Richard, you graduated with a B.F.A. from UCD, with emphasis in painting. You worked with the animation students creating concept art for their thesis project. Did you take any digital art classes?
I did take one independent study with Bryan Leister for illustration. At that particular time I was pretty knowledgeable with Photoshop so we focused more on formal and technical issues of illustration. Because a lot of illustration work is about painting things that don't exist in real life, a lot of the discussion went into how to effectively use reference and create compelling compositions that sell to the public.
Please describe the contract arrangement between you and Sony, basically, how they commission you with projects, etc.
Well, I actually freelance for Sony Online Entertainment (SOE). As part of their artist pool, whenever they have a new project they will write up a short e-mail offering a commission with a set number of images. After the number of images are confirmed a contract is written up by their legal department with a schedule and work goes from there. I work with the art director who writes up each card's description, detailing the action and mood that he wants us to illustrate. The hard part is getting into their artist pool.
Please describe the current project you are working on.
The illustrations that I actually do for SOE are card illustrations for an online trading card game (TCG). A TCG is a game where you collect cards and create decks that you play against other players. The TCG I'm doing work for is called Legends of Norrath and is unique because its strictly online. Every card has a unique illustration and there are hundreds of cards in every released card set, that’s where I come in. Its worth mentioning that Legends of Norrath is based off of Everquest and Everquest II so all the world and lore bounce back and forth, which makes it easier for me because there’s such a wealth of information to go to when I need to root the illustration to something.
Could you mention a few of your artist influences/ artists you admire (contemporary and historical)?
A lot of my influences are other contemporary illustrators and professionals in the concept art industry. Justin Sweet has been a source of inspiration for me lately. You might know Justin Sweet's work through the recent Narnia movies, he did concept art for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as well as the new movie Prince Caspian. Justin Sweet also brings in a lot of influence from Frank Frazetta, particularly in his characters and compositions. As a group, I also enjoy the work that comes from Massive Black, an outsource company that provides visualizations for movies and games.
