Conan Art

There are a couple of commissions that I’ve received so far that really take me back to the old Savage Sword of Conan days. The first one that really took me back, probably because it’s likeness to Buscema, was Benito Gallego’s Streets of Shadizar , the second one though, is Winston Blakely’s Hyrkanian Tracker .

Winston Blakely was one of half-a-billion artists (that’s right, half-a-billion) that responded to a want-ad that I posted a few months ago in some comic groups. I posted a few ads, and the next thing I knew my inbox was full of artists requesting to be apart of the project. It was fantastic, if not unexpected.

Winston was part of the initial group of artist’s that didn’t receive multiple descriptions to choose from when I originally requested the piece from him. I suppose the process was a little more akin to a normal commission solicitation in that I just told Winston what I wanted him to draw, and that’s what he drew (spot on, and great I might add). There really wasn’t any avenue of choice for him to select a particular description that he may have preferred. I’ve revised that process now because I like the idea of artist’s choosing from the descriptions more than me telling artists what to draw, I think multiple choices makes us both feel like their contribution to the project is more personal, and not just some ink on a paper that someone told them to put there.

Winston’s piece is great. I love the creativity in the frame, the footprints left on the ground from the stalked, and of course heads on pikes always do wonders to make a Hyborian Age picture just that much better (i.e. see the header in progress above )

Upcoming Projects and the Art of Winston Blakely

Winston has some nice art online for viewing. You can see a number of his samples at Winston’s Serendipity Art Gallery . His gallery contains several panels, including some rather urm… risque images that we all appreciate from time to time. When I was reviewing Winston’s sample images he sent me, it was actually his work on Little Miss Strange , the world’s first black alien sorceress, that caught my eye the most. Winston teamed up with Luis Sierra (another upcoming contributor to the Images of Hyboria gallery) for a graphic novel of Little Miss Strange that you can find for sale at lulu.com .

PixelStrips also hosts a number of the characters Winston has worked on, including the previously talked about Little Miss Sunshine, as well as other characters like the Sword and Sorcery Kotas the Dragon , which will be featured in an upcoming anthology by Winston, and another story inspired by Jack Kirby called Pozitron .

Another Round of Winston Please

Winston was an all around great guy to work with, and one of the timeliest as well in terms of how quick he was able to complete the project from start to finish. The range of characters that he illustrates and writes for makes his art fun to follow and dynamic. More importantly than that he hosts a lot of his characters online which really makes his work accessible; which I think is a big bonus for attracting fans to your work and continuing to gain exposure.

Winston has agreed to do another piece for the gallery, this time I think I’ll let him choose what he wants to draw and we’ll see what he comes up with.

Check out Winston’s Hyrkanian Tracker in the Images of Hyboria Gallery .

Read Winston’s profile as well, he has some great info in there and it’s always interesting to see how these artists started out in the business.