Dear Blog,

So very sorry for having taken such a hiatus from posting.

I’ve been busily churning out artwork for a board game and could not return to your warm embrace until I had completed my labors. I enjoyed the holidays with family from around the state as well as my twin brother who flew in with his beautiful family from Los Angeles.

Woo-Hoo!

I even completed a portfolio piece!

Icarus

The sketch group met once again on Wednesday evening and I got to hang out with friends, Peter Noonan and Jason Luongo. I also made the acquaintance of Larry Gagon, whose son is an aspiring artist. His son may join us soon and share some sketching time. 

I’ve also been working with friends to produce a new podcast about illustration and freelancing in the art world called ” The Ninja Mountain Podcast”. It is truly an awesome program to work on. We have already published two episodes and are now available on ITunes as well as through our group’s blog at www.ninjamountain.blogspot.com

Here’s are links to the specific episodes as well, though it is easy to find them at the above link:

http://ninjamountain.blogspot.com/2009/01/ninja-mountain-podcast-episode-1.html

http://ninjamountain.blogspot.com/2009/02/ninja-mountain-podcast-episode-2.html

I am really excited about the show. So far we have had opportunity to introduce ourselves and speak a bit about our backgrounds. Episode 2 discusses some of the tools needed to seek work and present your studio professionally.

We are already planning the next episode and we hope to keep it a weekly affair.

Be sure to check it out! We hope you will enjoy it enough to subscribe ( Don’t worry–it’s free!) Our subscriber list grows daily and we love to get feedback and ideas for topics. 

Change of topic back to the board game I mentioned above. 

It has been a great experience so far as I’ve been exploring new tools within Corel Painter X ( at least those tools that I’ve never previously needed). The vector and text editing tools along with the selection tools being of great importance to the project.

I am growing much better rounded as an illustrator for having gained experience with them. It will be quite awhile before I can share some examples of the work, but I will be sure to post some here as soon as I am allowed.

Another thing I learned was the fundamental difference between creating artwork for a game board as opposed to a singular painting. When I create a painting I have a great deal of latitude as to the level of detail I bring to various parts of the canvas. The focal point of a painting is where I tend to lavish attention and time while other parts can be more loosely handled ( and indeed must be) in order to serve the overall composition.

On a game board, all elements pretty much receive equal weight and thus each element often  requires a great deal of time to render to the fullest. Still, I enjoyed the challenge and now I must wait for feedback from the company. Here’s hoping things are all good to go. :)

Well, back to my labors. I have a four page comic story to work on which I am very excited to do so I best get things under way. The layouts are complete, now I just have to gather some reference and get the layouts down on board. 

Onwards!

—Jeremy