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Sci-Fi book cover: Black Gemini [ 13 May 2008 ]

A Scifi book cover I did for Rachael Kirby's first scifi book "Black Gemini". A description of the book from the authors site:

Black Gemini is an unusual combination of sci-fi and romance. It is a story of love beyond the stars where two people battle against there passionate desire for one another, a love that is not accepted and if found out could end their careers or even their lives. Lieutenant Jess Wilson knows General Viper has a past, a secret he hides, he is a cruel, callous and vindictive man, yet Jess is determined to find out his secret even at the cost of her life. An old enemy resurfaces and Viper has to make a choice. His love or his duty. Filled with action and wonderous Galactic journeys, this sci fi action romance leaves you wondering what happens next.

The book is available in all major online book stores. If you'd like to commission a book cover or any other illustration, just email me with the details and I'll get back to you with my price quote within 24 hours.

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2D Valley interview [ 2 May 2008 ]

I'm glad to announce that in May 2008 I have been chosen by 2DValley.com to be a Featured Artist of the month. I therefore have been interviewed by Christa, the editor of the site. We talk about a lot of things including how I work, my own favorite artwork, my favorite artists, how it is to run your own art business, and other interesting things. Here is a link to the interview.

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Logo design gallery [ 23 April 2008 ]

I just added a new gallery to showcase my logo designs. There is a variety of the better logos I did during the past several years for all kinds of projects. Different styles for different purposes. If you like what you see and are in need of a cool logo design for your website, band, or anything else just email me the details and I'll get back to you with a price quote within 24 hours.

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Psychedelic art trip [ 13 April 2008 ]

I was thinking for some time about doing a cool psychedelic picture. Eventually I decided to dedicate a whole weekend to it and initiated the process one Friday afternoon. It was time for another atmospheric journey.

To get myself in the mood I started by listening to one of my favorite psychedelic ambient albums "Mystical experiences" by "The Infinity Project". It's one of those classic down tempo ambient albums that gets you out there... not exactly to the "Sound becomes color and color becomes sound" dimension, but to a certain unique state of mind that is under heavy influence of the music.

So while absorbing all those enigmatic trance vibes, I started getting ideas how to create a hallucinogenic multi-dimensional visual experience in 2D format. After exploring several concepts I set for a visual fusion of colorful waves and organic patterns engaged in a spiral movement toward a source of light. Later I added several orbs to create a greater sense of depth and motion. It all ended up working quite well.

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Article update - Healthy eating habits [ 23 March 2008 ]

It's been now over 3 years since I wrote the Healthy eating habits article and yesterday I decided it was time for an update. Actually I have been making minor updates to it on a regular basis, but yesterday I went through the whole article and made many small improvements. The core ideas remain the same, I simply improve parts of the article that need better explanation. If you read the article when I first put it online, I recommend that you read it again to get a more complete picture of my recommendations.

Yesterday I also sorted the list of "Things to do or emphasize" from the most to less important. This should be very helpful to those who may be wondering what to start with.

I noticed that nearly 100 sites are linking to this article and looking at my web stats it's the most popular article on Eon Works. I therefore decided to put a date stamp at the top of the article to indicate when the article was updated. Finally, as some people have asked about this after reading the article, here is the quick sauerkraut recipe that I use.

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Free content and bending over backwards [ 26 February 2008 ]

Every now and then I get a comment or email form people asking why I don't provide all my images for free. Some are even requesting that I should remove my logo from the images and provide high-resolution images. I actually wrote a bit about this earlier, but let me write once more to clarify my thoughts on this topic.

I used to think that only immature teenagers who live with mom and dad and never had to work for a living could make such requests. Now it seems that some of these people are actually adults and I think I can see their line of thinking.

On the outset it seems that a lot of stuff online is free: images, articles, software, services, etc. But the truth is that very little worth having is really free. Most "free" stuff is wrapped in ads, a paid premium service or some other mechanism that in one way or another, directly or indirectly profits the original value creator or provider. The consumer is of course paying for this "free" stuff if not with his money than with his attention, time, effort, hassle, and privacy.

How many times did you download a "free" piece of software that had spyware/adware/viruses in it? Usually you don't know that because these things are invisible unless you start looking for them. And how much time did you waste removing all the nastiness? How about newsletter sign ups that only get you even more spam? Or how often did you download "free" images from sites that provide copyrighted images they never got permission to distribute in the first place? How about when you signed up for some free service only to find out later that all the better parts of the service require a payment?

Obviously there are quality content providers that can be trusted. But there is a good share of those you can't trust. Although the ones that can be trusted often charge money for some of their content or service, at least you are not being tricked or taken advantage of.

I have a free content section where anybody can enjoy my artwork in the form of computer wallpapers or a screen saver. Actually, a lot of people use the small images from my gallery as their desktop background and that is fine by me. Some of my fans buy my images as posters, a license, or computer wallpapers and this creates a mutually beneficial win-win situation - I receive payment for providing extra value for the fans. This encourages me to crate more and by doing so keeps the fans happy.

But some people apparently like my work a lot yet don't want to give anything back, and only want to take. They want me to give all my work away for free. Steve Pavlina, who is perhaps the most successful blogger online today, wrote about this issue recently in one of his blog posts:

"...you'll surely have to deal with cynics who whine and complain that you've somehow joined the dark side, as if you've done them serious personal harm by deciding to get paid for your work instead of bending over backwards to serve their needs for free. Understand that cynics aren't offering you a fair exchange - they're asking you to commit to an abusive relationship.

Cynics hold the nonsensical belief that they're entitled to something for nothing. They want you to serve them, while they offer you nothing in return. "

I make a living working as a freelance artist. Which means I live through lean times and moderate times. And since the income my site generates helps with the lean times, I can't give its content away for free.

To be frank, even if I could have given my work away for free I wouldn't because I did that in the past and know where that leads to. From the mid 1990s to 2004 I used to freely share all my images as hi-res wallpapers and this is what it got me: I started to see parts of my images, cut out, appear in other "artists" artworks; on many occasions I've seen others earning money from my images without me knowing anything about it; I've seen my signature replaced by somebody else's; there was even a person who claimed to be the true author of all my artwork and wanted to sue me when confronted with it.

These are the unfortunate side effects of sharing too much online today. I've learned from my mistakes. Now I share just enough so everybody can see and enjoy my work, but not enough to exploit it. It's a simple matter of cause and effect.

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New abstract art - Drifting planes [ 10 February 2008 ]

Just added a new image to the abstract gallery. I especially like the combination of cool and warm colors, along with the neat rectangular shapes. It has a calm and pleasant look of countless drifting planes in a synthetic stream of colorful rectangularity.

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New space art: Ancient giants [ 19 January 2008 ]

It's been a while since I posted a new image so I thought about starting the new year with a fresh and crispy space art. I don't have a description for this image yet. Any suggestions are welcome.

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Classic Vintage Paperbacks [ 17 December 2007 ]

Conan of Cimmeria book cover by Frank Frazetta

I just found another site full of cool vintage book covers. As the site's introduction says: "If you love vintage paperbacks, you have come to the right place. There are over 800 images of paperback books on this website." And it includes a Classic Sci-Fi Paperback Covers section. And the covers by artist section contains rare covers by Frank Frazetta. Several of which I have never seen before. Another artist whose covers I in particular like are in the Tom Adams Cover Art section.

I love the lettering, the often bleak almost washed out colors, and the feel and look of those classic covers. A very nice site.

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24 free avatar pictures [ 9 November 2007 ]

I just added a new page to the free section - a nice collection of free avatars that you can use on forums, chat rooms and any other social networks. All images are 150x150 and saved in JPG file format. You can resize and convert to whatever format you need. Please do not link to these avatars directly (it uses too much bandwidth), instead upload them to wherever you want to use them.

On another note I finished working on the Surreal and Abstract wall calendars, available in two sizes - regular and oversized. They look very nice and make a good Christmas gift.

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Archive of SciFi and Fantasy magazine cover art [ 31 October 2007 ]

I recently came across a very nice site called Visco - "a visual catalogue of the cover art of the science fiction, fantasy, weird and horror fiction magazines from the early twentieth century to the present day." Frankly, this site is quite a gold mine for anybody into SF and Fantasy cover art like myself. There are in total 3631 images from 100 titles/editions. All cataloged by artist and magazine name. It's very interesting to see how the style, and the art tools, changed over time. I just wished the images were bigger. Check out these rare images by Chris Foss and John Harris and Tim White and Bruce Pennington. They sure bring back some memories.

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