Post 4

List 10 Illustrators whose work you admire or whose career you would like to emulate.  Who are their clients?  What sort of work do those clients look for?

Barbara Konczarek is from Poland and does work for different book illustrations and posters.  The clients that she works for are mostly publishers and authors and they look for her detailed whimsical feel in art.

Teagan Gavet and Tess Garman work together on their illustrations and have currently finished their second comic book.  They are featured at many different types of cons and their clients are constantly wanting some of their fantasy art or comic books.

KidChan is an illustrator from Malaysia.  Her work has grown in many different ways over the years and now shows a fantasy, textured world.  Her clients are mostly people who would like to now own her books along with a few companies who use her pieces on posters and advertisements.

Hunter Bonyun works with mainly commissions but has gained so much popularity via the internet that they are constantly invited to be featured artists and comic cons and other artistic conventions around the country.

Serena Malyon is an illustrator from Alberta, Canada and she is a freelance artist.  Her clients are mostly book publishers.

Hillary Luetkemeyer is an American artist who works primarily from commissions off her website.  Her clients are mainly just people who admire her artwork.

Johannes Voß was someone I had mentioned earlier.  He is constantly being hired to do work for Wizards of the Cost in their book series and Magic: The Gathering Card game.

Dave Allsop is another artist for Wizards of the Coast.  While he has done a few cards for MTG, he illustrates several of their Dungeons and Dragons books.

Svetlin Velinov is a concept designer and freelance illustrator from Bulgaria.  This is another Magic The Gathering Artist.

Anthony Scott Waters used to be employed by Wizards of the Coast, but now is a freelance artist to anyone who would like to commission him, or anyone who can afford him.

Go to a bookstore with a large magazine section, like Barnes & Noble or Borders.  Find at least ten magazines that you think you could work for.  Consider both the content of the magazine and the type of illustration, if any they use.  Record the names of the art director and any assistant art director's listed, and their contact information.  

The different magazines I believe I could work for would be Game Informer, National Geographic, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Teen Vogue, Dungeon Magazine: Wizards of the Coast, Gamasutra, Electronic Gaming Monthly.

Game Informer - 1-866-844-GAME
National Geographic - 1-888-966-8687
Cosmopolitan - Cosmopolitan, P.O. Box 7186, Red Oak, Iowa, 5159
Vogue - (800) 234-2347
Teen Vogue - 1-800-274-0084.
Dungeon Magazine: Wizards of the Coast - (800) 324-6496
Gamasutra - 415.947.6000
Electronic Gaming Monthly - 800-829-7830

If you were starting your own magazine and your livelihood depended on it selling well and your sanity depended on it being something you wanted to spend all your time on, what would it be?  What sorts of writers and artists would you hire?  What subject matter would it deal with?  How would you want it to look?  List ten non-magazine clients that you would like to work with.  Why are these dream clients?  Find and record their contact information.

I've actually given this a lot of thought before and I honestly want to do this, but I'm not sure how to start with publishing.  I would have named it ArtNGames and it would be about the art within any sort of video game.  The range of art would go from environment to character design and the games would be from Xbox games to things like Angry Birds on the iPhone.  It would have interviews with some of the original designers and also a Q&A about their career.  Each page would be an artwork all its own.  While some magazines have pretty designs every other page, this would would be amazing all the way through.  I would hire artists who know how to make graphic design very futuristic and informative.  They'd have to be specialized in layouts that draw the attention for the text rather than away while also inviting the viewer in to the page.  The type of writers I would hire would be people who could critique art truthfully and also thoughtfully.  I would want the writers to be able to tell why some art works even though it's very different and how it keeps the player's attention.  I know that some magazines have had small articles about this, but no one has ever devoted a full magazine to it.  The Smithsonian had the "Art of Video Games" exhibit and it was one of the largest turn-outs they ever had.  That exhibit was able to look professional while still being inventive and use images from the games.  I would want my magazine to reflect that.

The ten non magazine clients I would like to work with would be BioWare, Bungie, Square Enix, all Art schools and universities (that's kind of a big group), convention groups, museums, video gamers,  .  These would all be dream clients because they would reach toward such a large audience.  Each gaming company would want to see what their rivals are up to and why their games are working so well.  Schools would love them because they could get a subscription for students with information on how to achieve one of these jobs in the field.  Convention groups and museums would want it whenever they do something based upon that type of art work or to show how art has grown and changed over the years.

BioWare -  Andrew Wong (anwong@ea.com) 

Bungie -
 Bungie Software Production Corp.
P.O. Box 7877
Chicago, IL 60680-7877

Square Enix -
Square Enix, Inc. (North America): support@square-enix-usa.com

Art Schools - MCA -
1930 Poplar Avenue  Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 272-5100

Universities - University of Mississippi -
Oxford, Mississippi, University, Mississippi, 38677

San Francisco Comic-Con -
Comic-Con InternationalP.O. Box 128458
San Diego, CA 92112-8458

Museums - Brooks Museum of Art -
1934 Poplar Avenue  Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 544-6200

Video Gamers - umm... I can give you my contact info on that.