Posted: Thursday June 11th, 2009
by
Shortly after I started getting into the heavily inked stuff, I decided I wanted to give doing creatures for AD&D's Monstrous Manual a shot. So I'd pick monsters at random and interpret them based entirely on the limited descriptions.
I have a wealth of images from this period but my favorites were the Fire Giant and Frost Giant.
I took this folder full of work with me to GenCon where I met with some folks from TSR/Wizards of the Coast. It was basically a portfolio review session. They like my stuff but didn't feel they were strong enough for their books. I was okay with the assessment, because I felt the same way about them myself. One of my idols, Tony DiTerlizzi, was there to reassure me though, and invited me to sit at his table for a while. It's a bit humbling to sit beside someone that talented though even when streams of people are looking at your work and offering compliments.
Anywho, here's a few of the other pieces I took with me: Firbolg, Satyr, Human (Warrior).
If there was no Tony DiTerlizzi, there probably wouldn't be a "Woody from GU Comics". He's pretty much the main reason I started producing so much fantasy artwork. Put simply, I wanted to be the next "TD". I wanted to be that guy drawing monsters in the Monstrous Manual that obliterated all of the other artwork in the book. I'm okay having not lived up to that dream though. I get to draw fun stuff almost every day and I get paid for it. If I'd not seen T's stuff I like would have ended up doing production artwork somewhere, and I may have even made more money. But, it's highly unlikely that I would have ever played a fantasy MMO and started drawing comics. And somehow I can't imagine myself happy, sitting in a cubicle farm using Adobe Illustrator to cleanup vector art files before they go to press.
Here, let me clear that up a bit. I was introduced to Everquest by a co-worker who'd seen my fantasy art portfolio and figured it might be something I'd be interested in. No DiTerlizzi and I likely never would have created a fantasy art portfolio in the first place. So yeah, here's to Tony! The reason there's a GU... kinda.
[ discuss ]