April 2008 Meeting Recap

Hi there -

For our April 2nd meeting, we had another 10 illustrators turn out. This time, we started the meeting off by sitting on the floor, as our tables were surprisingly fully outfitted for a formal meal. (That we were not going to eat.)

So, with imaginations turned on, we moved to the tables and turned the lights off, so we could see the projector. The darkness upped the “secret society” nature of our meeting, though as you well know, it’s not secret at all.

We all went around the room, and did a quick introduction round-robin style, along with naming a single favorite artist. We also made some announcements, mostly involving the next meeting (April 7th) and an Eric Torres art show.

Here are some of my rough notes from the Show and Tell, in no particular order:

Landon Armstrong showed us a bunch of his temporary tattoo work. Really nice stuff, with lots of detail and great colors. We talked a little about how these would make great real tattoos, and Landon was clever enough to reveal that he still owned the copyright to his own work, AND that they were illustrated at a higher resolution for future work. Nice planning ahead, Landon.

Madame M was kind enough to pass out her fine books, so we could see them in person. The quality is really nice, with the matte finish, spot varnish, and hardback covers. She then got onto the laptop and showed us around her site, and showed us some of the book cover and website design she does. Lot’s of good stuff all around.

Robert Steinhilber took us on a detailed journey of his coloring book project, X. Robert is inking the pages, while the pencils were done by Kevin Hedgpeth, and the layouts by Jason Cheeseman-Meyer. (Story by local Arizona writer Neil Atwood) Nice stuff there, seeing some definite Robert Crumb influence in the details and ink work. Looks like a lot of fun and it will be finished before too long, which will be cool to see.

Derrick West showed us a variety of his comic work, all done with pencil, pen, and markers. Very cool, we all agreed that his use of markers was quite nice. We were glad to have Derrick come join us for his first ARMY experience, and hope to see him at some future meetups.

Jason Cheeseman-Meyer joined us for the first time, and showed us his great perspective book, which seem to make some of the other artists uneasy about their own perspective skills. We also saw some of his personal oil paintings. He also showed us lots of pages from a personal comic project he’s working on, which was splendid to see. Lots of detail and work. He’s knocking out 9-10 finished inked pages per week (!!!), which is pretty amazing. Jason’s hard work is only equaled by his talent, this much is certain.

Jerry Salinas - showed some of of the really nice oil paintings he’s been doing as personal work. Really nice life painting, and tasty colors. We didn’t have a chance to see any of his other illustration work (which he does for a living) so hopefully he’s show that off later. This was X first TINY ARMY meetup, so we were all glad to meet him.

Daniel M. Davis is, erm, me. I showed off the new Steamcrow.com website, and a few of the images from the illustration gallery. In the rush to get to the meeting in time (damn traffic) I of course forgot all of my books to show the ARMY. Ah, well, next Show and Tell perhaps.

Ken Jacobsen opted to wait until next meeting to show his work, as we ended up going a little OVER our time. (Sorry Ken!) Ken does some very intricate and tasty pen and ink illustration, that I’m sure the whole group will enjoy seeing.

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If I missed anyone, it wasn’t due to my spiteful nature, and grand apologies await you.

I welcome any other members of the ARMY to join in with their comments of the night.

- Daniel Davis
www.steamcrow.com