http://thaldir.cgsociety.org/blog/ thaldir's blog en-us 120 http://thaldir.cgsociety.org/blog/6030
The 4-day passes to GenCon have been bought, and today Marina managed to secure a room in our first-choice accomodation in the GenCon housing block, never mind the site crashing due to Con-goers digital stampede when reservations opened.

Both of us are already very excited and full of anticipation.

Indianapolis, here we come!

...Yes, I know, it's only February...
]]> Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:43:56 +0000 http://thaldir.cgsociety.org/blog/6002
Some time ago, Jon Schindehette, the brand AD for D&D, put out a call for art on his blog, Art Order, for pieces to be included in a calendar he planned to give as thank you gift to the guest judges of the contests he hosts on his blog.

...Yes, yes, I know about 'working for exposure' but, first of all he wasn't asking for purpose-made pieces, and, second, °this° kind of exposure meant that the included pieces would go in the hands of such people as Irene Gallo (Tor Publishing), three ADs of Paizo Publishing and the like...

Well, I submitted 'Xava: Mischief', and when I heard that Jon had received about 80 submissions and time passed without news, I forgot about it.

Until, a couple of evenings ago I received an e-mail with the subject line 'Calendar Proof'.

My mischievious girl and the tamarins are the July feature!

Jon has announced the calendar himself, so I now consider the news 'out of NDA', as it were http://artorder.blogspot.com/2010/0...challenges.html can't wait to receive my copy!]]> Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:42:00 +0000 http://thaldir.cgsociety.org/blog/5974
I know I've been AWOL for a long time, in fact I came here rather frequently doing my best to keep abreast of things, my problem was with updating my blog since...well, it takes time and while I write, I cannot paint (I did better with fast updates on Facebook, though, I didn't turn wholly web-hermit).

With the new year just arrived it's time for a retrospective, how did 2009 go?

In 2009 I painted 31 pieces, all but 3 of which were print-resolution.

Of these 31 I had:

20 industry pieces (among which 1 painting for a Q&A column, 3 covers for rpg manuals and 16 cards) of the 20, 14 are still under non-disclosure.

8 private commissions: 5 portraits and 3 backgrounds for a web-site

2 pieces made for challenges (from 2 other challenges I dropped out, commissions got in the way)

1 personal piece (Xava: Mischief)

I didn't have more than 2 weeks as maximum timespan between the end of the job and the beginning of the next one, from October onward the pace became hectic I found myself with work lined up for three months straight and the trend is continuing in the new year.

I've had some new clients, all of which found me on their own, and all have came back for more, some multiple times.

Features: I have had 2 pieces and a tutorial published in Art Squared 1 a new British annual, quite a few more pieces have been selected for volume 2 that will be out later this year.

A whole page feature on Painter Magazine

One Q&A column on Painter Magazine (now it has changed name and scope, we'll see whether further cooperation materializes).

One interview on It's Art Magazine (web and paper) and another, taken by my lovely collegue Constanza Ehrenhaus earlier last year and publishe on EMGZine today.

All in all I've painted a bit less than last year, but work in 2009 has been picking up in the second part of the year reaching an hectic pace in the last 3 months of the year.
I've been added to a second line of LCG by Fantasy Flight Games (Call of Chtulhu) and my first piece for the line has been used as cover for the pack and has been very well received by the player community (which, if I may add, as very strong opinions about what constitutes good Chtulhu card art, and rightly so), another piece done for AGOT also was used as pack cover and was similarly well received).

All in all I believe that, work-wise, this dual-job wielding free-lancer can be well satisfied of a year that, in general I'm rather happy to see ended.

Here is to a way better 2010 for everyone!]]> Fri, 01 Jan 2010 16:08:47 +0000 http://thaldir.cgsociety.org/blog/5853
Even though I'm strictly a 2D illustrator abd the conference gravitated mostly towards the 3D area of the digital field and the applications in medicine, animation, games and cinema FX quite a lot of what was said with a little extrapolation could also be applied to 2D (storytelling, for instance is just as important when you have to tell a story with a single still image, isn't it? ).

It was stunning to see the array of incredible talent that gathered at Turin this year, and, even if it sound naive, it was also stunning to find such high-profile relators extremealy approachable and willing to spend their time in impromptu conversation with the attendees, it isn't something one sees very often over here.

An added bonus was the possibility to meet Paul Hellard in person, after getting to 'know' him through e-mail exchanges following submissions for Ballistic books, the time wasn't long, but was extremely appreciated and enjoyable.

Thanks for the opportunity, CGSociety!

]]> Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:29:04 +0000 http://thaldir.cgsociety.org/blog/5632
a while ago I was contacted by ms. April Madden from Corel Painter Official Magazine, and I was offered a free promotion page, so my 'Kativa' was published on issue 32.
I was already on cloud 9 (or 99), but while discussing the offer, April asked me if I could be interested in becoming a columnist for the magazine.

I think you can imagine what my answer was.

The contract was signed, I received my assignement, and... my first ever Q&A is out now, on issue 33.

Can I say cloud 9999?]]> Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:55:54 +0000