STRIPOLIS

Here is a pic of the piece I had published in the latest edition of Serbian comic anthology Stripolis. This independent publication is the brainchild of Serbian comic author and illustrator Branko Djukic and a small group of collaborators. Their goal is to revive the production of, and the interest in, the ailing Serbian comics industry. This is the third volume of Stripolis to be published.

When Branko asked if I would be interested in contributing a piece to be included in the book, I was eager to participate. I've had a first hand experience of the poor state of the Serbian comic industry. Last May several of my pieces were stolen, altered, and used on the cover of the leading Serbian comics publication Politkin Zabavnik.

Not only is the book full of nice work, but the intentions of the creators and collaborators are commendable. Copies of Stripolis #3 can be ordered through the Stripolis website.

Thanks again to Branko Djukic for inviting me to contribute to Stripolis #3. 

NEXT LEVEL GAMES

Well, after 9 great years the time has finally come to move on from Next Level Games. My time there was amazing. I had a blast while working on 7 shipped game projects (plus one that is about to wrap up), 7 demo projects, and countless game design pitches. Over the years I also had the opportunity to heavily contribute to the company branding and identity. I learned a lot, and grew not only as an artist, but as a person as well. While the work and the growth were great, the best thing about Next Level has always been the people. They were the ones that made coming to work everyday so enjoyable and rewarding. I've worked with some of these people since the beginning of the company, and others before that at the original Blackbox Games studio. Several of my good friends from animation school work there, along with my good friend Nigel, who I've been sharing my artistic path with since we were 10 years old. So they will all be missed, and walking out of that studio for the last time on Friday is going to be tough.  But it is time for a change.

I'm going to be moving back to Victoria and taking a position as a concept artist at the new Microsoft studio there. I have a couple personal reasons for moving back to Vic. as well, but this is an exciting opportunity. There will be some familiar faces as several ex-Next Level people are working there, along with a few I know from the Blackbox days.

As there will be a lot going on in the next few months, moving and getting settled, things here will be slow, but hopefully I'll find time to work on, and post some new stuff.

As for Next Level I wish them the best of luck. Not that they need it, I'm confident anything they do in the future is going to be great. Cheers guys, and thanks for all the good times!

INSOLENT MOCKERY OF THE DIVINE UNDER CENTRIST RULE

Here is one that I picked away at over the holidays. As with other pieces in this series, this one was inspired by one of the deriding slogans painted on the walls at the Entartete Kunst exhibit in 1938. Room One of the exhibit was reserved for works of a religious nature, featuring works by Max Beckman, Wilhelm Heckrott, Karl Schimidt-Rottluff, along with a large selection of work by Emil Nolde. The title, "Insolent Mockery of the Divine Under Centrist Rule" was scrawled on the wall featuring Nolde's massive nine panel alter piece "Das Leben Christi" (1911/12). This slogan, invoking the nazi concept of Judeo-Bolshevism, is a simultaneous indictment of the art and the church.

Ever since I read those words, and from the beginning of this project I've wanted to tackle this image, but I was a little hesitant given the religious content. I'm somewhat of a spiritual person, but not a religious one. That being said, when it comes to religion, I'm sensitive to, and respectful of other peoples beliefs. I tried to represent the Christ-like figure, with all that that entails, without turning it into a caricature or parody. How successful I was will be for others to judge.....

Although most of the titles of the images in this series are displayed in German, I felt this particular title was more powerful in English. The German phrase "Unter Der Herrschaft Des Zentrums Frecher Verhohnung Des Gotterlebens" seemed to be lacking the impact of  "Insolent Mockery of the Divine Under Centrist Rule" (probably solely due to the fact that I am English speaking....). Plus that title in German is so long I had a hard time fitting it on the image!

Enjoy!

Higher rez. and a few more details on my Flickr.

SCHWARZ AUF WEISS

Here are a few pics of the piece I contributed to the art book: Schwarz auf Weiss Vol. 2. The book was published last fall but I received my copy over the holidays and I only just got around to taking a few shots now.

As the title suggests, and as I mentioned in a previous post, this book is a celebration of black and white art.

The book is full of solid work from contributors like Alexis Marcou, Nook, Bayo, Aro, Pavel Ripley, Luke Painter, and Carolin Morin just to name a few. The book is very well put together, featuring a minimalist design that emphasizes the artwork, embossed hard cover, and nice paper stock.

Thanks to Christian Schupp and SNNC for inviting me to be part of the book!

Schwarz auf Weiss Vol. 2 was published by From Here To Fame Publishing and is available from Amazon, etc. etc.

Well worth checking out.

SPECTRUM 18

 

 

Here are a few pics of the two pieces of mine that were published in the latest edition of Spectrum. I was pretty pleased that my Dystopic piece was printed on a full page, and the other piece, A.R.A.R.I.T.A., seemed to hold up on the half page size.

This edition is quite large, and features some amazing work, including a nice cover piece by Jean-Sebastien Rossbach, and another banger from Fearless. Definitely worth checking out.

THE STAR (emperor)

This new one was created as a design for a possible 2nd model kit for Michael Fichtenmayer's Industria Mechanika. The first kit, based on my Dystopic (ventilate) piece is currently in the master modelling stage and hopefully I'll have some progress images to post soon!

As the 28th piece is this series this one was inspired by the 28th path on the the Tree of Life, "the ruler". The colours are from the four worlds, and the tertiary graphic elements speak to correspondences of this path. The title comes from the tarot association, The Star. In divination the meanings of this card are hope, guidance and future possibilities, represented here by the female cosmonaut curled in a fetal position. Her fixed gaze tells us she has the determination to grasp one of these possibilities and to reach her chosen future potential.

The subtitle "the emperor", while possibly reinforcing the title of the 28th path, is more of a nod to Crowley, who proclaimed that Tzaddi was not The Star, and that the true Hebrew letter for this path was Heh, a letter more traditionally associated with Path 15 and the Emperor.

High res. and details at my Flickr.

ADVANCED PHOTOSHOP

Here are a few pics of a spread I had in Advanced Photoshop #88 last month. My EK piece "Drifting" was chosen to be featured in one of the "How I Made" sections of the magazine. These are 2 page features that describe the piece, the artist and outline a particular Photoshop technique, or effect used during the creation of the image. As I don't use any Photoshop effects, I had to try and outline my painting process in 3 steps!

The rest of the magazine is full of great digital art, articles and a 6 page feature on Maciej Kuciara. The magazine also comes with a CD full of brushes, tutorials and other media.

Thanks to Adam Smith at Advanced Photoshop/Imagine Publishing for inviting me to be part of the issue.

BLOOOM

Here are a few pictures of the work I exhibited at the ARTISHOX Gallery booth at the Blooom Creative Industries Art Show that was held in Cologne, Germany over the last few days.

ARTISHOX finished my prints off with Dibond/Diasec. I had never heard of this process before. It involves fusing a piece of acrylic glass to the print, and mounting it on a aluminium and plastic plate. Apparently the colours are more brilliant and the image is sharper than framing behind standard glass. Anyways, I was happy with the end result and thought they looked great.

I had the honor of exhibiting with other ARTISHOX artists Michihiro Matsuoka, Esther Barend and Philip Bosmans.

Huge thanks to Ben Wouters for putting everything together, hauling everything to Cologne, and for curating the booth!

More pictures here.

ARTISHOPIX

ARTISHOPIX, the online shop/gallery of the ARTISHOX Gallery, is up and running. A whole bunch of my limited edition Entartete Kunst fine art prints are available on the site.

The shop also offers the wonderful sculptural works of Michihiro Matsuoka and paintings and fine art prints by Philip Bosmans and Esther Barend. The work of additional ARTISHOX artists should be appearing on the site soon.

Check it out here.

THE PASSAGE

Finally a new EK Piece.....it has been awhile since the last one back in June. I had a busy summer, and finding time for personal work proved difficult with several vacations, a kitchen reno, another set of boards for Endeavor, and spending a lot of time with the kids. As we settle into fall I plan on having a little more time for my own work.

The sketch that this one grew up around was started back when I was working on the piece for Rooms Uncovered Magazine, and shares the same two panel layout. The title, The Passage, along with the birth like imagery of the main panel, and the altered or evolved state of the right hand panel (here represented by the colour shift and time passage), speaks to the changes that have occurred within us, or that we feel have occurred, when we emerge from an experience.

Having emerged from a forced break from my own work, along with other recent events related to these pieces, I feel I have a new perspective of where I want to take this series.

High res. and details at my Flickr.

BLOOOM

I'll be exhibiting some pieces at the Blooom Creative Industries Art Show in Cologne, Germany later this month. My work will be exhibited at the ARTISHOX Gallery booth, along with work by other artists the gallery represents.

This is a large show, with a host of galleries and artists exhibiting their works. The show is also running in conjunction with ART.FAIR, so there will be lots to see and experience.

The show runs from October 29th till November 1st, 2011 at Staatenhaus AM Rheinpark, Cologne, Germany.

If you are in the area, go check it out.

CGWORLD MAGAZINE

Here are pics of the interview/feature I had in CGWorld Magazine. The issue came out back in January but I haven't posted it because due to several mail snags I did not receive a copy of the magazine until now.

CGWorld is the largest and most influential monthly magazine in China's CG Industry. This high quality magazine is full of amazing art from around the world, interviews with creators and also publishes material from US industry magazine Cinefex for the Chinese audience.

Thanks to Chief Editor, Yu Zhuo for the opportunity and for all his help.

ARTISHOX

I'm happy to announce my joining of the ARTISHOX Gallery and Art Agency. The gallery, located in Hasselt, Belgium, will carry a selection of my current works and I'll be creating a new series of works specifically for the gallery in the future. As an agency they will also be representing, promoting and managing my work.

For those unable to make it over to Belgium, my work will also be available on the ARTISHOX online store, ARTISHOPIX, that will going live in the near future.

ARTISHOX exhibits and represents a host of amazing artists working in a wide range of mediums and subjects including Michihiro Matsuoka, Raf Veulemans, Philip Bosmans, Lex Tintel and Esther Barend to name a few. Check them out on the ARTISHOX website.

Thanks to Ben at ARTISHOX for his belief, commitment, effort and guidance.

INDUSTRIA MECHANIKA

I'm pleased to announce that the guys over at Industria Mechanika are going to translate a few of the figures from my Entartete Kunst pieces into model kits. The first one up is going to be "Dystopic", a piece I did last year for Ventilate. The figures will be roughly 12 inches and the kit will consist of resin parts and wires for cables and suspending orbs. We are just getting started on this so they won't be available for a few months but I'll post updates as they come.

Industria Mechanika is also working with Ian Mcque and Adrian Smith to bring their amazing work to 3 dimensions. From what I've seen so far the results are incredible. Check it out here.