Becoming a full time Fantasy Artist

Welcome to Fantasy Art Freelancer, the official blog of McAusland Studios and illustrator William McAusland. This web journal is the companion site to my extensive and frequently updated website at www.mcauslandstudios.com. It serves to showcase what’s new with me and my speculative art career, what I’m working on, new fantasy art techniques I’ve come across or tried, my comments on media relevant to the fantasy and SF genre, the sites of other artists which fans of this art form should be aware of, books of note, other web sites and opportunities for my peers in the field.

The McAusland Studios site was temporarily my dedicated graphic design site, as I maintained my contemporary illustration site elsewhere at www.artmotive.com , another domain I host. The creation of my new exclusively speculative fantasy, SF, Post Apocalyptic and Role Playing Game art site is a step toward a dream I’ve had for decades now; to become a full time fantasy artist. After years of increasing assignments in the speculative art field, and upon realizing that nearly half my annual illustration income is derived from fantasy and related illustration, I have decided to ease out of graphic design and web design, and focus entirely on illustration.

Of Course, I have done contemporary, corporate, children’s, health care and product illustration for over 16 years and will always welcome work in that area, however, if you asked me what creative activities I’d like to do more than any other, I’d have to say 'Speculative Art’.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term ‘Speculative’ at least when used in this context, it is simply a handy word to encompass fantasy, science fiction, Horror, near future, Alternative History, Super hero, Post Apocalyptic dreamscape, Metaphysical, and other otherworldly or fictional genres. Increasingly, in modern fiction, the blending of magic, technology, alternate history and cross-dimensional settings and themes are becoming more popular and complex, becoming harder to define, resisting classification and refusing to be labeled either Science Fiction or Fantasy. I look forward to the amazing stories to come along, either in movies, books, comics or gaming, especially tabletop role-playing games for which I see incredible innovation, and harbor a huge fondness.

Some examples of cross-genre creations include tabletop RPGs such as Shadowrun and Rifts, which blend cyberpunk, magic and dimensional portals into a modern day gaming experience. Another popular example might be the movie The Chronicles of Riddick with Vin Diesel, where science fiction and dark magic are intermeshed, more so than in Frank Herbert’s DUNE. Young adult books and films are also rich with imaginative use of mixed setting, such as the recent The Bridge to Terrabithia, not to mention the Harry Potter series, whereby the modern day world runs parallel with magical realms, even if only in the imaginations of the characters.

I suppose grasping onto the Speculative title is a way of avoiding the inevitable labeling that anyone in the creative fields get slapped upon them; musicians are either classical, rock, country, jazz or punk, writers are either horror, fantasy, SF, western, romance or so called ‘Literary’ writers. Artists, meanwhile, are also assigned such tags as ‘fine artists’ or ‘illustrators’, and from these over arching titles come specifications based on their preferred medium or the subject matter with which they are best known, such as Painter, sculptor, digital artist, comic book artist, inker, penciller, potter, basket weaver, etc. I myself have been told on numerous occasions that if you want to be a serious corporate illustrator that you absolutely don’t place any fantasy art anyplace near your portfolio. For many years, heeding his advice, I kept my speculative portfolio off stage in my career, and only promoted the imagery by direct contact to potential clients.

Applying the title of Speculative Artist to myself leaves room for expansion, says that I am open to doing art for any story or project, regardless of time period, setting, technology, mysticism, or market. I understand, however, that I will still refer to myself a fantasy artist from time to time, to assist search engines or quickly explain what my site or art is about without getting into a long explanation.

I’d be very curious what other artists in the imaginative genre’s think about my explanation of Speculative Artist, how they refer to themselves and their art, and I welcome feedback on it.

WM