Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Space Battle




And now, back to 1986. I apologize for posting so many vintage images but I am currently working on portraits that need to be done, and don't have time to do a Fresh Art By-Product.

Well, I gave it the old (NOT) Art Center College try. Tilted horizon: check. Sense of speed: check. High contrast: check. Complex structures: OK, heavily borrowed from STAR WARS. Explosions: check. Top half left empty for printing title and other text: OK.
Book cover: Nyet. No book cover.

In those dim pre-Internet days, you had to go to New York City to get work as an illustrator. In fact, you had to live in New York or somewhere nearby because you had to take the physical work of art to the art director, and be ready to change it at his dictate. And to get more work you had to get to Madison Avenue or wherever the publishers were located, and deposit your portfolio with them and wait till they bothered to look through it. Then you had to come back and pick it up. You had to find somewhere to stay in NYC while you were doing this.

Remember: No internet. No FedEx. No cell phones. No virtual galleries. No digital art. No weblogs. Seems like the dark ages.

1986 was still a busy year for me. I was doing illustration work locally in the Boston area. This piece along with other space art went with me to "ConFederation," the World Science Fiction Convention in Atlanta, GA. It was bought by a collector and sank into oblivion, until now. You're the first people to see this artwork since 1986.

"War by the Gas Giant" is its official title, referring to the large Jupiter-like planet in the top half of the picture. Acrylic on illustration board, 12" x 20".

3 comments:

Mary said...

You sold the painting but obviously retained a digital copy.

Who owns the rights? When I buy an original artwork, am I buying the right to license the image as well?

Or could you, if the digital copy is high enough quality, still sell the image to a publisher?

Tristan Alexander said...

Mary, copyright law says that all art is the property of the artist the minute it is made, period! Unless the artist sells/gives the copyright o another, in writing, it remains theirs. So the fact that someone buys an original does NOT give them any rights to reproduce or copy the work. Pyra/Hannah can do as many copies, sell the rights etc for this or any of her work no matter who owns the original. So remember, when you buy art, unless you have papperwork saying you also own the rights to it, you can not make copies or sell the rights because those remain with the artist!

I kinda like the picture Pyr...but the blank top area for titles etc, always bothers me if they are TO blank!

Pyracantha said...

Mary: I own the rights, as Tristan says. If some publisher saw this and wanted it as a cover, they could lease it from me for a one-time use. That has happened to me a lot. The problem with this image would be the old slide format which has faded, I'd have to make as good a digital version as possible.