Spectrum opening in NYC

Back in September I took a trip to New York City to go to the Spectrum Exhibition opening reception which was on Sept. 11th. That was my first time in NYC and having work in a gallery show there too. My Crimson Devil drawing was picked to be in the show. I was one of the few artists with ink work to be included, though a number of my favorite contemporary painters had works in the show. It was great to see so much stunning art up close and meet a few artists.

The hotel I stayed in was near Times Square. So during the day on Sept. 11th I e-mailed an editor I'm working with at DC to see if I could stop by. He said sure, so I grabbed my portfolio and walked through the rain a few blocks to the DC offices. It turned out to be a great visit ... I got a chance to meet my editor and he gave me a tour of DC.

Here's a few photos from the trip- click images to see them larger.

Crimson Devil framed art: Here's a few pics of the framed art before it was shipped off to NYC. The Crimson Devil drawing was originally done for the small press comic company Ape Entertainment. The piece has yet to be published on the original project, though may at some point be printed there. I'll also post the ink version of the original art.

Sunrise: I took off for NYC early on Sept 10th and took a few pics of the sunrising from the airplane. Something I don't see everyday... from an airplane I mean.

Times Square: It was great to see all those buildings lit up at night, so I took a bunch of pics.

Spectrum Show: Here's a few pics from the show @ The Museum of American Illustration... I didn't get a chance to take many pics at the show. My art piece was hanging next to a huge Kull painting by Justin Sweet.

Winsor McCay art: A great pen & ink illustration that was in the permanent collection at the museum.

World of Chaos Destiny

This is my own project that is set in a dark world I created. It is a vision I have had and developed for quite some time. This is an illustrative project intended to be published as an concept artbook eventually. I work on this when I can and have 30-40 finished ink illustrations already with more to come.

I have posted a few sketch pages from the "Chaos Destiny Sketchbook" on the right side of this blog page. These are images from my world though the eyes of the main character Athan Cyprus. Athan keeps a sketchbook/ journal that he obsessively records his thoughts and observations in. Click the images to read his thoughts on the sketches.
I have also posted one of the main character illustrations of Athan Cyprus. (above the sketch pages)

Here is another sketch of Athan.

Here is the "Sawed-off Disintegrator" sketch page and a WIP photo.

Kull TPB

The Kull TPB that collects the series (Kull #1-6) was released from Dark Horse.
It turned out pretty good with strong interior art by Will Conrad and a nice story by Arvid Nelson based on "The Shadow Kingdom" by the Kull creator Robert E. Howard.
The Kull cover art that I did for #1-3 were printed inside as chapter headers. They printed a little darker than on the comic covers though still look good and are free of logo designs.
The TPB has a bonus sketchbook section in the back which includes some extras from Conrad and a pencil version of my Kull #2 cover. These were great additions to the book! The TPB has a new cover by Paul Renaud.
Kull TPB @ Dark Horse- click here

A minor disappointment was that my cover art for Kull # 2 was not updated for the TPB. The original cover was colored over my pencil work. I later went back on my own time and did a fully inked and more detailed version of the drawing. Which looks much better and would have been more consistant with my other covers.
Anyway its just something I think could have helped the book look a bit stronger. I might be a little bit of a picky ass though.

Here's my covers for Kull # 1 and #3

I was surprised to see my original Kull concept design printed next to the title page in the book. This was the original idea and direction I had wanted to go with my Kull cover art... a little darker and more gritty but still different looking than Conan. I thought this design would be more visually appealing on covers and was closer to my natural instincts of how to draw Kull. Here's that sketch.

Here's another early concept sketch that was scrapped all together... he was a bit too bulky here to be Kull. (This sketch is not in the TPB)

Here's some WIP shots of the Kull #1 cover... none of these pics are in the TPB, so I thought I'd show them here.
My rough sketch for the cover was pretty messy. On this sketch Kull holds the sword pointing out. This was changed, so the barcode wouldn't cover it up and I'm very glad my editor noticed that at this early stage.

WIP pencil + some details: This cover drawing was the first piece done for Kull and was to be a sort of initial concept guide as well.

Kull's hair had to be change a little from this... it was too puffed up. The face was drawn without any photo refs... like many of the comic characters I do.

The visual design I created for the monster on this cover was used in the interior art of the first issue.

Here's a WIP ink scan

I also colored my art on this cover and was playing with the idea of a blue skinned monster.

Introduction

I decided to start up a blog. Partly to have a space to collect links to my art and various related things on the web. I don't have an official webpage and this is a little easier to set up. I have a myspace blog and a facebook page already and a few other web galleries of my art.

If you're new to my art here's a few illos below and there's a short bio at the bottom of the blog. Here's a link to a post I made on conceptart.org that has a bunch of my art too:
Andy's art on Concept art- click here

Some of my art - click images for bigger pics

The Throne- The pencil version of this art was used on the Kull #2 cover art for Dark Horse. This ink version I did on my own time and wasn't used in the project. I just felt the drawing was too strong to not do an ink version.

Hellboy: Egyptian Ruins- This is one of a couple Hellboy private commissions I've done. Hellboy is one of my favorite comic books, so I went all out on the 2 commissions I did. The drawings have never been used on an official project, though I did get compliments from Dark Horse & Mike Mignola on the art.

Scale the Tower- This one is a personal drawing and creature design I did for my own project call "Chaos Destiny" The project is set in a dark world I'm designing. It is a vision I have had for quite some time. It is an illustrative project intended to be published as an concept artbook eventually. I work on this when I can and have 30-40 finished illustrations already with more to come.