Fantastic Realms

#1

At last! My book “Fantastic Realms” (by V Shane if you happen to google) has been published by North Light Impact books. This baby took a year of my life to do and is now available in most book stores (Barnes & Noble,Wal-Mart,Amazon etc…) as well as being advertised in Diamond and the Bud Plant Catalogue.

I was given the go ahead by Steven Stahlsburg of CGTalk that it was okay to post this “press release”. What’s funny about the angle of the book, I went in with a idea about a book to help break creative dry spells for concept art, namely SF & F. Well as editors would have it (and to get the gig) I’d have to change a few things, direction and focus on a specific mid skill level experience. Mostly it goes through 30 step by step sessions from thumbs to final inked/colored work focusing on traditional mediums. But a great deal of digital work is in the book. Though there are gallery pics of my digital paintings, there is mostly just line art instructions (with highlights on pen & ink techniques and swatches).

Hope you give a quick view over and pass the word around, because they don’t send out “how to promote yourself” packets to the authors. Anyway, I’m hoping to show my book to an area genre that my book company probably wouldn’t even look into. And btw, a little secret, the entire book was done on my wacom :slight_smile: Take care and thanks for reading!

Fantastic realms author page (no longer a pre-order, its out)

#2

Your own book! Allow me to be the first (in this thread, at least) to congratulate you. Way to go - I’m sure there’s some great stuff in there, both in the way of art as well as useful tips. Hope it does well for you!

-mike

#3

Ya, ur own book, not easy to do, I’m mucking around witht a few tutorials myself and you can get quite bogged down with the detail etc! Well Done :slight_smile:

Cheers
R

#4

Thanks so much guys! To be honest, if anyone is looking to do a book like this, think twice. The advance was what pushed me over the edge (that and bills bearing down) to do the book. Felt like winning the lottery when the editor (incredible phone voice she had) contacted me, but I had no idea what was coming in the days ahead, I could write a book on the trials and errors of that alone. Ugh and redos! redos redos! Both from her end and me second guessing myself. I actually put in a pitch for a sister book, but they won’t consider it until they see the numbers come in. But having the concept of royalties coming in for the rest of ones life (and beyond to the kids) its truly fullfilling.

#5

The book looks really good, I think I’ll order a copy :slight_smile: I’ve always wanted to learn how to do comic style art, I never quite got hte hang of where to fill in the shadows with the b&w line art(i’m used to pencil shading)

#6

Thanks! Great, I do hope you pick one up. This is a very loose inking approach to fantasy style comic work/concept art, so keep that in mind. Not so much for Marvel/DC artwork, but more in line with RPG gaming companies and initial concepts for 3D Game companies (then you got to get a book on concept painting to take it a step further).

#7

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