x.25 • Auction in Support of Cyril van der Haegen

I just recently finish alien menagerie x.25 and it's going to be part of an auction in support of my friend, Cyril van der Haegen. 

He's dealing with not one, but two life threatening illnesses. More information on that, and on the auction itself at www.daveseeley.com/auction-in-support-of-cyril-van-der-haegen. The auction will be running from July 4th - July 14th on ebay, in conjunction with the San Diego Comic Con, where all the work donated will be on display. Artists contributing are: Julie Bell, Boris Vallejo, Stephan Martiniere, Donato Giancola, Dan Dos Santos, Greg Manchess, Jon Foster, Rebecca Guay, Lars Grant West, Todd Lockwood, Scott Fischer, Sam Burley, Dave Seeley, and myself. It's quite a line-up of fantasy/sci-fi illustrators! Many thanks to Dave Seeley for organizing this.

ebay auction link

acrylic on Rives BFK paper 8" x 10"

 

digital vs: traditional

I could get a lot more alien menagerie paintings finished if I made them in photoshop.

I'm not that tempted though, because this is a project where it's very important to me to have a piece of original art at the end of the process. 

Even though most of my illustrations painted before 2000 were executed in acrylics, I've adopted digital media for most of my commercial work since then. Until I did these digital pieces in 2006, "alien menagerie" had been a stack of pencil sketches made over several years which I hoped to paint someday. I made these to build up my confidence in the project after not having painted much. Each of these were done pretty rapidly: concept, sketch and paint in less than a week, and therefore some are more finished than others. I held back the shadow box treatment, focusing on the aliens themselves, and posted them in an art forum on the internet. It was a valuable transitional step to go through.