed around.
Storm is lovely, though since she tended to haunt the evenings while I was haunting the mornings and afternoons (I had trains to catch back home each night) we didn't get t chat as much as I would have liked. I spent a fair bit of time in the company of Ian Watson ( http://www.ianwatson.info ) - he is as wonderful a person as my email exchanges with him while doing the cover for his book Queenmagic, Kingmagic had implied he would be.
I also got to meet Dave Carson ( http://www.cthulhuart.com ) , Les Edwards ( http://www.lesedwards.com ), Vinnie Chong (  http://www.vincentchong-art.co.uk ) Dominic Harman ( his own site is under reconstruction so - http://www.clivebarker.info/newsharman.html ) and Ben Baldwin ( http://www.benbaldwin.co.uk ) amongst others. It was great to actually spend some time chatting with other artists 'in the flesh' as it's a bit of a rare treat for me at the moment.
It's the third time now I have met Jim Burns ( http://www.alisoneldred.com/artistJimBurns.html  ) - he is probably one of the biggest living inspirations to me as an artist.

It was a little frustrating going straight back to temping long hours after all that creative stimulation - so I have been trying to sketch a bit at work. I shall try and upload some sketches soon!

I also got talking with quite a few authors and collectors and publishers - I love getting the thoughts of people from different perspectives where art and illustration are concerned - I think it helps broaden my own artwork and also enables me to hone in better to the sorts of things publishers and writers might be after from an illustrator. Some of the points a few of the collectors were making about issues with digital art and collectability made a lot of sense - they were largely things I had addressed in the past while exhibiting at the IAF in London, but was in danger of forgetting as I move toward producing more illustrative and less fine art based work. There was also a very good talk/debate about digital vs traditional art. I find myself firmly in both camps.

Some photos I managed to grab once I stopped just talking with people and remembered I had a camera (OK, Suzette had to remind me I had one...otherwise I wouldn't even have thought about it).

Storm Constantine 

Jim Burns 

Les Edwards

Vinnie Chong

Ben Baldwin

And last but not least, two really nice Canadians, Mark and Sophie, I met through a bizarre chain of events - at the airport they mentioned to the customs official that they were here for the WHC, and that official just happened to a friend of mine who mentioned they should look out for me. They then overheard me talking about my PC problems (My friend, Chrissie, had also mentioned this to them) and they worked out who I was and started chatting. I am very glad they did! We shall definitely be looking to meet up with them next time we are in Toronto (which, we hope, will be soon).

On the same the Doctor sprang out in full force from a regeneration - so did my PC. It was old, on its last legs and finally after many years of faithful service it blew something and a component actually dropped off while it was running. Now it is a sexy Intel i3 system and strangely quiet compared to the old one - it gently purrs rather than whine and hum. I think its happy. I know I am.

I spent some time at the World Horror Convention in Brighton recently - some photos will hopefully follow soon. I met some wonderful people, including Storm Constantine for whom I have been doing a few covers over the last year or so (she is lovely, though I didn't get nearly enough time to actually chat with her properly as she was late rising and I was early leaving each day), Ian Watson (for whom I had done the Queenmagic, Kingmagic cover) who is delightfully mad in the best possible way. I spent a fair bit of time with Ian, who seemed to be everywhere all at once.
I met Dave Carson, Les Edwards, Vinny Chong, Ben Baldwin, Jim Burns (once again) and Dominic Harman amongst the many artists there. They were all fantastic.

I did meet up with Alaisdair Stuart (but can't recall who suggested I should), and a friend who works at Heathrow in customs told a couple of Canadians they should look out for me at the convention and they proved to be wonderful company and will I suspect become very good friends.

It was all rather good really.