Category Archives: SF & Fantasy Art

Spectrum 26 Call for Entries

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Professional and student artists, art directors, publishers and artists’ representatives are invited to submit entries to the 26th Annual Spectrum International Competition for Fantastic Art. Artworks in all media embracing the themes of science fiction, fantasy, horror and the surreal are eligible.

Fantastic art can be subtle or obvious, traditional or off-the-wall, painted, sculpted, done digitally or photographed: There is no unacceptable way to create art, and there are no set rules that say one piece qualifies while another does not. Imagination and skill are what matters.

Work chosen by the jury will be printed in full color in the Spectrum annual, the peer-selected “best of the year” collection for the fantastic arts. Click here to submit.

The Spectrum 26 jury is a five member panel of some of the most exceptional artists working in the industry today consisting of Kei Acedera, Wesley Burt, Bobby Chiu, Edward Kinsella III, and Colin and Kristine Poole. Find out more about the Spectrum 26 jury here.

“It is an honor to assemble such a prestigious group of artists for the Spectrum 26 jury,” shares publisher John Fleskes. “I greatly admire the art that these six individuals have created during their careers. I also have a high regard for the educational opportunities that they have provided to others while giving back to the community. I look forward to bringing them together to view the call for entries submissions in February 2019.”

The Spectrum 26 Call for Entries Poster was created by renowned artist, Tyler Jacobson.

[Based on a press release.]

Live Coverage of 2018 Hugo Ceremony – Stay Tuned

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The 2018 Hugo Award base, designed by Sara Felix and Vincent Villafranca.

The 2018 Hugo Award base, designed by Sara Felix and Vincent Villafranca.

At the Hugo Awards Web Site, Kevin Standlee has compiled the available information about 2018 Hugo Ceremony coverage:

WHEN: The 2018 Hugo Awards Ceremony begins Sunday, August 19, 2018 at 8:00 p.m. North American Pacific Daylight Time (UTC-7). Master of Ceremonies will be Artist Guest of Honor John Picacio.

WHERE: McEnery Convention Center Grand Ballroom in San Jose, California. The Ceremony will also be simultaneously shown in Callahan’s Place in the Exhibit Hall in a more relaxed environment where attendees can eat, drink, and socialize during the event.

VIDEO: Worldcon 76 San Jose plans to offer live video streaming of the Hugo Awards ceremony via their YouTube channel.

TEXT: The Hugo Awards web site will offer text-based coverage of the Hugo Awards ceremony via CoverItLive. The hosts will be Kevin Standlee, Susan de Guardiola, and Cheryl Morgan. You can sign up at the CoverItLive event site for an e-mail notification before the event starts.

Father Electrico Sculptor Slatoff Appears in Pasadena

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Chuck Kovacic and Christopher Slatoff

The “Life of a Modern Day Sculptor: Christopher Slatoff” event at the Pasadena Museum of History on July 24 featured a conversation between artist Chuck Kovacic and Christopher Slatoff, creator of the Bradbury-inspired Father Electrico sculpture.

Once famous for traveling the world to make sculptures out of sand, Slatoff is now known for his impressive body of work cast in bronze. Hear how Slatoff became friends with legendary author Ray Bradbury and how that friendship inspired The Illustrated Man, one of the sculptor’s favorite works. (The maquette of this work is currently on view at PMH.) A short documentary, Father Electrico: Ray Bradbury Lives Forever by John Sasser, will be shown about the creation of this sculpture.

Mockup given to Ray

Sculpture: The Father Electrico. sculpture is available exclusively through American Legacy Fine Arts.

View of tattoo art on sculpture

Documentary: Father Electrico: Ray Bradbury Lives Forever —

…is a documentary film based on the creation of a sculpture which was a collaboration between author Ray Bradbury and sculptor Christopher Slatoff. The frontal view of the finished sculpture depicts a father carrying his son. Turn the sculpture around and the image of the father is in reality Bradbury’s “Illustrated Man,” a character taken from his classic story collection about a tattooed man.

 

John Sasser, documentarian

 

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the story and the photos of the speakers.]

Fan Art Roundup

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Compiled by Carl Slaughter: Click through to see the images.

Venom is returning to the big screen for the first time in 11 years this October, when Sony unveils their solo movie based on the antihero starring Tom Hardy as the symbiote-stricken Eddie Brock. While that’s cause to celebrate, unfortunately it doesn’t look like we’ll see Venom face off against his nemesis any time soon, due to Spider-Man having returned to the arms of Marvel Studios.

However, there’s nothing stopping fans from whipping up some inspired artwork which gives us an idea as to what a battle between Tom Hardy’s Venom and Tom Holland’s Spidey could look like. Case in point: this new piece seen in the gallery down below, which paints a picture of the villain totally besting the wall-crawler in a fight. As you can see, Peter Parker lies senseless in a pile of rubble while his enemy cuts a sinister figure as he lingers over him.

Twitter user UberKryptonian recently had a minute to kill and decided to spend those waning seconds creating a Fantastic Four character poster, in which he envisioned none other than Krasinski as Mr. Fantastic himself, Reed Richards. You can check out the clever bit of fan casting below, which follows on from several other pieces put forth by various different artists (also included in the gallery).

Coming from digital artist ultraraw26 on Instagram is a mock-up poster for Avengers 4 imagining what a team-up between Iron Man and Carol Danvers might look like. Considering the Q-Ship in the background, not to mention both heroes appear to be in outer space, it looks like the battle is set on Titan, Thanos’ home-planet. Interestingly, however, the Mad Titan cannot be seen in the frame, nonetheless, the prospect of seeing the aforementioned heroes banding together to fight a common foe is exciting for fans. Check it out below:

The urban legend of Zack Snyder’s cut of Justice League grows even bigger today with yet another string of previously unseen concept art. Featured in the gallery down below, it depicts the could-have-been third act of Snyder’s version of the movie, and from what we can see here, he apparently planned for an epic, sky-based skirmish, a more Kirby-esque Steppenwolf, a larger role for Aquaman and, of course, a darker color palate than what we got in theaters.

The photos themselves are impressive and will certainly embolden fans who’ve been rallying for an official release of Synder’s version of the film.

Space Babe Coloring Book Released

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Jeanne Gomoll’s Space Babe Coloring Book unveils 37 diverse representations of that amazing superhero Space Babe, perfect for coloring by wanna-be Space Babes of all ages. Says Jeanne:

I created the original Space Babe—a kick-ass gal with a raygun—decades ago. But more recently, I realized that the original Space Babe is not alone and began to create many Space Babes, all ready to fight for the rights of all. With colored pencils, readers can reimagine the future with images of gender-fluid space babes, young space-babes-in training, explorers, activists, construction workers, bakers, athletes, intergalactic pirates, a woman POTUS, and other Space Babes of different shapes, ethnicities, jobs & attitudes.

Space Babe is a symbol of the James Tiptree Jr., Award, a literary award presented annually to a work of speculative fiction that explores and expands gender roles. Their mission: “Changing the world.”

All income earned from sales of the coloring book go to the Tiptree Award.

The Space Babe Coloring Book is available at Lulu.com.

Bob Eggleton Announcement

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Artist Bob Eggleton asked to have his statement posted:

I’m taking a major step back from SF fandom. I’ll still do covers for my favorite people, here and there and will be around, just have to step back from some of the unkind aspects and pithy fights fandom has developed into recently to focus on my landscape, seascape and spacescape work and my Fine Art direction. People take themselves waaay too seriously in regards to awards like the Hugo and so forth. I got a bunch when it was fun and before Social Media and “campaigning.” Now I see too much backbiting and a tendency to forget the past honors going back to the Hugo’s beginning.

Events like SPACE FEST, Windy City Pulp Con, and G FEST(Godzilla Con) I will still attend as I will Boskone (local) and some of the “Monster Convention” shows. Some of the cattiness and political backbiting and disrespect in the core of “SF fandom” has been very tiring. I have been declining AGoH invites politely anyway, I wish them well but it’s not my “tribe” as it were.

“All Best Wishes, Stay Positive.”

Worldcon 76 Hugo Base Designers

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2018 HUGO BASE. Sara Felix and Vincent Villafranca are collaborating to create the 2018 Hugo Award base.

Each artist individually has created a past Hugo base.

Villafranca produced the iconic 2013 LoneStarCon 2 Hugo base. (And he designed the new World Fantasy Award trophy.)

Sara Felix of Austin, who is also the current president of the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists, created the 2016 MidAmeriCon II Hugo base.

1943 RETRO HUGO BASE. The 1943 Retrospective Hugo Award base is being created by con chair Kevin Roche.

[Thanks to JJ for the story.]

Spectrum 25 Awards Recipients

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The Spectrum 25 Awards were presented at a ceremony in Los Angeles on May 5.

The ceremony was held in the historic Brookledge Theater and presided over by Spectrum’s Director and publisher, John Fleskes. Presenters included such luminaries of the art community as Alina Chau, Craig Elliott, Te Hu, Tim O’Brien, Iain McCaig, Brynn Metheney, Karla Ortiz, Colin and Kristine Poole, William Stout, Paul Sullivan. Spectrum co-founder Arnie Fenner introduced a memorial video devoted to the creatives who had passed away in the previous year. Bob Self served as the master of ceremonies during the evening.

French comics creator Claire Wendling was named the Spectrum 2018 Grand Master. She responded on Facebook:

OMG!!! Spectrum awarded me with the grand master prize!! They don’t know , well know they do ,how much it matters to me. Thank you guys.

 

Spectrum 25 awards. Designed by J. Anthony Kosar, and made by him and the Kosart Effects team.

Spectrum 25 Awards Recipients

Spectrum 2018 Grand Master

  • Claire Wendling

Spectrum 2018 Rising Star

  • Miranda Meeks

Advertising

Gold Award

  • Greg Ruth
    Moonrise

Silver Award

  • Laurel Blechman
    ComicBase 2018

Book

Gold Award

  • Victo Ngai
    Serving Fish

Silver Award

  • Petar Meseldžija
    The Old Man and the Forest

Comic

Gold Award

  • Alex Alice
    Castle in the Stars book 2 pages 60-61

Silver Award

  • Gary Gianni
    Hellboy: Into the Silent Sea page 11

Concept Art

Gold Award

  • Wangjie Li
    Battlefield Scene

Silver Award

  • Anthony Francisco
    Okoye and Nakia the Dora Milaje

Dimensional

Gold Award

  • Forest Rogers
    Octopoid Descending

Silver Award

  • Jessica Dalva
    I’ll Need Entire Cities to Replace You

Editorial

Gold Award

  • Edward Kinsella III
    My Whereabouts

Silver Award

  • Tim O’Brien
    “Nothing to See Here”

Institutional

Gold Award

  • Seb McKinnon
    Stasis

Silver Award

  • Piotr Jab?o?ski
    Moaning Wall

Unpublished 

Gold Award

  • Andrew Hem
    Whirlpool

Silver Award

  • Michael MacRae
    Tip of the Spear

How to Get Cheap Steampunk Cosplay Goggles

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By Joanna Davies: If you are crazy about steampunk, then it is already clear that a good amount of your budget will be sinking in getting good steampunk cosplay goggles to go with your costumes. But, you don’t always have to spend a fortune of getting great goggles especially when you have the time to look around the options that re available.

If you have an upcoming steampunk event and you want to grab some attention a good pair of cosplay steampunk goggles will go a long way in making that dream come true. But, you might be concerned about the cost of making that happen. Here are a couple of tips that will help you make the most out of your budget and save you some money.

Make it yourself

If you have the tools and the DIY talent why not make the goggles yourself? The internet is awash with great guides on how you can make steampunk goggles from scratch and you could use them to come up with your own pair.

If you are worried about the level of complexity, you don’t have to. Steampunk is about creativity and you can use simple items around the house to come up with a great pair of steampunk goggle for your event. Additionally, there are also some guides that are perfect for beginners so you shouldn’t worry about not hacking the build.

Look for discounts

The steampunk cosplay goggles market is growing by the day. There are plenty of websites that are now selling the goggles online. The growing competition is great for all steampunk lovers because that means more competitive pricing, better diversity and the best part is the discounts and sales.

With some luck and plenty of digging, you can get yourself a great pair of steampunk cosplay goggles for half your budget on online steampunk stores that are having clearance sales and discounts. Because of the thoroughly creative nature of steampunk, it is never a good idea to hold on to stock for too long so you will always find a sale somewhere. You just have to be patient enough to look through it.

Thrift shops and hand me down stores

This is going to be a lot of work and you will have to be riding on a lot of luck to find a good pair. Most steampunk lovers like remaining relevant and usually, they might not want to have the same pair of goggles for a long time. There are also those that might not know the value of what they have and might want to dispose them. Yard sales, thrift shops and hand me down stores are a great place to scavenge for steampunk items not only steampunk cosplay goggles but even hats and other items that you can use to improve your look.

There are plenty of ways to get your steampunk look on the cheap as long as you have the time and are willing to put in the effort to try and get the best deals. However, if you would rather have the goggles now, you have no other option but to pick the first option you find and there is a fair chance that you might end up paying way more than is needed for it.