Greetings all

Hi all, I'd thought I'd join the fray and start posting here. Some of you may know me from the vtes chat room (which I highly recomend) and I did post a little bit back when Rustwurk was still active. Anyway, I've been playing V:tES for a while now, just not that much unfortunately. I started just after Sabbat was sold out (bummer, eh?) but I've been keeping up to date with all the cards and strategies, despite not having a playgroup for about 3 years now. Love this game I do <yoda>. Anyway, the purpose of this post is quite a superficial and selfish one, if I'm to be honest. I have this little hobby of a thing called "art" that I take part in on a frequent basis. I've been toying with the idea of submitting to White Wolf for a while now, and despite lots of support, I am skeptical. I'd thought I'd just guage some public opinion by the people who actually play this game by posting my work here. You can find some of my stuff at http://meshenka.epilogue.net/ but I also have a few pic's oustide of that gallery. Just ask if you want to see more.

In article <131290e9.03052...@posting.google.com>, Cameron Roberts <mesh...@eftel.com.au> wrote: >You can find some of my stuff at http://meshenka.epilogue.net/ but I >also have a few pic's oustide of that gallery. Just ask if you want to >see more. This stuff is quite good -- in terms of V:tES artists, the immediate comparison is to Harold Arthur MacNeil, though your style is quite distinct from his. The border work on 'The End' brings J. H. Williams III to mind, though I'm not sure if you're familiar with his work. I really, really like 'Collective Intentions' -- excellent mood. As far as publication in White Wolf, whether on card or in a book, well. Three things come to mind: a) We've all seen much worse art in print, so if quality alone were the determinant, you'd be a lock. b) Quality alone is not the determinant. For one thing, quality is subjective, and for another, publication has large elements of luck and personal networking to it. A superhuman tolerance for rejection can make up for a deficiency of those two factors, somewhat. c) Trying for White Wolf right off is a bit like me, as a short story writer, submitting to Playboy or the Atlantic Monthly -- starting a bit at the top. Odds are not good, but you probably know that. Persevere! Steve Wieck keeps an eye on the newsgroup, so you never know -- maybe this stuff will catch his interest. The facial anatomy on 'Blind' seems off -- the nose seems cut and pasted from a bigger face, and the smoothing into the brow/eyebrow area is a little enh. Faces are hard. I like the background on 'Sacrifice' -- a lot of your stuff has fairly simple backgrounding, but this worked well with the foreground figure. The blending work on 'Ward' is very pleasant and gives a good feeling of space. Maybe resident Art Nerd Peter Bakija can give you more specific pointers. Hope this helped, gomi -- Individually, I love you all with affection unspeakable; but, collectively, I look upon you with a disgust that amounts to absolute detestation. - Gilbert and Sullivan, 'Pirates of Penzance'

<snip> > Anyway, the purpose of this post is quite a superficial and selfish > one, if I'm to be honest. I have this little hobby of a thing called > "art" that I take part in on a frequent basis. I've been toying with > the idea of submitting to White Wolf for a while now, and despite lots > of support, I am skeptical. I'd thought I'd just guage some public > opinion by the people who actually play this game by posting my work > here. Well, you've come to the right place for opinions! ;) I had a look. Some peices are pretty good - "Lightbringer", and most of the ones with "Shadow" as a prefix ("Shadow Master", "Shadow Cave", etc) - and would probably work as cards. However, your style seems to consist of 2-3 colours which doesn't make for dynamic CCG art stock. Whilst it would work for one or two cards, more than that will appear bland and limited. One of the good things about a CCG is that you have fully coloured and illustrated cards. A lot of your work would make great art for Kiasyd or Tremere cards, and you clearly have a liking of the Baali. Keep at it, and keep pushing yourself. DH

Thanks gomi, your comments are appreciated. As far as applying to for WW, you're quite right about aiming high. But I'm perfectly ready for being knocked back, so long as I can come back later and still be in with a chance. Improving on not only my skills as an artist but also networking and promoting myself so I get noticed is something that I willing to do. Speaking of which, I have a little bit of name dropping to do. You see, this mad, crazed, hair-brained idea of submitting to WW all came from Christopher Shy. I am a huge fanboy of his, and a friend hooked me up so I could chat too him one day over the computer (I wish he wasn't so busy so I could pester him more, but alas I have not had a chance). I innocently mentioned my dream of working WW one day (me thinking that it's just that, a dream). Shy said I was close to being ready for it, so I've been producing artwork like sort of a picture whore. Here is some more recent ones: http://www.eftel.com/~meshenka/watched.JPG http://www.eftel.com/~meshenka/darkways.jpg http://www.eftel.com/~meshenka/penance.jpg http://www.eftel.com/~meshenka/kisses.jpg

mesh...@eftel.com.au (Cameron Roberts) wrote in message news:<131290e9.0305...@posting.google.com>... > Thanks gomi, your comments are appreciated. As far as applying to for > WW, you're quite right about aiming high. But I'm perfectly ready for > being knocked back, so long as I can come back later and still be in > with a chance. Improving on not only my skills as an artist but also > networking and promoting myself so I get noticed is something that I > willing to do. Speaking of which, I have a little bit of name dropping > to do. > > You see, this mad, crazed, hair-brained idea of submitting to WW all > came from Christopher Shy. I am a huge fanboy of his, And so am i, and so is my wife, and, erm, that's pretty much it on this NG. i will not re-bore my fellow methuselahs as to why i/we think this way, but thought it right to let you know that Shy-fanboy/girldom isn't "hip" right at the mo' in this community. i can't load your pics but good luck anyway! More stuff from a fellow shy-fan is good as far as i'm concerned.

>I had a look. Some peices are pretty good - "Lightbringer", and most >of the ones with "Shadow" as a prefix ("Shadow Master", "Shadow Cave", >etc) - and would probably work as cards. However, your style seems to >consist of 2-3 colours which doesn't make for dynamic CCG art stock. >Whilst it would work for one or two cards, more than that will appear >bland and limited. One of the good things about a CCG is that you have >fully coloured and illustrated cards. Yeah. Speaking of black and white vs. colors, look at some of the Christopher Shy pictures where they've horribly mutilated a beautiful black and white original picture by adding some really bad colors for the card artwork. (Lots of his Children of the Night artwork for example). =( Halcyan 2

i think I might be able to help you with getting you stuff to the right people - drop me a line at an...@blueyonder.co.uk regards Anam

Halcyan 2 wrote: > Yeah. Speaking of black and white vs. colors, look at some of the Christopher > Shy pictures where they've horribly mutilated a beautiful black and white > original picture by adding some really bad colors for the card artwork. (Lots > of his Children of the Night artwork for example). =( As I understand it, the colors come from Mr. Shy, not from "they". Where only B/W images exist, new art is commissioned. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to V:TES news, rules, cards, utilities, and tournament calendar: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

In message <3ED88FEC...@white-wolf.com>, LSJ <vtesrep@white- wolf.com> writes: >Where only B/W images exist, new art is commissioned. Is that a standing policy? Whilst it would probably not be best to do it all the time, of course, I could certainly see some cards/images working well in black and white, to evoke mood and so on. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D Lucky that my breasts are small and humble, EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 So you don't confuse them with mountains. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D

>Whilst it would probably not be best to do it all the time, of course, I >could certainly see some cards/images working well in black and white, >to evoke mood and so on. On some Library Cards maybe, but I wouldn't really like to see B/W crypt cards. ------------------------- Cambridge by Night. http://www.geocities.com/eryx_uk/Cambridge_by_night.html

In message <20030531111254...@mb-m23.aol.com>, Colin Goodman <colind...@aol.com> writes: >>Whilst it would probably not be best to do it all the time, of course, I >>could certainly see some cards/images working well in black and white, >>to evoke mood and so on. > >On some Library Cards maybe, but I wouldn't really like to see B/W crypt cards. I could see it working well on a particularly ghostly Giovanni or - less likely - a Harbinger of Skulls. I guess that comes more down to taste, though. For instance, I think: <http://vampire.multiplayer.it/pics/sezioni/sussurri/pochtli%20(giovanni ).JPG> is a pretty cool piece of art, which could look good. It's not something I'd suggest for any random clan - but in the right places, I don't think it would hurt. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote: > In message <3ED88FEC...@white-wolf.com>, LSJ <vtesrep@white- > wolf.com> writes: > >>Where only B/W images exist, new art is commissioned. > > Is that a standing policy? I don't think it's policy, no. It's just that when a color image is desired, WW gets a color image - they don't, TTBOMK, colorize a B/W image themselves without going through the artist. [ quoted text not captured ]

>> Yeah. Speaking of black and white vs. colors, look at some of the >Christopher >> Shy pictures where they've horribly mutilated a beautiful black and white >> original picture by adding some really bad colors for the card artwork. >(Lots >> of his Children of the Night artwork for example). =( > >As I understand it, the colors come from Mr. Shy, not from "they". >Where only B/W images exist, new art is commissioned. Okay, let me amend my previous statement then. Look at some of the Christopher Shy picture where Mr. Shy has horribly mutilated some of his very own beautiful black and white original pictures by adding some really bad colors for the card artwork. =) Halcyan 2

In message <20030601050714...@mb-m03.aol.com>, Halcyan 2 <halc...@aol.com> writes: >Okay, let me amend my previous statement then. Look at some of the Christopher >Shy picture where Mr. Shy has horribly mutilated some of his very own beautiful >black and white original pictures by adding some really bad colors for the card >artwork. I wouldn't know but: How plausible is it that he originally did them in colour, and that the black and white versions came *from* them? [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sun, 1 Jun 2003 12:34:02 +0100, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> scrawled: >In message <20030601050714...@mb-m03.aol.com>, Halcyan 2 ><halc...@aol.com> writes: >>Okay, let me amend my previous statement then. Look at some of the Christopher >>Shy picture where Mr. Shy has horribly mutilated some of his very own beautiful >>black and white original pictures by adding some really bad colors for the card >>artwork. > >I wouldn't know but: > >How plausible is it that he originally did them in colour, and that the >black and white versions came *from* them? i was thinking that too. they never print colour inside their vtm sourcebooks. so it seems perfectly plausible to me that the ones in the vtm books are the ones that have been modified, and not the stuff on the cards. salem domain:canberra http://www.geocities.com/salem_christ.geo/vtes.htm

"salem" <salem_ch...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:r2vjdv4n8ic1c3l40...@4ax.com... [ quoted text not captured ] I can confirm Shy's working method. He takes a photo, makes it b&w, then does whatever he wants to it, including tinting and overdrawing. I think perhaps he would be more subtle wth his colours if the industry allowed him to be. You have to use dramatic shades and colour to catch the viewers eye. While this is not necessary in a source book for V:tM, it is in the card game. Even if you look at somebody's work like Andrew Trabbold, who uses very little colour at all, he still makes it dramatic by either using a lot of black or a lot of white with some very muted tones in there for good measure. Now, Shy can do beautiful B&W stuff for sure, but not to the same level of contrast as somebody like Trabbold, as he always uses a technique which makes them look like old photos.