Just for fun, playing around with a redesign of Liliana. It's been far too long since I've had the opportunity to paint an MtG card with her. I'd love to have the chance to revisit her with a lot more years of experience under my belt.
Finally got my 2019 event calendar updated. There will likely be a few more added as time and temptation conspire to consume every last morsel of my illusion of freedom. But yeah, this is where we're at for the moment: www.steveargyle.com/calendar
That time @leeshahannigan and I had a spontaneous horse drawing challenge.
(Obviously she won.)
Dripping with iron, flame, and boiling caffeinated adrenaline, the Circus of Rakdos rampages with savage thrills! Fireblade artist never misses his mark. (What he's aiming for on the other hand is often a shocking twist.) Get your tickets, update your will, and join us for a night of frenzied revelry!
*No refunds. The Cult of Rakdos is not liable for maiming, dismemberment, death, or chronic inescapable nightmares. Consult your physician before attending. The Circus of Rakdos has been known to cause seizures, incontinence, and explosive hair-loss.
Portrait night at @howardlyon studios. Always trying new materials and/or methods: painting on Claybord this time. With oils, it absorbs so aggressively that it's more like painting with acrylic. But without the drying in-brush or on the palette. Quite difficult to blend though.
Might be great for artists who are more comfortable with acrylic, but want the longevity and mixability of oils.
Claybord is also great for graphite powder - see the work of Allen Williams. But for oil, I wasn't particularly jazzed about it.
Who gave her a space suit and a death ray?! Oh. It was me. Ah, it'll probably be fine...
"Reckless Charge" for Magic the Gathering Ultimate Masters. When you need to get there fast: 1) Grease up. 2) Hop in a cannon. 3) Savor the shock of surprise the split second before you crater into your enemy face-first. #mtguma #mtgart #uber4orcs #gunpowderexpress
Is it good luck or bad fortune when a dragon decides to nest on your house? I'm heading out to #GPShizuoka next week, and I'm debating whether to yank some inventory out of my luggage to make room for my oil painting kit. Any cosplayers going who want to sit for a portrait?
To our awesome boothmate and translator extraordinaire Alice, who helped keep the sketches and card alters rolling with a smile at Lucca with gummy sharks and witty banter. Thank you again alice! You're awesome! Looking forward to seeing more of your art and music!
One of the reasons I love going to Italy, is their fabled hospitality and friendliness. It's true, and well deserved. I've been honored to meet and become friends with some of the greatest people because of Lucca Comics and Games.
Pencil sketch for our new friend Angelica!
steveargyle reblogged
Anonymous asked:
DAD, what are some ways an illustrator can be successful without client work?
Show in Galleries.
Post process pieces on Instagram and say the piece is for sale.
Start a Patreon.
Run a Kickstarter.
Teach.
Sell on Etsy.
Sell at art fairs.
Sell at craft fairs.
Sign up for a stock illustration site and post work.
Open a Redbubble store.
Open an Imprnt store.
Paint outside until someone offers to buy it.
License your work to companies.
Make celebrity portraits and give it to the celebrity and hope they post it, then have prints ready to sell to their fans.
Paint faces at kids birthday parties.
Paint bodies at adult birthday parties.
Get famous for something completely unrelated to art, then make art that will sell just because you’re a celebrity.
Make a pile of trendy work, put it in a closet for 20 years until the trend comes around again.
Make a ton of work, fake your own death, pretend to be an agent for the artist’s estate, and sell your own work at marked-up prices.
Paint copies of famous artworks, find a time machine, go back in time, sell the piece before the original artist painted it.
…that should get you started…
—Agent Negative Space
Thank you to everyone who came out to see us at Lucca! You folks are awesome! I'm just getting back from that, plus a little vacation in Switzerland. I now prepare for glorious battle with my inbox, which has grown bold and amassed a mighty legion of messages in my absence.
It may be impossible to measure the good Stan Lee has done for this world. He created so many heroes, stories, and lessons we grew up with. He led generations to be better people through the example of his characters, and himself. He inspired and nurtured creators, and showed us that storytellers and artists can make a difference in the world.
I was a kid that wasn't super great at making friends. Comic books were worlds and stories full of weird characters who didn't always quite fit the mold - just like me. The exaggerated and wild situations and obstacles they faced were the thought-experiments that shaped how I look at the world and solve problems to this day.
(And it probably goes without saying that it's where the whole art thing really started for me.)
I did get to meet Stan Lee once, mostly by sheer happenstance. I'd always wanted to, but at comic-cons he was beyond celebrity. He had no competition. Arriving in a motorcade, surrounded by security, legions of fans clamoring for him all the time. I'd seen him around of course, but hadn't actually ever really chatted or anything. I'd always wondered what he was really like - not the persona, but the person.
I was heading out to Montreal, and Delta upgraded my flight to first class. Eager for my free fanciness, I ambled toward the front cabin, and glanced around looking for my seat. Found the row, with a well-dressed older gent near the window, jotting something down in a small notebook. My seat was across the isle, I settled in, and I thought to myself "huh... That guy kinda looks like Stan Lee..." I tried to sneak a nonchalant glance to confirm that I was just imagining things, but couldn't quite see past the fella in the isle seat.
The flight attendant came through, asking if anyone wanted something to drink. Then I heard, in the voice chiseled into my memory from childhood, that unmistakable Stan Lee timbre and cadance: "I would like a diet Coke."
Instantly, reflexively, and without thought, I bolted up out of my seat, and almost mauled the poor guy between us (his agent) as I pounced with wide eyes and frothing-over excitement on Stan. I politely said "Mr. Lee, I'm sorry to bother you. I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your work, and that you've had a tremendously positive influence on my life. Thank you so much for who you are and what you do. Enjoy your flight."
Okay, that's likely some generous memory editing... It maybe probably was perhaps actually "OH MY GOD STAN LEEEEEEE!!! YOU'RE A GOD OH MY GOD OH GOD GOD DAMN!!! I LOVE YOU AND I WANT TO BE A WOMAN NOW JUST SO I CAN HAVE YOUR BABIES!!!"
Or somewhere in-between? I desperately hope so.
Stan was very polite, and we exchanged a few quick pleasantries before he said "I hope this doesn't seem rude, I'd love to chat with you, but I'm very tired. Maybe we can talk after I get a bit of a nap." I thought: that's a classy enough way to disengage. I'm a complete stranger, and not exactly an enthralling conversationalist. I don't much like talking on planes most of the time, so I totally get it. He wasn't up for being fangirled over, but he was classy, polite, and nice enough to talk to me for a bit. I would still have been delighted if that was my complete Stan Lee experience.
The surprise came later in the flight, when he woke up, and in fact did want to talk more. We chatted for the last half-hour or so of the flight, we talked art and comics, of course, but also family and hobbies and such. He was super nice, funny, and interested in me. It was amazing. The plane landed, and everyone started shuffling out. That's usually the end of any single-serving airplane relationship. Stan got off before me, but to my surprise, he waited for me. We kept talking all the way to the baggage claim. We both got our luggage, and he said "Hey, we've got a car service waiting to take us to the convention center, would you like a ride?" At this point, I was convinced that Stan Lee was in fact the greatest human ever. There were all the reasons I'd grown up loving what he did. Then in person, my hero treated me, a complete stranger, like an old friend.
His characters were a great example to me as a kid. As an adult, the man himself has become the example to aspire to.
You will be missed dearly, Stan. But you can rest knowing that the world is an immeasurably better place because of you. You've inspired so many of us to continue what you began. Your creations will live on, and the good you've done in this world will continue to grow through the lives you've touched.
Messy, magical, magnificient graphite powder. My secret weapon for shading and textures. Black Thumb sketch on the back of a Meekstone artist proof.
steveargyle reblogged
Steve Argyle - Power Armor Amazon
We know who this is. Steve called this piece by that name on his old website (before it was hacked to death by some L33T overdosed brat.) I continue to use that name but it is indeed simply called Samus Aran in most places… like this gallery post from April 27, 2004. It is one of the oldest galleries of Steve’s work on the net and this is the oldest post inside it.
How old is this piece? It predates almost all of his known, published, credited work except for his pieces for Twisted Metal: Black and a game made by his brother Mark called Dying Lights.
On October 20, 2003 Steve posted a challenge to an artists’ message board called penciljack. The color-off challenge was offered with a black-and-white image of this piece. The link in the post died long ago but Steve decided to share it with me and allowed me to share it with all of you.
Steve of course entered his own work into this coloring challenge and won by a huge margin against the user “Meaty” after tallying 105 votes. (Incidentally - Meaty’s entry is posted on Deviantart.)
Meaty 13/105 12.38% Ztiev 92/105 87.62%
Steve had mentioned elsewhere in the message board about having posted an image of the pencil original that this artwork was built from. I asked Steve about it and he sent me a copy of his cleaned digital scan of that honest-to-goodness pencil sketch of Samus.
In the original sketch we see Samus as bowed but not necessarily hurt or even tired. She could be either getting into or out of her armor here. The scene is ambiguous and without proper context. Steve’s battle-ravaged scene he offered up for the coloring challenge is a fully realized story moment. The colored in version is still among my twenty most favorite pieces of work in his public portfolio. The gritty, graphic novel approach is unique. I haven’t seen him employ this kind of technique since (granted, it isn’t appropriate for most of his clients and published work.) except perhaps this comic-book-esque album cover.
The violent aftermath of a long-fought battle shows us Samus in possibly her final moments. She is badly hurt but, with no enemies in sight, assumed victorious. Steve has peppered this image with an overdose of emotional weight and personally I think it works in a powerful way.
The whole image is stylized in way we don’t usually see from Steve, but within that framework the lighting and color are dead-on. The perspective is good, even though the image is in a claustrophobic space. That actually adds to the plight of the hero as we are zoomed in to the point where nearly nothing else matters.
Even better. This is not the collaborative work of Steve trying to bring to life the elusive imaginings of an art director, but rather his own imagination from start (ok, he didn’t invent the character… but still) to finish.
The point being, Samus is never portrayed this way. Often sexy, always heroic, almost always blowing stuff up. Her artwork always exploits that she is one of the old-guard of sci-fi heroines. Probably the oldest in video game history to be sure. She is instead shown here vulnerable, human, and yet still heroic and awe-inspiring in a totally not-blowing-up-whole-planets way.
On This Day In Steve Argyle History
Today is October 20, 2018. Fifteen years ago Steve posted his challenge on penciljack. Coincidentally… nine years later the Gathering Steve Argyle’s Magic blog would be created on this same day.
Lucca Comics and Games is coming! Like a Game of Thrones winter, but with unending hordes of awesomeness instead of frost-zombies. Looking forward to seeing all my non-zombie Italian friends!
"Seasons" Because it's becoming that blasted time of year where pants are no longer optional. 2x2 Itty Bitty Original artist proof painting. Done for one of my favoritest Minions ever, Ascended 18.