07/17/08
Yikes - SIX months since my last update... At least I can honestly say that they were six busy months, filled with work and with family business, and, most importantly, happiness.
I wrapped my final Indy piece about 10 days before the movie premiere, and for a month or so the stores were filled with little Indy portraits created by me. At one point I walked into our local grocery, and could see my stuff in a 360 degree radius - a little surreal, but also really cool.
My friend Dave Wells and I also began work on a webstrip. You can see our preliminary discussion at tenthunders.com. Our plan is to put the entire process online, and as we work, we'll be listening and responding to input from anyone interested enough to let us read their thoughts.
Currently, I'm in the beginning stages of some Star Trek stuff, and have just submitted my first cover sketch for issue number 1 of The X-Files. (I'll be doing the variant cover.) Also on the schedule: The box art and at least one painting for Topps Company's upcoming Star Wars Galaxy series of trading cards.
The San Diego Comic-Con is next weekend, and I'll be there, in a booth, with a TON of stuff, including a brand-new, licensed Star Wars poster, as well as some original art. Please, please stop by and say hello!

01/09/08
Happy New Year from all of us here at Russell Walks Illustration. Which is me. Only me. So, Happy New Year from me.
First up, my close personal friend, screenwriter/baseball player/ adventurer/astrologer David Wells, has recently begun a blog based on his experiences as a mercenary working for Blackwater USA in Iraq. Actually, almost none of the previous sentence is true. While a google search for David Wells links to people of the same name who are astrologers, baseball players and adventurers, my good buddy Dave is none of those things. He is a screenwriter, though, and he does have a blog, and he's got some interesting things to say. Go and read. Now. I'll wait.
As I write this, I'm knee deep in Indiana Jones. Currently, I'm doing the point-of-sale Indy art for Dr Pepper, Kelloggs, and one more major company. I've also signed on for a few sketch cards with Topps, and I'm still working on the Trends poster.Without spilling any of the top-secret information to which I am privy, I've gotta tell ya -This movie looks awesome! Harrison Ford looks great, and the scenery and sets are beautiful. I can't wait!
Keep your eyes on starwarsshop.com for this. It'll be the 2008 Hyperspace exclusive t-shirt. Bonus points for anyone who's not a Hyperspace member and can tell me the significance of the number 52577.

10/29/07
As Summer moves into Fall, and Fall (inevitably, inexorably) moves into Winter, I traditionally become a little depressed. I'm not sure if it's the shorter days or the colder weather, or the fact that all the living things around me seem to either be dying or leaving, but my mood takes a downturn sometime around the end of September, and doesn't really begin to brighten till I see that first robin. (Worst day of the year? June 21st, because the days start getting shorter after that. Best day? December 21st, because even though it's the first day of Winter, and the shortest day of the year, it also marks the beginning of our slow descent towards Spring. From December 22nd, until that rotten day in June, the sun's out a few minutes more every day.
Before I talk about what's on the burner, I wanted to take a second and thank all of you for your support during the convention circuit this summer. All of the Star Wars pieces I did were successful, and I count myself lucky that my work seems to resonate with some of you. Seriously, thank you.
On the schedule: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I was in the Minneapolis airport on my way home from London after Celebration Europe, when I received a phone call from one of LFL's new Indy licensees. That call was followed by another, and another, and now my plate's full of Indy. If all goes according to plan, you'll see my stuff in a couple of different places this summer. I'm also hooking up with Trends International this spring to do a non-specific Indy poster; a sort of homage to the adventure movie posters of the 30's and 40's.
Additionally, I'll be handling the foil puzzle set for Topps' newest Lord of the Rings series of trading cards. As sort of an ultra-chase set, Topps will be cutting the actual artwork into six pieces and inserting them into packs as well.
Finally, I wanted to let you know that you can currently buy my Celebration Europe exclusive print directly from starwars.com. It's $60.00, and at the time of this writing, there are about 60 copies left. In early November, you'll be able to purchase my Star Wars 30th Anniversary piece from starwars.com as well.

05/14/07
OK, things are sort of amping up here in Montana, and as I try to juggle family time, art time and me time, I can feel the stress pushing down on my shoulders like an angry 7th grade gym teacher. (Incidentally - and not many people know this - it's a scientific fact that as one becomes more and more stressed out, the ability create humorous, meaningful analogies begins to diminish...)
Anyway, I've been given the ok to post the Star Wars related work I'll have available this summer. (Except for the Celebration: Europe piece, which you'll see on starwars.com first.) First up is the piece I did in conjunction with Trends International. It's currently set to retail for $30.00, is 24 x 36 inches in size, and will be available both at my table in the art show and another, yet to be determined, location. Click for picture...
My Celebration exclusive is here. It's also 24 x 36 inches, but is designed as a dyptich that can be cut in half and displayed as two pieces. It will be priced at $80.00.
Finally, UpperCase Gallery in Calgary is beginning to promote The Shatner Show, a brilliant collection of artwork inspired by the man and the myth that is William Shatner. My piece is here. Those of you with a little extra time on your hands might want to check out the trailer, which is available in both hi-res and on youtube.
Oh - here's a look at several (also here) of the Star Wars 30th Anniversary sketch cards I recently completed for Topps.

03/31/07
I wanted to let you know that Lucasfilm asked me to remove the sneak preview images of my Celebration work. While I was aware that they wanted the artists to wait until their work was unveiled on starwars.com before showing the complete paintings on each person's individual site, I was under the impression that I could show a small portion of the pieces just to build a little anticipation - sort of a teaser image to tide folks over till the official unveiling. My assumption was mistaken, but the good news is that sometime in the next week or so, you'll see my completed work both here, on my website, and here, on starwars.com.

03/03/07
Toe's better. Finger's better. Productivity? Not so much, although I haven't been completely sedentary.
First off: New baby in the hizza! Little Jenni joined the family on 17th of January. Six pounds, twelve ounces of happiness. Like all my kids, she's amazingly beautiful, and I can tell already that she's brilliant. One weird thing, though - whenever it's just the two of us, and it's really late at night and I've finished giving her a bottle and I'm burping her, she whispers "I hate Star Wars " into my ear. For now, I'm pretending like I don't hear her, but I'm thinking that there may be trouble on the horizon...
On the burner:
I've been invited to participate in The Shatner Show, an exhibit at The Uppercase Gallery in Calgary. 76 artists, all depicting, in one manner or another, the coolest starship captain in history. I've put together a page discussing the thought process that went into my piece; it's here.
This year's Star Wars Celebration is in Los Angeles from May 24th through the 28th. I'll be there with two new exclusive posters, one in conjunction with Trends International (here's a small image of the rough), and one self-produced piece which will only be available at my booth in Artists' Alley. (Sneak preview here; I'll unveil the complete work closer to the actual event.)
I'll also be in London from July 13th through the 15th for Celebration Europe. The Trends poster will be available there, as will another self-produced piece, which, like the Celebration LA work, will only be available at my booth. (Sneak preview here).
Finally, the San Diego Comic-Con is from July 26th -29th this year, and I'll be there as well.
Oh - one more quick note: Although I'm pretty much out of the sketch card business these days, I am hooking up with Topps for 50 cards in their 30th anniversary Star Wars set.

009/25/06
My productivity over the last month has been non-existent, and this is why:
My daughters have a pet rabbit. He's brown, and furry, and uber-cute. My 6 year-old daughter named him Thumper, and my wife litterbox trained him, and he's pretty much a member of family. He'll retrieve a hacky sack, and if you chase him, he'll run away until you stop, and then he'll come back and nuzzle you till you play with him some more.
So, on a Sunday night a few weeks ago, my daughters and I are chasing him around the house, and I'm barefoot, and as he shoots from the living room into the dining room, his rear feet kick up the forward edge of the rug we have on the floor. Because I am incredibly fast, I am right behind him, and I catch my big toe on the edge of rug, bending it backwards so far that the base of my toe-nail pops out from under the cuticle and ends up laying on top of the skin. Since one's toe isn't particularly flexible to begin with, particularly when bent backwards, the skin on either side of the nail also splits open.It hurts. It hurts so badly that I cannot speak; I can only moan incoherently while I hobble around the room bleeding all over the floor. I climb on the kitchen counter, shove my foot in the sink, and run cold water on my toe until it sort of numbs up. Then I wrap it in gauze and crawl to the couch.
I wait around 4 or so hours for it to stop bleeding, but it doesn't, so I go to the hospital. After another 2 hours I see the doctor, who, (and I'm not exaggerating here) tells me that, although he's sure it hurts, it's nothing compared to what the p.o.w.s in Viet Nam went through - Bamboo shoved under the nail and left there... Then he shoots about 10 cc's of some sort of numbing agent into my toe (Which hurt like HELL, btw) shoves the nail back under the skin and stitches everything up.
So I'm on crutches all week, but by Wednesday I'm feeling a little better; In fact, I'm off the crutches. Then, Wednesday night my daughter accidentally stomps on my foot with her new tennis shoes, and it's a whole new adventure in pain, as all the newly formed connective tissue is forcibly crushed and twisted. It hurts - It really, really hurts, and it bleeds for another couple hours, but none of the stitches are popped, and the bleeding does stop, and I hate going to the doctor, so I wrap it up again and use the crutches for another day, and on Friday it still hurts but I toss the crutches and sort of limp/hop around. And it's a good thing I don't need the crutches anymore, too, because on Friday afternoon, I shove an Exacto blade into my left index finger so far that I completely sever the tendon.
More time at the emergency room. More splints and gauze and needles - Antibiotic in the butt, Tetanus in the shoulder, and an appointment with a surgeon.
The hand doctor, a pretty cool guy by the name of Barry Smith, takes a look at my finger and says, "This is kind of a big deal..."
We schedule surgery, which I have a week later, and this is what he does with his Exacto-knife: He makes a very ugly, very deep zig-zag cut from the end of my finger to the base, which is as far down as he had to go to find the other end of my tendon. He then drills a hole through my fingernail, my skin, and my bone. Then he pulls the tendon up through the hole and anchors it to a button ( which looks EXACTLY like one of the buttons on my white DKNY dress shirt) on the outside of my finger.
Now I'm wrapped in a huge cast/splint with only my thumb sticking out. I'll be wearing it for the next 4 to 6 weeks.
I'm a little grumpy...
Oh, here's a picture of my toe, for those of you who like the icky stuff...

07/25/06
Just got back from the San Diego Comic-Con, where I hung out for 5 days with 125,000 people just like me. I sold a lot of posters, signed a lot of cards, got a couple of cool gigs, and really, really enjoyed myself. In the weeks leading up to the con, I usually pick some sort of theme, and base my "marketing plan" (as much as someone with my lack of business acumen can have a plan, anyway) on that theme. This year it was James Bond, and I had a selection of prints and artwork for sale, some of which are still available, and can be seen here.
Currently on the to-do list: Covers for Dynamite's awesome Battlestar Galactica, and Moonstone Book's Lai Wan: Tales of the Dream Walker, along with a ton of private commissions, a speaking engagement at the Palm Springs public library, and the inevitable stack of waiting-to-be-completed sketch cards.
Two quick notes: I have a blog now. It's devoted to pop-culture and is probably as non-controversial and boring as the last season of Happy Days. If you check it out and find it worthy of comment, let me know.
I recently became a Sideshow Collectibles affiliate. If you're an action figure fan like me, please click through the Sideshow banner when you're making a purchase there. It'll help me feed my habit!

05/25/06
I'll be at Disney World on June 2nd & 3rd signing copies of this year's Star Wars Weekends at Disney World poster. I'll also be (as always) at the San Diego Comic Con July 20-23, and I'm looking forward to meeting as many of you as I can. Incidentally, at the beginning of this month, I was profiled on starwars.com. If you're interested, you can find the story here.

04/01/06
There's lots of stuff on the schedule for 2006, including at least 9 more Angel covers for IDW Publishing, 200 Lord of the Rings sketch cards for Topps Company, a How-to-Draw tutorial for starwars.com, a spooooky poster for the National Association of Libraries, a children's book, many, many private commissions, and a few other super-secret projects about which I cannot yet speak.