A peek inside the Megastructures book, 40 enormous structures each with a scientific explanation, diagrams and painting. Help us make the second printing a reality, sign up on the following link to be notified when the kickstarter goes live next week! https://kickstarter.com/projects/artofsoulburn/megastructures-the-visual-encyclopedia-book-2nd-printing
After a tremendously successful first printing, and hundreds of requests for a reprint, it's time for a second printing. Help me make it a reality, sign up on the following link to be notified when the kickstarter goes live next week!
Just posted a video tutorial on how I create the panels in my starship hull images. While the full images involve lots of techniques, this is the one technique that does 90% of the work, so hopefully you find it interesting & try it yourself
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL42sQzd_OQ
So LightBox Expo just posted on their youtube channel the talk I did last year on creating art bibles. Given at LBX23 to a packed room, hopefully this helps people who were turned away at the door and people who couldn't attend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9voncg56qo
My co-professor Apurva Shah just posted a blog showing off the projects our CCA students did for our Building The Metaverse class. The amount of work the students managed to pull off in just one semester was pretty crazy, check it out! https://apuzinio.medium.com/empathy-and-coexistence-in-the-metaverse-2f2b27303232
Gonna post a short timelapse or two this year. Here's me painting a robot design in Photoshop. If you want to see more of the video, including instructional voice over, check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyFtgLkLnSQ
Since I'm on the subject of Coral this week, back when I was at Blur Studio, we did a pitch for a ride film about going back to prehistoric times, and I did an underwater coral environment. Love coral shapes, a shame the project didn't go ahead :(
First new artwork post of 2024! After watching Scavenger's Reign on HBO, I forgot how much fun it was to paint Inc and Landis wandering the coral desert in my 2017 book “The Story of Inc”. So I decided to revisit it just for fun.
Welcome to my 2023 wrap up, and what a year it's been! First, the opportunity for people to make a living doing commercial art for the entertainment industry took a real hit this year. From 10% of videogames jobs being eliminated to the strikes that caused VFX and animation artists to be laid off, it's been a sucky year. While it would be nice to define a single silver bullet that's causing all this turmoil, it's likely a half dozen factors, from high interest rates to company consolidation to genAI to good old greed. I suspect it will be years for a new normal to emerge.
All that being said, I've had to remind myself that no matter what happens to my industry, I can't let it affect my love of making artwork. It would be horrible for my creative spirit to be crushed by a world in chaos. So in 2024, it's going to be all about making projects that matter to me, and finding more ways to get it out to my audience.
2023 included 2 conventions, a bunch of speaking engagements (Lightbox being particularly awesome), teaching a college class, & a major focus on my ink sketches, culminating in the release of my third book: "Neil Blevins Sketchbook: Vol 1: Spaceships". I think a lot of this analog drawing was a reaction to the worry about genAI, it was nice to return to my traditional roots and create some tangible art. I will continue to sketch, but other projects are going to take priority in 2024. Finally 2023 saw my first job in the Tech Industry, working at Duality Robotics, where I've been helping create virtual environments in unreal engine to train real life robot brains. It's been a fascinating challenge, and I'm working with a great group of people.
So what's coming in 2024? First, my most popular project by far has been the book "Megastructures: The Visual Encyclopedia", sold out for almost a year. I've received 100s of emails asking when it might be reprinted. So in early 2024 I'll be doing a brand new Kickstarter to see if I can get enough presales (you can't print just a few, they need to be printed in bulk) for a 2nd printing.
My second focus is figuring out how best to engage with my audience. Social Media has eroded over the past several years, the days of organic reach and even paid reach for art are now pretty much over. It is so frustrating knowing there are people who have asked to follow my art, but they don't see my posts because the algorithm isn't interested. 2024 will include some experiments in how best to get my work out there, along with of course a bunch of new art to show.
Thanks again for all of you following along in 2023, thanks to everyone who bought my sketchbook, thanks for all your comments, every positive interaction is a gift I cherish. And to all those of you out there who are professional artists and have been laid off & are looking for work, may you be swiftly re-employed, and may we all find that spark that let's us make 2024 a comeback year! Love you all!
My top 9 most liked images from 2023:
