Monday, December 1, 2008

Covers and Conventions

And here is yet another long overdue blog entry.

Business first. Here is the cover for the wonderfully suspenseful novel The Master of the Moors by Kealan Patrick Burke and published by Necessary Evil Press. This was one of the projects that I had to keep under wraps until the official notification.

More information is available at the NEP site and Kealan's site.



This is the cover for Norman Prentiss's upcoming poignant and eerie short novel "Invisible Fences", published by Cemetery Dance Publications. You can read more information at Norman's site. Keith Minnion created the interior illustrations. You can see more of his work at KeithMinnion.com.



Last but not least, here is the cover for the reprint of "The Necronomicon", edited by Robert M. Price and published by Chaosium Inc. Information is available at Chaosium.com.




And to finish up this post, here are a selection of photos from my busy summer of conventions.

HyperiCon

InConJunction


Camp Necon


And GenCon.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

"An Interview With Horror Artist Steven Gilberts"

In September I was given the distinction of being interviewed by writer and horror historian Matt Cowan for VintageHorror.com. I had the pleasure of meeting Matt last year at GenCon.

My interview can be read at An Interview With Horror Artist Steven Gilberts ,

and you can read more of Matt's fun and informative writings at:

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

"Break Like The Wind"

For the past few weeks I've been planning to update my blog, but between assignments, sinus headaches, and hurricane winds (which added to the headaches) I've been delinquent with my online duties. Waiting for some paint to dry has provided me with the opportune moment to jot in an entry.

(And in addition to my regular assignments I'm also in the process of setting up an online store for my site. Stay tuned for more info on that front.)

Artist Joe Broers has accorded me the great honor of bringing one of my paintings to life (or as close to life as safely possible).

Earlier this year he purchased the illustration for my first magazine cover. The painting, entitled "Dunwich County Fair", was an idea I had toyed with for years. In 2004 I had the opportunity to bring it to realization when I was asked to provide a cover for Kenneth James Crist's magazine Black Petals.

Here are some pics that Joe sent me of the finished piece compared with the original painting and cover. I think he did a wonderful job. Thanks again Joe!


Saturday, August 2, 2008

I Was Turned Into A Newt, But I Got Better.

The fear of fading into oblivion has prompted me to get off my keister and do some website updating.

I've uploaded 25 images to my gallery page. Four are updated files of images already posted, but the rest are brand new (or close enough to it). If you have the time please drop in and look around.

(And of possible interest to collectors of Cemetery Dance publications, I've set up a gallery exclusively for the illustrations I created for Simon Clark's Signature Series book "Butterfly".)

I have lots of photos from HyperiCon, InConJunction, and Necon still waiting for me to go through. At some point in the near future I'll be posting them with "How I Spent My Summer: Chapter 2", but with one more convention coming up I'm still in busy mode. August 14th thru the 17th I'll be at GenCon in Indianapolis. If you are attending stop by the art show and say hi.

Among the paintings I'll have on display will be my cover illustration for an upcoming collection of stories by writer John Dixon.

The title for the illustration is "Blubbery Rubbery Goo".

Friday, June 13, 2008

How I Spent My Summer: Chapter 1

We've been painting the old homestead.



We took the plunge and bought a power sprayer, which despite the cleanup hassle is definitely the way to go when painting a story and and a half of house. Wearing safety goggles and a vapor mask atop a 40' ladder in 90ยบ weather is not the optimum way to experience the month of June,


but it is nice to see our 118 year old house looking like new.



At the end of the month I will be among the attending guests at Hypericon. Alex McVey is the artist guest. If all goes to plan Alex and I will be doing an art demo on Saturday (tentatively titled " Can't Is On Won't Street")

The following weekend I will be among the attending guests at InConJunction. Alan M. Clark is the artist guest and I will again be doing an art demo, this time assisting Alan with a demonstration of his process known as "controlled accidents".

This is an example of an earlier "controlled accident" collaboration that we did at Chattacon in 2007.

Stray Ghosts With Casual Hardware © 2007 by Alan M. Clark & Steven C. Gilberts

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Go West Young...monster?

The Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design (AAGAD) and the Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) recently announced the nominees for the 34th Origins Awards.
Among the nominees in the Publication/Non-fiction category is Frontier Cthulhu, edited by William Jones and published by Chaosium Inc. I had the privilege of illustrating the cover for the collection, and William insists that the cover helped garner the nomination. I won't argue the point any further. :-)

You can read about Frontier Cthulhu here, and a complete list of the 34th Origin Awards nominees can seen here.


Tuesday, April 29, 2008

That Voodoo that you do so well.

Here is the cover for William Jones' upcoming novel Voodoo Virus which will be published by Chaosium Inc.

I used one of our New York World Horror Con trip photos as the background reference (I had to make up the zombies, as the zombies that actually were shambling along the avenue refused to sign release forms).

It is nice that three years later the trip is still paying off.


Thursday, April 24, 2008

Epitaph


Sean Tyler, Cathy Houge, Dean Rapp, and myself in the middle. Photo © 1981 David Keator

I pulled the plug on my Louisville School of Art site this week. For career needs I had to free up account space in favor of business over nostalgic memories.

I set up the site in spring of 2003, the 20th Anniversary of the LSA's demise. My main goal was that I felt there should be some kind of a web presence for the old school. A secondary hope was that some of my old classmates that I lost touch with might come across it and contact me. Unfortunately this hope did not pan out.

Over the years I've kept contact with a few of my classmates (the few who were willing to stay in contact with me). From time to time we get together and reminisce about the old days over a bottle of micro-brew (and often in front of a bonfire courtesy of Kevin Riggins).

Among the reminisces...

On a warm spring evening our drawing professor lobbed lacrosse balls at a courtyard wall while the school's slightly tipsy maintenance man tried to catch the 60-something -mph projectiles. This went on until the ball missed it's mark (wall or man, take your pick) and hit one of the metal-smithing studio windows, knocking a perfectly round hole into the safety glass. The mystery hole stayed a secret among us until the school shutdown.

During one of the Friday night extracurricular parties, Steve Winfree trapped me in the basement sculpting studio by disabling the elevator. I seem to recall being a little on the obnoxious side that evening, so Steve probably did it for some peace and quiet. Anyway, all the doors to the studio were locked, so I was not going anywhere. As he recounted his prank to a group in the courtyard, the listeners became aware that I was sitting behind him in the shadows raptly listening to his story. That was my 15 minutes of fame as the college's Houdini. How did I get out? I'll never tell.

On a clear late winter's evening one of the musically talented students showed off his skills on a piano that had been left in a huge empty studio room. Attracted by the music, a group of us went in to listen and kill some time before the evening life drawing class. As the setting suns glow illuminated the room and the music echoed through the empty space, we had the feeling of being in the scene of a movie. It was very surreal (and this for a school that was stubbornly abstract).

One afternoon four of us guys picked up a fellow student's Subaru Brat and placed it in such a way so she could not leave until the cars on either side her vehicle had moved. She was quite displeased.

My Design II class had a party in honor of the final project , a group constructed Earth sculpture that was a brick paved ramp that went at least six feet deep into the ground. This was midday in the front yard of the school. There we all were, drinking cheap beer and sitting in and around the sculpture. It sat as a weed filled pit for years after the school shut down. The bricks are probably still there beneath the dirt. This week itself is the actual anniversary of the event.

Maggie Meloy's manic teaching of Art History (her classes would have been great on DVD). It was entertainment for the sophomores and upperclassmen to peek in on the first day of class and see the startled look on the freshman's faces as Maggie shrieked and gyrated while extolling the marvel of some piece of Neolithic art.

Wendy, a black lab, showed up one morning at the front door. She hung out with me the whole day. Dunkin Donuts supplied by Cindy Jaeger helped forge this friendship (sorry about feeding the dog your blueberry donuts Prof. Keator). Thankfully the classes I had that day were taught by very lenient professors, so she received some free education sitting at my side (she actually fell asleep and snored during Color Theory). Prof. Nadine Wegner later helped track down the owner through Wendy's rabies tag number.

Exploring the schools basement / crawl-space that ran the length of the building was fun. The place was like a poor-man's catacombs. One half expected the Phantom of the Opera to pop out from behind one of the columns.

Being able to pursue underage drinking at the art show openings with the help of the newfangled box-o-wine was quite uplifting.

And of course the well rounded education the LSA provided was second to... well second and third to a lot of other secondary schools. But who attends college for that?

Thanks to Kevin Riggins, Steve Winfree, and Antonio Profumo for their help and interest with the LSA site. Antonio provided the majority of photos. I would also like to give special thanks to LSA alumni Richard Drake for contacting me after seeing the site and providing me with some history about the school's Anchorage, Ky. years.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

"The Long Look"

I recently had the honor of illustrating the cover for Richard Park's upcoming novel "The Long Look". It will be published by Five Star.

The image concept is Richard's and depicts the novels central character Tymon in the process of animating a golem.

You can read more information about the novel at Richard's blog.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

"Lousy Smarch Weather".





As usual, winter refuses to let go of the Ohio Valley. The pictures above are from the two ice storms we had a couple of weeks ago, and tomorrow brings the promise of 4 to 6 inches more of happy fun time.

In other news, I've decided to dispel the myth that I don't like to sell my paintings. I have begun the process of adding prices to the artwork information sections of my gallery pages.

Interested buyers can contact me at stevegilberts@earthlink.net.

If you are interested in an illustration that does not have a price please contact me and I will provide the size and price of the piece.

Friday, February 1, 2008

Butterfly

One of the projects I have been working on has been officially announced by Cemetery Dance Publications. It is my great honor to be the illustrator for Simon Clark's Signature Series book "Butterfly".

Information about the book is available at Butterfly: Cemetery Dance Publications.

Simon Clark's official website is here.

And this is my illustration for the cover.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

By Golly It Is 2008!

I came across a Wikipedia entry for GenCon that has me listed among the recently attending artists. Cool beans! You can read the whole article here.

Yes, I'm still kicking. The final months of 2007 were a bit of a dog (and the dog did bite). The year as a whole was rather pricey (car problems, new roof, a three legged poodle), but we survived it. And on the art side of things 2007 was wonderful.

My two largest projects of 2007 (which are continuing into 2008) are under wraps until the official announcements from the publishers, hence the lack of recent entries in my online gallery.

With that said, here are three images I should have posted some time back.

The first is a collaboration between Alan Clark and myself. Entitled "Stray Ghosts with Casual Hardware", this was a demonstration piece that Alan and I began at Chattacon 32. It's debut was at WFC2007. Purchasing information is available on Alan's site here.


The second one is the cover for "The Strange Case of Rudolph Pearson" by William Jones and published by Chaosium Inc. You can read more about it here.


And the final image is a personal project entitled "The Hidden Mechanics of Remorse". This is a 2' wide by 4' tall painting. It had been a long time since I had painted in a large format (beyond scanner size specifically).