SamHain Press Fine Art & Illustration

Another logo design, this time for Grand Guignol Games, a gaming...

Sat, 11 May 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Another logo design, this time for Grand Guignol Games, a gaming group I founded almost 10 years ago with friends. Our motto is “Where The Puppet Has Teeth.”

The original design (left, top row)) needed an update, so I rebuilt the vector from the ground up. We’re still deciding on color palettes. I like the sepia one (right, middle row) and, strangely enough, the pastel pink (far right, bottom row) the best, but we’re still tweaking. So consider this a sneak peek! :D

My tshirt design for Jonah Knight is now available on Teepublic!

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 18:09:04 -0500

My tshirt design for Jonah Knight is now available on Teepublic!

eggplantlit: Spellbound is now taking submissions for artwork,...

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 23:43:12 -0500

eggplantlit:

Spellbound is now taking submissions for artwork, poetry, and prose for its Fall 2013 issue: Creatures of the Deep Dark Woods! Clickthrough for more information.

I love, love being the art director for this publication - it’s been taking up a lot of my time lately but it’s so worth it - our artists are spectacular and I’d love to add new voices to our ranks!

eggplantlit: Cover art for Spiritual Growths by Lori Ann White....

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 02:28:06 -0500

eggplantlit:

Cover art for Spiritual Growths by Lori Ann White. Cover art by Elwira Pawlikowska-Modzelewska. Cover design by Sam Haney Press. Release date: April 15, 2013.

Let everyone else worry about what it means when mysterious trees pop up all over San Jose. Robbie just wants to get rid of the one growing out of her tub.

Read an excerpt here.

Lori Ann White is the author of Etta Mae’s Little Theory which is also published by Eggplant Literary Productions.

New novella cover! :D

Merch image I just finished for Jonah Knight, a paranormal...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 18:15:46 -0500

Merch image I just finished for Jonah Knight, a paranormal modern folk artist who makes some *damn* fine music - and catchy! I’ll let you know when/where the merch becomes available, if you’re interested. :D

Books I'll never write, No. 67

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 18:12:18 -0600

thatjessjohnson:

The X-Acto Knife Blues: Or 501 New and Expressive Uses for Your Favorite Swear Words in Papercrafting (Now Available in Oops Crimson and Band Aid Beige)

HA. Love this.

thatjessjohnson: Art Major: Homework; these twenty sketches and these four color comps and this...

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 09:28:00 -0600

thatjessjohnson:

Art Major: Homework; these twenty sketches and these four color comps and this painting and this self portrait and mount this 3D piece and find all this reference. Oh, and it’s all due tomorrow? Bring it.

The General Public: Art is for slackers and people too lazy to get real jobs.

Husband once looked over at me while I was cutting an intricate chrysanthemum design on a crumpled robe within an 8x10 woodcut and said: “Wow, I’m glad I picked an easy job… like science.”

He works in a hospital, testing organs for transplantation. He has a hundred facts about infectious diseases and blood types and parasites and every category of ‘goop’ that the human body secretes, excretes, and refills itself with on a regular basis (and it will drive him bananas that I just called it all ‘goop’ :P). He helps save lives.

But he calls his job ‘easy’ after watching me do mine. <3

If only that were the *norm.*

“Submerged Cthulhu” Trinket Box, now available!

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 15:41:03 -0600

“Submerged Cthulhu” Trinket Box, now available!

laughingsquid: 3Doodler, 3D Printer Pen Lets You Draw Plastic...

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 13:47:38 -0600

laughingsquid:

3Doodler, 3D Printer Pen Lets You Draw Plastic Objects

I love living in the future.

Bug Brooch postcards now available for purchase! Individual...

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 13:09:43 -0600

Bug Brooch postcards now available for purchase!

Individual Cards // 5-Card Sets

eggplantlit: We’re running a postcard giveaway over at our...

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 21:46:41 -0600

eggplantlit:

We’re running a postcard giveaway over at our website. We’ve got a bunch of beautiful postcards from our first issue of Spellbound. Come on over, comment about your favorite kids book and we’ll pick commenters at random to send postcards. You have to comment on the site to enter.

Help us spread the word and reblog this post!

The contest is running from Feb 17 to the 23.

SIGNAL BOOST FOR PRETTY & FREE STUFF.

This cartoon was inspired by a Huffington Post article by...

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 18:54:36 -0600

This cartoon was inspired by a Huffington Post article by Jennifer Jenkins, in which she quoted Judge Richard Posner:

What happens if these underlying sources are copyrighted? As Judge Richard Posner pointed out, “Romeo and Juliet itself would have infringed Arthur Brooke’s The Tragicall Historye of Romeo and Juliet… which in turn would have infringed several earlier Romeo and Juliets, all of which probably would have infringed Ovid’s story of Pyramus and Thisbe.” You get the point — without a rich public domain, much of literature would be illegal.

eggplantlit: A break from the fake cover art to show off the...

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 18:23:00 -0600

eggplantlit:

A break from the fake cover art to show off the brand new cover art for Dead on Arrival by Crystal Lynn Hilbert. “The only thing worse than Max’s death is his new living arrangement.” The cover art is by Richy Sampson and the cover design is by Sam Haney Press. The e-book is out February 28. You can click on the picture to see the site.

Yay, newly-finished cover art/design for our upcoming novella!

So I Did a Podcast...

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 01:03:27 -0600

So I Did a Podcast...:

Jonah Knight and Mikey Mason were kind enough to let me ramble on about my life in art, at conventions, and where the two overlap - and they were generous enough to post the resulting conversation for all the world to hear!

If you want to hear me give the skinny on art shows at conventions, what I do as Art Director for Eggplant Literary Productions, and the roots of my lifelong love affair with reading, plus much, much more, then click the link above.

I wanted my RL tumblr to be all professional art and publishing and stuff BUT NO fandom keeps...

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 00:53:20 -0600

I wanted my RL tumblr to be all professional art and publishing and stuff BUT NO fandom keeps creeping in…

Ha!

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 22:37:10 -0600

Ha!

marielikestodraw: marielikestodraw: “Just wanted to say…...

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 21:11:17 -0600

marielikestodraw:

marielikestodraw:

“Just wanted to say… hello.”

Ooh I just loved the idea too much and had to fanart it somehow… That’s my first Dr Who art, entirely painted on photoshop, hope you like it :D

Somehow a lot of people stumbled upon it recently & asked me if it was on sale somewhere and it is! In my society 6 shop! <3 Thanks for all your comments.

This was the piece that won the award for best Non-Pro Art at Capricon 33’s art show! Congrats, Marie!

Fanart

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 14:40:00 -0600

One of my favorite things about the Capricon art show this year (and, okay, the list is actually super-long because everything went well and my staff was awesome and we had a ton of amazing artists and and and…) was the fanart section. I don’t know how many people registered that it was a ‘special’ section, because the room is somewhat large and there was a LOT to see, but some people did come up and comment positively on it, so I know it did get noticed by some, if not all of the convention attendees.

It was special to me for several reasons. One, it contained work by some of my favorite fanartists (Gingerhaze, Maria Emege, Hanie Mohd, & Marie V) from around the world. Two, all of them sold at least one piece (if not several pieces), except for Marie - but Marie won an award for her art, as voted on by the general con populace, so she didn’t walk away empty-handed, either. :D

And thirdly, it enabled me to help change some things about the art show. I’ve written about the somewhat confusing nature of ‘fan art’ in convention circles before, but running a convention art show enables me to try to leverage my (admittedly limited) power (moo hoo ha ha) to try to untangle the nomenclature a bit, at least in my own little corner of the fan convention world.

So I restructured the categories and awards at Capricon from ‘Pro’ and ‘Fan’ (which previously reflected the Hugo categories as described in my previous post) to ‘Pro’ and ‘Non-Pro.’ And I changed the previous policy that banned fanart (here defined as ‘transformative work’ in the OTW sense) - while occasionally allowing some of the artists to slip in one or two pieces among their collection that ‘just so happened’ to feature a blue police box &tc - to explicitly allowing and featuring fanartists in their own section.

Part of this change was intended to reflect a highly visible and popular expression of modern fandom - as fandom changes, so must conventions, in order to remain relevant and to remain interesting to those who might buy badges and attend and contribute to the convention. Many other conventions - especially those whose attendance numbers keep growing and diversifying (both among minorities and among younger fans), contributing to their prominence and relevance in fan culture, like anime cons, comic cons, etc - allow and encourage fanartists in their public spaces (like art shows, artists’ alleys, dealers’ halls, etc). If a convention wants to remain competitive within a diverse and growing population with so many other options on which they can spend their time/money, said convention must, by necessity, grow and adapt to the current trends and interests of fandom.

Another reason for this change is because I’ve been involved in convention fandom for something like a decade, and involved in online fandom and a creator/supporter of transformative works (under an alias, natch) for something like 15 years… And sometimes I want my chocolate with my peanut butter: sometimes I want both sides of fandom to acknowledge, reflect, &/or cooperate with each other, because it seems silly to me for it to be any other way. We are all nerds/geeks/fans, and get excited about being able to share our fannishness (in whatever form of expression it takes) with other like-minded people. I completely understand and support the desire of some fanworks creators to keep their RL separate from their fannish life - I have a separate Tumblr for fandom-specific purposes, and retain the separation between my online fandom alias from my RL name/ID/career for a reason - but if I can facilitate a middle ground for those who desire it within convention spaces, and encourage an open and informed dialogue about such subjects in both arenas, then I will be well pleased.

And so I thank Capricon for giving me the opportunity to change our policies, and I thank the fanartists who participated for sending such exemplary work. Next year, I hope to expand the fanart section with more artists and more art, and to help create a few panels to facilitate discussions on such topics.

If anyone’s interested in helping/contributiong (especially those in the Chicago / northern Indiana / southern Wisconsin areas - or willing to travel to same), I am available via askbox/fanmail here on tumblr and via email.

Photo

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 21:16:26 -0600

Away to Con!

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 10:29:46 -0600

Once again, I’m running the art show at Capricon this weekend, and soon I’ll be featured on the Pros and Cons podcast! So if you want to see me in person, swing by the Cap art show, and if you want to hear me chat about some of the many many hats I wear, watch for my podcast to go live later today.

…As usual, my Etsy shop will be closed until I get back from the con and take inventory of everything. Ta!