Alice's tea party and something about sports

David Bamundo of the Wall Street Journal gave me a call with an overnight deadline. Luckily, he had an assignment that was right up my alley, so instead of preparing for a painful night of coffee and paint, I prepared for an awesome night of coffee and paint.

The story was about how Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland, created the modern bracketing format used in sports tournaments. Nice and straightforward, lots of imagery to choose from (even if, due to my ignorance of sports, I needed David to send me an example of a tournament bracket).

And as a bonus, it printed larger and better than anything I've had in the Journal this far. 

Also, recently, I had the opportunity to do my very first live demo with my buddies at Awesome Horse Studios.  Feel free to watch me ramble about what I'm doing. A fair amount of my friends chimed in to mock my thumb ring, my taste in music and my existence. It was quite fun.

Here is the result:

value guide on one side, the result of a very distracted painting on the other.

And now I have my Microvision is in the works, so stay tuned...

Thanks!

New stuff and Microvisions!

Between drawings I've been trying to play with different papers, rather than the cheap stuff I'm used to. Here is the result of one experiment with Fabriano 300lb Hotpress watercolor paper. Extremely nice to use, but tends to suck in the paint, demanding more layers to hit darker values. On the flip of that same quality, the variations in value are very easy to manipulate. 

But I digress. I drew the devil, a giant ape, my dog, a lion and other nonsense. Let's not get too heady. 

In other awesome news, I've been asked to contribute to this year's Microvisions auction. I'm honored while trying not to panic. It's not enough that top talent in the fantasy/scifi art field are asked to do these small paintings, but they usually kick major ass. Just a quick google search will show the quality of years past.

Now I just gotta figure out what I'm gonna paint, then not screw it up.  (Suggestions welcome.) 

Some more sketches: Dogs, monsters, ladies and kiddos.

Been messing around in my sketchbook a little bit more recently. Here are some of my better looking pages.

I got to play chess with a class of 2nd graders and managed a couple quick candids. Their heads are awesomely shaped.

Also, Etta James passed away this past weekend. I did a quick sketch in her honor.

Thanks for peepin, more soon.  -SB!

Aung San Suu Kyi

Happy New Year!

Here's a quick portrait I did for my rep of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Bit of a new approach for me, but it was fun to jump into.

Speaking of new approaches, Night Shade Books's AD, Dave Palumbo, asked me to do a handful of comic strip interiors a while back. I had my qualms about taking the gig since I've never really worked that way. I love Dave and the work itself was so bizarre, I went for it.

The only copy I have with finished lettering. And probably my favorite. 

Oddly enough, this isn't the first time I've worked outside my comfort zone for sci-fi/fantasy work. A while back, I pinch hit for an interior artist for Tor.  This time doing a couple ink drawings for chapter heads. Irene Gallo had seen some ink drawings in my sketchbook and must have figured I could handle it.

Work from a sketchbook. Who knew?

Thanks for reading!

PS. It should be noted that the comic strip interiors were for a book Sam Wolfe Connelly did the cover for. It's gorgeous and his first book cover. He's the star of that show.
    It should also be noted that Dave Palumbo is a badass painter on top of Night Shade's art director.

Exposing myself, Vol.2

My Photobooth library was getting overcrowded, so obviously it is time to share some reference shots. The majority were spent on a project I still can't fully share, but there are some sneak peaks here, as well as many photos of bed head and neglected shaving.

One project, The Silence of Eggs, had it's own personal collection of weird. Nailing just the right variation of psychotic focus took a bit of work.

Note use of tools on rare occasions when my face is not elastic enough.

And, by the way, I own these pants.

Corporate Dealmakers

Without fail, if I leave my studio for any extended period of time, I will get a commission that I can't turn down.

On this occasion, I went to Altoona, PA with some artist buddies to check out Illuxcon. I have a not-so-secret interest in fantasy art and this convention is the premiere showcase for original genre paintings.  While drooling over idealized yet heavily armored women and every variety of slimey monster, I received a call to do a cover for Larry Gendron at The Deal.  I went from the dude staring at paintings to the dude sitting in the corner sketching. So it goes.

Lacking a scanner I was forced to take pictures of my thumbnails my ipad, send them to my laptop and work them up in photoshop. Not exactly my ideal creative situation, but it worked.

The topic was the top 100 corporate dealmakers. When I first talked to Larry, he was trying to find reference for the top ten, so I could put them on the cover. Considering the idea of doing ten likenesses while basically scrawling on napkins left me very scared. Lucky me, editors couldn't nail down the names and faces, so instead I got to go a bit more abstract (thank Jebus).

The idea was to show these imposing corporate character as getting ready for, or running into, battle. We agreed that a color scheme based off "300" could be a nice touch. My apologies to loincloth enthusiasts for keeping the characters in suits.

running, standing tough, walking

 We settled on the standing and looking threatening option.

Pretty fun going really atmospheric, pulling out white suit highlights and really saturating the reds.

In other news, my long time ebook project wrapped up recently, so I should posting a lot more regularly. Thanks for reading!
-S

The bedchambers

Here's a peak at another part of the series I've been working on. The whole project is wrapping around Thanksgiving, so I've been sequestered to my drawing table. Hence the lack of posts. Once I get my head above water again, I'll share some more. Stay tuned!
-S