ECCC 2011 is this weekend!

 

This weekend is my biggest weekend of the year, Emerald City Comicon!

This year I am offering a lot of cool things at my table in a much wider variety of price points. I have 4 new prints, bringing the total to 9. I also have a special art card that I am selling exclusively at this convention. What makes these special is that they are ultra cheap ($10!), have the same high quality that you expect from my prints, and I will draw an original sketch on the inside of the card right in front of you if you buy one! 

The card will feature the artwork from Six Feet Under's "Wake the Night" DVD and it is labled as "ECCC Art Card #1". What does that mean? It means that I will be making a new one every year! If you have an interest in my art, you'll definitely want to pick one up as they will not be sold after the convention!

Finally, I'm happy to announce that I will accept credit cards this year. That should hopefully minimize the annoyance of having to run to the cash machine if you are running a bit dry.

I'm very excited for what I have to offer this year and it's taken many months of work to get it all pulled together, so I hope you will come out and say Hi!. Even if you have no interest in purchasing anything, drop by for the fun of it and talk heavy metal with me. 

For more information about the convention as well as how to get there, please visit their site!

See you all there!

Caution: Wet paint.

You might notice it looks a little different around here! Sorry if you were partial to the old site graphics, but they were getting a little tired to these eyes. They were made about 3 and a half years ago when I just started getting into the album cover industry and I'd like to think that I have improved a lot since then. It was definitely time to update.

There's no other changes with the rest of the site, but I hope you appreciate the new vibe!
Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think of them. 

A note for Mr. Coppola.

Recently, I read an interview by Francis Ford Coppola that I found very interesting. 

In the interview, he says, "...as we enter into a new age, maybe art will be free. Maybe the students are right. They should be able to download music and movies. I’m going to be shot for saying this. But who said art has to cost money? And therefore, who says artists have to make money? "

As many of you no doubt know, I do a reasonable amount of artwork for heavy metal bands and seeing as he is referencing the music industry here, I feel that I should comment on his opinion. If you read the interview, basically what he is saying is that all artists (whether that be musicians, filmmakers, painters, whatever), should make art independently and without pay and use other ventures to fund their project themselves. While I certainly don't disagree with doing things independently, there are cases such as album covers where a band may not be able to make that themselves. So that is why they HIRE an artist. As a filmmaker, he has to HIRE artists to do make-up or props or sets. Are the people that are not the decision-makers expected to make free things as well? Why would they make your movie when they could possibly make their own?

This isn't about greed. This isn't even necessarily about "putting food on the table" as everyone always says. This is about someone giving me a reason to not work on my own artistic ventures. I have thousands of ideas in my head at any given point. These could be paintings, comic strips, comic books, drawings, characters, sculptures, installations, anything! All of these things I have sitting in my brain waiting to be unleashed on the world and I am not doing them right this second. But why is that? Because I am accepting your offer to compensate me to do something for you. You paying me is not making me rich like Metallica. You paying me is jumping you ahead of my own imagination's queue to do your idea above mine.

Your idea is likely very cool, too, of course. And that is why I love making album covers for people. It's challenging to realize what someone else has in their head. But the fact still remains, nothing will ever be as personal as a pet project. 

So Mr. Coppola, I do agree that trying to be an artist for the sole reason of becoming a millionaire is a bit silly. Unfortunately, I think your notion that "all art should be free" is completely ridiculous. If it wasn't, we wouldn't have entertainment as no true artist would do someone else's idea over their own without a reason.

Reign in Art - Top 5 album covers of all time.

Recently, REIGN IN ART (a site dedicated to celebrating heavy metal album cover artwork) asked me to list my top 5 album covers of all time. It was an incredibly difficult list to decide upon, because I have so many favorites. Also, there's a lot of "best album covers of all time" lists out there and they always list the same album covers for the most part. So I really stuck to my guns here and didn't consider what other peoples' opinions are and went with my gut instinct alone. Check out the link for the list!

While you are there, check out the rest of the site! REIGN IN ART is quickly becoming one of my favorite sites to visit and it should be yours, too! After all, heavy metal is primarily about the music, but the packaging is the first thing you see!

"Remnants Aflame" print now available

"Remnants Aflame" fine art print now available. This artwork was featured in the interior booklet for Oceano's "Contagion" album. The prints are individually signed, titled, and numbered of 100. Please visit the online store here for more information.