08.23.08

Back from GEN CON '08!

It was a good show! Sold some stuff, met with fans, talked with friends and fellow artists. This year's guest of honor was Rebecca Guay. Emily and I have been fans of her stuff since art school. We got the last of her HUGE limited edition sketchbooks! She has such beautiful work and a great, expressive line.

I was honored to receive a 3rd place award for original art at the Gen Con art show for the red dragon I did for the Dragon Codex young adult novels published by WOTC.

And here are some drawings I did at the con:

I wasn't able to get a full new set of D&D character sheets done for the convention. Luckily the old ones from last year still sold well. My new project is to finish the next batch of character sheets, so check back later this fall and see how you can pick up the new set! (I'll have some sort of online shop by then.)

So that was my geek week! Unless I decide to pursue interpretive dance I'll be back for Gen Con 2009...

By the way, the game I've been working on for the last two years at Raven is finally announced! Check out the teaser trailer here:

Unfortunately, I can't reveal anything about the game at this time.

-Vin

01.07.08

Happy New Year!

It was a pretty good first year for me here at vinodrams.com...

I'm happy to announce I've completed a year's worth of SOTW's! (That's Sketch of the Week for you newbies) This is a big deal for me. To have an online record of my doodles for the past year has been something I've always wanted to do. I have a new "travel sketchbook" for this year, since the old one is filled up so keep checking back throughout 2008 for my latest sketches. And I still have a ton of old work to put up on here, thought I'd get it up over the holiday break but that didn't happen. One thing I noticed while looking through my SOTW's are some of the things I end up drawing. So here it is, the first annual SOTW score card:

I also had some fun over on the Raven Software art blog. Here are some of the pieces I liked:

Salamander Guy, ROBO, Louis, The Faun, and my Holiday card from this year the Frost Fairy.

-Vin

08.28.07

I'm back from Gen Con 2007!

It's been a week so I'm over my post-Gencon high. I always have this inspired feeling after Gen Con. After seeing all the great work it makes me really excited to do some new art. But then reality sets in and I get stuck back in my regular schedule/ mindset. But If I can muster up a even a tiny bit of that inspired feeling from time to time It'll do my art some good!

But the con was great! Emily and I shared a table again so that was cool. She has a lot more going on freelance-wise but I still did pretty well. I even got to do a quick 5 min interview on a Dragonlance podcast for my work on the Dragonlance YA Novels. I'll have to be a big dork and post a link when they decide to put it on their site.

Gen Con is always fun because we get to meet with fans, and hang out with our fellow fantasy artists. "Fartists" if you will. So of course we get to complain about bad assignments, goofy art direction, and exchange war stories. Em and I had a better table location this time, and that made it way easier to hang out with the other fartists that we work with. (And yes, I am going to try and get that term to stick.)

I'll have to add a few more links to some of the guys we hung out with.

Like I said above, Emily had more stuff out. WOTC released "A Practical Guide to Monsters" so they had Em do a signing with the writer (and Mirrorstone editor), Nina Hess. They also blew up the cover art she did to use as a wall display. Very cool.

The character sheets I put together did really well! On Thursday I had only sold a couple so I was getting worried that all the late nights I put into them was all for nothing. But after a few people started buying them and using them at the Con, word got out and I ended up selling quite a few of them! Thanks to all who purchased a pack! And like I told everyone that bought one, feel free to e-mail me with suggestions for new characters to add. I'm going to expand the set for the next year's GenCon.

Also I'm planning to put together a page on the site to sell them and the leftover sketchbooks I have. So keep your eyes opened for that. Here's some of the random commissions I did at the con, as well as doodles for the charity dice bag auction. They were alot of fun, even though I really wish I had more time on them. I tend to draw more cartoony when I'm under pressure.

I'm going to try and get my crap together so that next year I'll have alot more new stuff, even if they're just personal pieces.

Hope to see you at GenCon '08!

-Vin

07.25.07

I unfortunately have some sad news. Glen Angus passed away. Glen was a friend, coworker and a fellow illustrator.
Glen was a great guy. He had a hilarious sense of humor and a really great personality. It's heartbreaking because he is leaving behind a wife and two kids, one of whom suffers from autism.

Glen was the reason I decided to apply to Ravensoft. I saw that he was working there and thought, "Cool, they're hiring regular illustrators". I was never on the same team as him but I still talked to him alot. We also had illustrations together in the first volumes of the Dragonlance young adult series. I did the interiors and he did the covers. He also had a huge fan following on Conceptart.org with his personal work.
It's always sad when a fellow illustrator passes away.

Tribute to Glen on Raven's website. If you want to help out his family with a donation the info is on there. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Rest in Peace Glen, we miss you already.

-Vinod

In other news, just as a reminder, Emily and I will have a table at Gen Con Indy this August. Look for us in the art show again! I'm working on some (I hope) cool stuff to sell. Emily will be signing advance copies of "Practical Guide to Monsters" at the WOTC booth on Saturday August 18th from 11 to 12!

05.20.07

Finally updated some stuff! (besides my SOTW that is!)
I put up some illos and sketches from the work I did for the Inuit Mythology Project. This was something I was very happy to be a part of.

What is it you ask?
It's a non- profit project that's supported primarily by the Nunavut Bilingual Education Society (NBES) and the Qikiqtani Inuit Association (QIA). The idea is to preserve the inuit mythology, through the publication of an educational magazine. Inhabit Media is the non-profit publisher that will be putting the magazine together. Time is limited because many of the elders in these communities won't be around for much longer. Inhabit has been conducting interviews with these elders to get the oral stories on paper. They wanted a new visual take on these old myths, that will hopefully resonate with the younger people in the community. I'm very flattered to be a part of it. Mythology is a HUGE interest of mine and to be illustrating characters from these myths is very gratifying. Anyways check out the art! They're posted in the "gaming" gallery, but I'll throw the links below as well. Look for more news and art from the project in the future.

Also check out the CG model my friend and fellow Ravenite Alex Velazquez created. The original concept was mine, and we both tweaked it for his model. But ultimately he did the most work and really made it his own. It was for the Dominance War forum contest. He won 7th place overall and 1st in his forum.Click on this for the direct link to his entry.

And last but not least, Emily and I will have a table at Gen Con Indianapolis again this year so come and visit us!
(BTW whenever I put up new work It'll always be posted at the bottom of the gallery.)

01.01.07

Welcome!!
My very first website!! I'll try to keep it updated regularly. (yeah right) I'm going to keep it simple, no animation or fancy rollovers... just tons of images! I plan on painting the main image ("Hanuman" from the Indian myth Ramayana) on my home page so keep checking back to see how it comes together. Also tune in every so often to the "sketch of the week" section to see some random scribblings...

Just as a side note, you must ask my permission before using any of my art for any purpose. Most of it is done for other companies (WOTC, etc...) and well... they'd be pretty ticked off. And you don't want to piss off a bunch of geeks with lawyers.