Steve-Ellis

It's been a while since i've posted anything up here...it's been a busy year this year and things fell behind. I've been Busy working on the Only Living Boy( the webcomic and print comic both www.OLBCOMIC.com) and working up to a new KickStarter project called "Monsterwood."

That said, I really want to thank anyone and everyone who nominated The Only Living Boy from mysefl and David Gallaher for the "Best Publication for Younger Readers" Award for the Harvey's.
For those of you who don't know, the Harvey's( named after Harvey Kurtzmann the famous cartoonist) are a peer chosen award. Only people in the industry can nominate and vote. ( So if you can vote please do!)

As for Monsterwood, I'm hoping everyone gets to see the project. It is a far reaching fantasy project with a lot of exciting characters villians and monsters.  The Kickstarter is here:
www.kickstarter.com/projects/5…

I'm really proud of the work I've done for the book and looking forward to finishing it up. PLease Fund it if you can, and if you can't tell a friend. These Kickstarters really make the projects happen!

First off I wanted to thank everyone who nominated me as Best inker and Best Cover Artist for Only Living Boy! 

Cover Art vs retouched photo covers!

I saw an awesome documentary on the rise and fall of video tape and the vcr as a medium and a phenomenon, called "rEWIND THIS"( sorry keyboard has an "r" problem since the flood). On top of all the video tape stuff, there was a whole segment on video tape covers and how they could sell a crappy movie at the video store with an awesome painted cover( usually involving big guns, muscles, zombies, skulls, and breasts) It made me realize the power that the illustration has to sell an item and how a lot of the "photo covers" of books and albums right now seems uninspiring and probably doesn't help sell the work. The marketers and accountants at corporations seem to have too much power over the art direction of the projects and so lots of good works get a mediocre photo cover.

The Important Question!

Where would Edgar rice Burroughs be without an amazing Frazetta on the cover? How about Lovecraft without an illustrator like Michael Raymond Whelan? Fans of fantastic art need to know that the really good time-consuming art is being edged out by fast photocollage. Everything is starting to look the same from Twilight to Game of Thrones. Here's the formula:  

A. put down a dark background with a fade from light at the bottom with dark at the top.

B. throw a blue/brown/red photo filter over a photo of the heads of the three main characters

C. collage these faces together with one( the most important character) larger than the others, these others will be arranged in order of importance to the story.

D paste these onto dark fade background.

E. maybe put another color filter over this so all the colors in the background and the faces are unified. F. Add text to the bottom cuz, Hey, the readers/fans don't care!

Hey! I'm looking forward to heading down to Heroes Convention in Charlotte next weekend. I'm planning on taking a limited number of sketches for the show!

Please email me if you want to get on my Sketch List list at steveart1@gmail.com


HEre are the prices!
$25 8x10 $40 B&W pencil  Head/Bust Shot
8x10 $40 B&W with ink wash for Head/Bust Shot
$75 for Full Figures B&W with warm and cool grays 11x17
$300 B&W Full Figure with ink wash
$375 For Full Figure B&W with warm & cool grays
$500 For Full Figure Watercolor/Or Paints with Ink
$500 For Full Figure Watercolor/Or Paints with Ink

Look forward to seeing everyone at the show!

Steve

Ive had a lot of people ask about paint so here is some info. These colors will work well for an oil or acrylic palette. I use Acrylic most often, but these should work either way.

A pretty solid paint palette for Oils or Acrylics will include these:

Titanium White*, 
Paynes Gray
*, Raw Umber*
, Burnt Sienna*, 
Yellow Ochre
, Burnt Umber
*, Terre Verte (Green Earth)
, Cadmium Red Deep*, Cadmium Yellow Medium*, 
Cadmium Yellow Light*, 
Ultramarine Blue*, Permanent Green*, 
Manganese/Dioxazine Purple*, Greenish Umber
, Sap Green*, 
Alizarin Crimson*, 
Pthalocyanine Blue, 
Pthalocyanine Green, Cobalt Blue*, 
Turquoise Blue*,

Cadmium Red, Scarlet, Cadmium Yellow Pale, Raw Sienna, 
Sepia, 

Lamp Black, Mars Black*, 
Cadmium Red Light*, 
Magenta, Naples Yellow
*, Brilliant Yellow, 
Indian Yellow, Mars Violet
Brown Pink,*Chinese Red Vermilioned, 
Emerald Green, 
Manganese Blue, 
Davey's Gray

* colors with the asterix are most useful. Remember that these colors mix differently depending on the warmth or coolness of the colors.

Acrylic mediums include, matte medium, gloss, medium, gesso.

BRUSHES

Soft hair brushes are best for glazing : they allow a smooth and even layering of the color. Some of the best brushes for this application are ox hair flats, sable and squirrel hair (mix).

Sable watercolor brushes have the best tips for rendering fine details, sizes range from 000 and up. Rekab produces a fine and inexpensive sable brush of this type.