Glossary

Artists' Bios and Contact Information

As mentioned in the preceding chapter, almost all these artists work on a freelance basis, and welcome your inquiries and feedback. Their contact information is supplied here.

Jason S. Alexander currently resides in North Carolina. He's worked, for the last six years, in the comics industry on series like Queen and Country for Oni Press and his own title, Empty Zone, for Sirius Ent. He's completed illustrations and covers for Harris Comics, Image Comics, and other independents. His illustrations have been seen in adaptations of Alice and Wonderland, Alice Through the Looking Glass, and The Time Machine for Dalmatian Press. He's also completed many illustrations for White Wolf Inc. and Wizards of the Coast. He's currently working on a series of paintings and drawings for an upcoming art book, a series of self-published illustrated prose works, and writing and directing independent films with close friend and studio-mate, Kent Williams.

www.studiosection8.com

[e-mail]

In a diverse career spanning more than a decade as a freelance artist, Don Anderson has developed and created a staggering body of work from interactive television to children's books. From the inception of the Internet, Don has worked on high-profile sites such as Willy Wonka Candy, where he was lead illustrator on all the main pages and created many of the games and activities. Sought out by many prominent ad agencies, Don did sketch work for movie posters and POP materials. A few of his credits in this arena include Anastasia, Lethal Weapon 4, Sinbad, The Hulk, and Daredevil. As a creative visionary, storyboards have played a lead role in Don's career. A few of those he did include The Journey of Allen Strange, The Jersey TV shows, and spots for Lilo & Stitch, Burger King, and Honda. In the game industry, he has comped for print ads and box cover art for game titles such as Wolverine's Revenge, Age of Empires, and Tron 2.0. Don's most recent hat was that of Art Director for the "Artrageous Adventure tour," a bus tour celebrating Crayola's 100th year birthday, where he designed everything from the outside wrap to the tables and shelves, delighting children and adults across the nation.

www.thedonandersonstudio.com

Cheryl Austin has been creating computer-generated artwork for 11 years. Using Photoshop, Painter, 3D Studio Max, LightWave, and Maya, she has conceptualized characters for many games, including Joust, Skins Game, Grey Dawn, Gladiator the Crimson Reign, and 10th Degree. She is currently working on Return of the King for Electronic Arts. Cheryl is entirely self-taught and is proficient in traditional artist tools such as pen and ink, pastels, and sculpture, as well as computer art. Following her passion led her to work in the gaming industry. Working on games for Interplay during the day and going to the arcade at night, she fell in love with the characters. Working at Electronic Arts has allowed her to put her talent and creativity to work. Cheryl has developed a number of characters of her own.

www.studiodink.com

Shawn Barber's signature brushwork has appeared in advertising, book, magazine, entertainment, music, and newspapers. He has exhibited in both solo and group shows throughout the U.S. and has been commissioned by The Butler Institute for their permanent collection. Shawn's work has been featured by The Society of Illustrators, American Illustration, Step By Step Graphics, American Artist magazine, CMYK Magazine, and Juxtapoz Magazine. Shawn also teaches painting, illustration, and drawing at the Ringling School of Art & Design, in Sarasota, Florida.

www.sdbarber.com

www.magnetreps.com

Dell Barras has more than 10 years of experience working for various animation studios on the west coast and excelling in every aspect of the productions, such as character designs, storyboard, layouts, and animating on paper with the added ability of animating with Macromedia Flash software. He works with others as a board supervisor, maintaining flow of quality on assumed deadlines. Dell has worked on live-action films; the latest was as illustrator and board artist for Dude, Where's My Car?. Currently, he is the storyboard director for Warner Bros. Ozzy & Drix (Osmosis Jones) second season.

www.barrasandclark.net

[e-mail]

Ryan Benjamin Comic Book Artist/3D Modeler/Animator

After Ryan completed college in 1993, he began to work as a comic book penciler/artist for Image comics. He then freelanced other comic book work for Marvel and Dark Horse comics. In 1998, Ryan began a comic book/design company with other co-artists called Digital Broome. He has worked on an extensive list of books during the years: Uncanny X-Men, WildCATS, Grifter, StormWatch, Union, Gen13, IronMan, CaptainAmerica, Turok, Gambit, Cable, Ghost, Batgirl, Vagabond, StarWars…the list goes on. In 1998, Ryan began to study 3D art. Since then, he's done cover art, in-game models, and character and set designs for Xbox and Playstation games. Ryan is presently freelancing in the animated film field and still doing as much design/ad/video game and comic book work as he can.

www.ryanbenjamin.com

[e-mail]

Aleksi Briclot works in the video-game industry as a concept artist and art director. He's also illustrator for books, RPG books, and magazines, and a comic-book artist. He recently won the conceptart.org Terminator 3 Art Contest and appears on the Terminator3 website. Some of his works will also appear in Spectrum 10th, the biggest annual anthology of fantastic art. He's currently working on a Spawn comic for Todd MacFarlane Production.

www.aneyeoni.com

Jeff Carlisle is a freelance concept designer and illustrator from Columbus, OH. He was a Concept and Level Designer for Presto Studios Whacked! game for the Microsoft X-Box Video Game System. His clients have included Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG), Lucasfilm Ltd., Paizo Publishing, Presto Studios, The Scarefactory Inc., and Wizards of the Coast. His work has appeared in Dragon, Dungeon/Polyhedron, Star Wars Gamer, and Star Wars Insider magazines, as well as the Star Wars: New Jedi Order Sourcebook and Star Wars: Power of the Jedi Sourcebook for the Star Wars Role-Playing Game. Jeff is currently doing freelance concept and illustration work, as well as writing his first illustrated fantasy novel for children.

www.jeffcarlisle.com

[e-mail]

Justin Cherry

www.nivbed.com

[e-mail]

After 14 years in the military, Mitchell Cotie decided to make his art his career a lifelong dream became reality. Now, after two years in art school, he is a freelance illustrator and a fulltime 2D/3D artist for Raven Software.

[e-mail]

www.mcotie.com

Youngsang Kim (dodowa) is a 3D animation "Thirst" concept designer. He is also the recipient of the Japan Animation planning award (Anime Planning Award, Second Rank, 2003), the Fukuoka Asia Digital Award for Excellence (2001), and the FAN Animation Festival Final List (2001). His art has appeared in an exhibition for concept art called "Final Evolution" (Kwan-Hoon Gallery, Seoul, Korea, 2002).

www.orbiterdesigner.com/bronzeage/

[e-mail]

Jon Foster. You can view his work at:

www.jonfoster.com

Gez Fry is a freelance artist based in London, England. He was born in 1978 in Tokyo, Japan, and since then has been lucky enough to live in several countries. This varied upbringing, and being half-Japanese, has exposed him to many styles of art, and he counts among his influences artists from Japan, Korea, and France, as well as the U.K. and the U.S. Gez's work is comprised of paintings, sequential, and concept art. The two images included here were produced entirely on a computer, with a graphics tablet.

www.gezfry.com

Recognizing the significant cultural role played by visual art, Donato Giancola makes personal efforts to contribute to the expansion and appreciation of the science fiction and fantasy genre that extend beyond the commercial commissions of his clients. Patrons of his work include companies such as LucasArts, National Geographic, DC Comics, HarperCollins Publishers, Sony, Hasbro, Milton-Bradley, Tor Books, and Playboy Enterprises. His illustrations have won numerous awards, including Gold and Silver Awards from Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, five nominations for the Artist Hugo Award, and seven Chesley Awards from the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists. Donato appears as a guest at various colleges, institutions, tournaments, and science fiction conventions around the world, where he demonstrates his techniques, lectures on his aesthetics, interacts with fans, and displays original works of art. Donato's studio is located in Brooklyn, New York.

www.donatoart.com

Chuck Gibson. You can view his work at:

http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/AlbumList?u=4036610

[e-mail]

Atom Gray was born in the cultural limbo of the midwest in 1970. He dropped out of high school, became a paid writer, and self-published his own magazine by the age of 17. Then, dropping out of art school in 1991, he began a 10-year tattoo saga that netted him 40 international awards and a world-famous studio started with only a $500 loan. He soon married, dropped tattooing, and moved to Los Angeles, where he has just completed his first full-length screenplay and has come to suspect he is the reincarnation of Captain James Cook. Atom is also currently executing a series of visionary paintings, album covers, and odd squealing noises from a turntable.

www.voodooplex.com

[e-mail]

Matt Haley has been toiling away in the comic-book industry for the past ten years, producing some of the most realistic and meticulously detailed work for the four-color medium. After working on licensed Star Trek books for DC Comics, he gained a solid fan base by working on Dark Horse's Ghost, which invigorated his love of pulp adventure themes, and his fan base ballooned with his work on Birds of Prey, Supergirl, and Batgirl for DC Comics. He has also provided illustrations for Ubisoft Games, Adidas, Infogrames (Atari), Showtime Networks, Premiere Magazine, KenzerCo, Wizards of The Coast, TSR, and many more. Matt has been quietly developing comic book and film properties with Spyglass Production's MAGE producer Andrew Cosby, including their creator-owned project, Jack Hunter: G.I. SPY.

www.matthaley.com

Jason Hall was born on September 17, 1974. He began his career doing work in comics on various titles for Wildstorm/DC and Marvel, as well as pencilling the four-issue bad-girl limited series from Spilled Milk, Inc. He has also done interactive design, storyboards, and illustration for various high-profile clients such as Hewlett-Packard, Garnier, Whirlpool, and others, including the internationally acclaimed advertising agency, Publicis Dialog. At 28 years of age, he now works out of his home-based studio in San Francisco, a couple blocks up the street from Ocean Beach.

[e-mail]

http://vanian.home.mindspring.com

Andrew Peter Jones is a concept artist and international portrait artist. He began pulling images out of the void and into the world at age five and has continued ever since. His work experience includes Industrial Light and Magic's art department, Interplay's Black Isle Studios, and Nintendo first-party developer Retro Studios, where he worked as the principal concept Artist for "Metroid Prime." Andrew's film credits include concept artist for Jason Wen's world-recognized and award-winning short film, F8. In his free time, Andrew travels the globe with an easel on his back, drawing portraits on street corners from Venice Beach to Venice, Italy. Andrew has created thousands of portraits that hang in homes in almost every country on the planet.

Andrew's latest work can be seen at www.conceptart.org; his saga of art takes him on a journey into the depths of creativity, stamina, and narcissism with his "self-portrait of the day" section, where a new self-portrait is created and displayed each and every day. His influence can be seen in the guest portrait gallery, where he has acquired a cult following of artists across the world to join him in the adventure of artistic expression and self-discovery.

Andrew currently lives and works in Austin, Texas. His work is a personal pursuit of beauty, horror, and imagination, which he shares with the world to inspire the dreams and the art of the next generation.

www.conceptart.org

[e-mail]

Jason Manley is a founder of www.conceptart.org, a not-for-profit website devoted to helping artists develop their skills and showcasing their concept work. He is presently Lead Concept Artist for Vivendi Universal Games. Jason has contributed to and been a core artist on many games for both PC and console titles. His website group is a current authority on conceptual idea development and visual development for games and entertainment. He has more than 4,000 students and top professionals posting work and teaching on conceptart.org. He is originally from Minnesota and studied traditional fine art with Jim Garrison and Ringling School of Art and Design.

www.massiveblack.com

www.conceptart.org

[e-mail]

Smoothly morphing his considerable skill and experience, Stephan Martiniere shapeshifts from whimsical to hard-core science fiction, cartoon to realistic, concept illustrator to director. In the last 20 years, Stephan has become known for his versatility, talent, and imagination, gaining constant recognition and praise through his work in a growing range of clients and projects, including Star Wars (Episode 2 and 3), The Time Machine, Red Planet, Virus, and Titan A.E. During his career as an animation director, he received numerous awards, including in 1991, The Children's Hall of Fame Award, the Humanitas Award, the Parent's Choice Award, the ACT Award, and an Emmy nomination for the five animated musical adaptation specials, "Madeline." As an illustrator, he is the recipient of the 1997 Spectrum Award and the 2001 Thea Award. From 1994 to 1997, he was also the illustrator for the worldwide syndicated comic strip, "Where's Waldo," which became the fastest growing Sunday only ever. Stephan most recently was the creative visual director at Cyan for its upcoming real-time online game, URU: Ages Beyond Myst.

www.martiniere.com

Sean McNally works as a concept artist at Blur studio in Venice CA, working on a variety of projects including video-game cinematics, television commercials, and in-house feature development. He graduated from the Columbus College of Art and Design in 2002 with a major in illustration. During art school, Sean interned as an illustrator at the American Legion Magazine and as a texture artist at the LucasArts Entertainment Company.

[e-mail]

Leslie Minnis creates fantastical imagery. She has worked as head concept artist for the innovative maverick internet video game company, Hypernova. Working for the industrial design firm LFX as well, Leslie conceived, designed, and fabricated the haunting of a house in the project titled "Sanitarium." The project included numerous life-size puppets with costumes, demented toys, and futuristic headdresses. Leslie is a graduate of the Colorado Institute of Art.

[e-mail]

Margaret Nielsen is a fine artist and educator whose paintings have been exhibited in galleries and museums nationally and internationally. She has completed several large-scale public art projects, as well as receiving awards such as the National Endowment for the Arts. A graduate of California Institute of the Arts, she has taught painting at the college level and conducts workshops that focus on the development of a personal artistic vocabulary. Her paintings are an ongoing exploration of psychological and emotional realities. She lives and works in the Los Angeles area.

[e-mail]

As an artist, illustrator, and writer, Dan Parsons is best known for work on his creator-owned Harpy comic book series. He has also done cover paintings and interior pen and ink art for other comic book series like Battlestar Galactica and Sci-Fi channel's First Wave. More recently, Dan has been working on a variety of trading card projects, including "WitchBlade: Disciples of the Blade," "Top Cow Universe," "Lexx," "Battle of the Planets," and "The Crow." Dan is currently a regular inker on the Star Wars comic-book line from Dark Horse/Lucasfilm and continues to work on various creator-owned projects.

www.amryl.com

[e-mail]

Puddnhead is a freelance concept development artist located in Hollywood, California, who creates highly developed conceptual drawings and paintings for the entertainment industry. Areas of specialty include creature and character design, game environment concepts, matte paintings, and storyboards. Some of his clients include Lucasfilm, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Columbia Pictures, and Hasbro.

www.puddnhead.com

[e-mail]

Drawing since before he could hold a pencil, David Pursley specializes in traditional arts, digital painting, and 3D modeling and animating. Mainly a video-game artist, having worked with Blizzard Entertainment, Black Isle Studios, and Electronic Arts, David has been lucky enough to receive the opportunity to work on Starcraft, Diablo, Icewind Dale, BG: Dark Alliance, Command and Conquer: Generals, EAs Lord of the Rings, and many other games, some books, band posters, and websites.

[e-mail]

Jordan Raskin started his career in the early 1990s working as an artist for just about every major comic-book publisher in the industry including Marvel, DC, Image, and Darkhorse comics. In the mid-1990s, Jordan left comics to expand his art career in advertising, creating both presentation and shooting boards for various clientèle. From there he moved into animation, working as a background designer on such productions as Courage the Cowardly Dog and the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Currently Jordan is hard at work bringing his own merchandising property to fruition. He has written and developed a full-length screenplay entitled "Industry of War," which he is currently illustrating as a cinematic comic book mini-series.

www.jordanraskin.com

www.industryofwar.com

Kevin "RAZ" Razel is a diverse illustrator comfortable in various genres and fields of art and media production, having contributed to various fantasy art and comic-book projects, as well as storyboard and development work for film/video/TV and video-game productions (both live action and animation). Previous credits are varied from such clients as Power On Software, American Heart Association and Red Cross, Time Warner, Carnegie Mellon, and FPG to comic and fantasy projects for S.Q.Productions (Gallery Girls series, Demonlust art Portfolio), Sirius Comics (Primal Rage), CFD (Sensual Mystique portfolios 1 and 2), and Savage Planet from Basement Comics/Amryl Entertainment. Currently freelancing for various professional clients, Kevin also enjoys doing many private commissions for comic/fantasy/sci-fi fans and art collectors. Other projects and interests include being the associate producer for a Frank Frazetta film documentary (www.cinemachine.net) and a session vocalist/musician for several band/studio projects (www.stronghold-metal.com). His very latest project is a graphic novel/art book featuring Frazetta's Death Dealer character to be published by the Frazettas.

www.razuniverse.com

Steve Roberts is a freelance illustrator with versatile experience in traditional media, design, and computers. He has brought to life many creatures, mythological figures, and role-playing characters. A talented artist of vision and technique, Steve is entirely self-taught in his skills. This he did by studying the works of his childhood heroes legendary fantasy artists like Frank Frazetta and The Brothers Hildebrandt. Steve received his only formal training when he sat in on classes at the Ringling School of Art. He was born in central Florida, in a little town called Palmetto, a stone's throw from the Gulf of Mexico. He began drawing as a young child like most artists. Recently Steve has been working with book and game publishers such as Palladium Books. He did a number of projects for their "Rifts" series. Other publishers Steve has done work for include Tyranny Games LLC for their Sack Armies RPG game. He has also completed the cover for book two of the popular "Of Honor and Treason" series, Of Death and Duty by C.J. Merle, published by "Speculation Press." Another recent book cover just completed is Dragon Reborn, published by Dragon Moon Press.

www.fantasy-graphic.com

[e-mail]

Luis Royo was born in 1954 in Olalla, Teruel (Spain). He studied technical drawing, painting, decoration, and interior design in the Industrial Mastery School and the Applied Arts School in Zaragoza. Luis works for clients in the U.S., England, Sweden, etc., creating covers for books from all the major U.S. publishers. He also creates covers for American magazines, such as Heavy Metal, and also European ones, such as Cimoc, Comic Art, Ere Comprimèe, Total Metal, and others; he also makes video and video-game sleeves for different countries. Luis is the author/illustrator for several books: Women, Malefic, Secrets, III Millennium, Black Tarot, Dreams, Prohibited Book series, and Conceptions. He also created or contributed to several card collections, such as From Fantasy to Reality, The Art of Heavy Metal, The Best Of Royo, III Millennium, and Royo Secret Desires, all published by Comic Images. Luis currently had his 12th book published by NBM, titled VISIONS. He is represented worldwide by Norma Editorial S. A. and can be contacted through Alan Lynch at their U.S. office:

[phone]

[e-mail]

Aaron Sowd is the award-winning art director of Stan Lee Media, where he designed The Stone Man with Stan himself. Adept at storytelling in all its many forms, Aaron has done storyboards for Austin Powers in Goldmember and Freddy vs. Jason. As a conceptual designer, Aaron has worked on Steven Soderbergh and James Cameron's film Solaris, as well as Human Nature and Virus. Aaron's work has appeared in the New York Times, People, Time, the Hollywood Reporter, Gear, and Playstation magazines. His latest creation, the animated show Masterminds, can be seen at www.masterminds.us. He lives by the beach in Venice, California, and resents the fact that he has no free time to enjoy it.

www.aaronsowd.com

[e-mail]

Durwin Talon has created covers for Batman: Officer Down for DC, as well as Skinwalker and Queen and Country for Oni Press. He has also written Panel Discussions: Design in Sequential Art Storytelling for TwoMorrows Publishing. An Associate Professor, he currently teaches sequential art, video game, and multimedia classes for Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis, School of Informatics, New Media.

[e-mail]

Top Cow Productions (TCP) is a comic-book publishing company founded by top comic-book creator and artist, Marc Silvestri. TCP currently publishes its line of comic books in 21 languages in more than 55 different countries. The company has launched 21 original franchises in the industry's Top 10, with seven at #1, a feat accomplished by no other publisher in the last two decades. With retail sales topping $250 million and more than 100 million units published, TCP is the most aggressive and innovative comic-book company created since the founding of industry titan Marvel Comics in 1963.

TCP's flagship franchise, Witchblade, was TNT's #1 original film of 2000 and is now in its second season as a television series for the network, already posting stronger ratings than the first season. Virtually all of Top Cow's other properties, including Inferno, The Darkness, Rising Stars, No Honor, The Cleaner, Fathom, and Felon are in development as feature films, live-action television, or animation.

TCP spearheaded the now industry-standard of using computers for color and FX production. By bringing this part of the comic process in-house and training artists to use modern computer equipment and technology, TCP revolutionized the comic industry.

www.topcow.com

Michael Turner's love for illustration led him to the discovery of comic books, and he eventually landed a job at Top Cow Productions. Turner began his career doing backgrounds for artist Marc Silvestri on the popular comic-book title, Cyberforce. Turner's first solo assignment was the Ballistic mini-series, which led to his biggest challenge to date, Witchblade. Helping to create and launch Witchblade in October of 1995, Turner was an integral part of its success, and the title quickly grew to become one of the most popular around. Turner then turned his focus to Fathom, his first creator-owned title. Fathom was an instant success, becoming the number-one selling comic book of 1998, and was soon optioned as a major motion picture by director James Cameron. In November of 2002, Michael left Top Cow Productions to found his own company, eventually naming it Aspen MLT Inc. after Fathom's main heroine, Aspen Matthews. Settled in at his new company, Michael is now concentrating his efforts on releasing his newest properties, Soulfire and Ekos, as well as the long-awaited return of Fathom.

www.aspencomics.com

In the last 24 years, Michael Whelan has created hundreds of paintings for book covers, calendars, magazines, and record albums. During that time, he has garnered virtually all available illustration or art awards in the international fields of fantasy and science fiction. Michael is a 15-time HUGO (World Science Fiction Award) winner 11 times for Best Professional Artist and has won the HOWARD (World Fantasy) Award for Best Artist three times. In 1992, he won a HUGO in the new category of Best Original Artwork, and he was awarded the "SuperHugo" for Best Professional Artist of the last 50 years. The readers of LOCUS magazine have awarded him "Best Artist" for 22 years running. In 1994, Michael won the Grumbacher Gold Medal and most recently, he was awarded a Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators, an Award for Excellence in the 1997 Communication Arts Annual, and the SPECTRUM Gold Medal.

www.michaelwhelan.com