2012 Appearances

It's gonna be another busy year of traveling for me. I will be exhibiting my work and at the following in 2012:

Wondercon - March 16-18, Anaheim, CA

Emerald City Comicon - March 30 - April 1, Seattle, WA

Free Comic Book Day @ Player's Dugout - May 5th Riverside, CA

Spectrum Fantastic Art Live! May 18-20 Kansas City, MI

Phoenix Comicon May 24-27

San Diego Comic-Con July 12-15

DragonCon Aug 31 - Sep 3 Atlanta, GA

Illuxcon Nov 8-11 Altoona, PA

Nearheath Stalker

Another new Magic piece from the Dark Ascension set just got previewed. It is always fun to try and creep out your audience.

16" by 22" oil on paper on board.

Curse of Bloodletting

Some of the new art for the Dark Ascension expansion was previewed by WOTC today, so I get to show this one off a little early. (or a little late, since it was originally commissioned for Innistrad and got bumped back)



I don't know the name of the card yet since the article just showed the art, I will update this post once I do.

13" by 18" oil on paper on board

Merry Christmas!

Here is a present for you:


Did this one for a friends annual Christmas card. 12 x 16 oil on paper on board

The Silver Hand

Here is a cover I recently finished painting for a novel titled "The Silver Hand: Book One of The Consortium" by Sharon Pansky. This one was a bit of a challenge for me, while I have painted many a still life in my day, doing a full fledged cover without a person in it was something new.

I was working directly with the author on this one, and she had asked to see photos of the painting progressing. I always swear I am going to do this one every painting, and this time I actually did. (These were shot at different times of the day and are uncorrected so the colors are kinda off from one to the other)

Thumbnail

Final drawing

Acrylic underpainting

From here I realized I had gone a little too warm with the metals. I usually do this to give them more "punch" but with a book titled "The Silver Hand" I went back in and toned them down digitally.


Final is 16" by 24" oil on paper on board. (ok, I guess acrylic/oil/digital)


In other news: I know everyone has just been dying to wear my artwork on a T-shirt. Well for a limited time you will have a chance, and help out the fantasy illustration community as well.

http://www.redbubble.com/people/artorder/works/8101324-michael-c-hayes?p=t-shirt

I am not sure how long they will be available for, Jon mentioned that it will be a rotating portfolio of shirts, so get em while you can. After Redbubble takes their cut, all proceeds will go to the ArtOrder community, an invaluable resource for aspiring illustrators.

Evocation

I started working on this painting quite some time ago, and recently finished it up for this years Illuxcon. (Which was amazing, as always)

There isn't a whole lot to say about this one. Sometimes I want to create something with a deep narrative and some days I just want to paint something beautiful. I am so grateful for shows like Illuxcon and the collectors that attend that allow me to get paid for both.

16" by 24" oil on paper on board.

Arthur and Morgana

So here is the final painting of a private commission I have been working on for awhile. I had a lot of leeway with this one. Initially the clients asked for an armored male knight of some sort and a female sorceress or with character. I wanted to have a story, not just generic characters , so I started looking around at stories from mythology to modern fantasy. The story of Arthur and the love-hate relationship with this scheming half-sister Morgana (or Morgane Le Fey or Morgaine) fit what they wanted perfectly and gave me something to really sink my teeth into.


I did a bunch of rough thumbs and gave them the 3 that were working best. They ended up going with the more traditional book cover approach.



I got some friends together, shot some reference and put together a detailed drawing to send them.



They weren't too crazy about the tattoos and suggested a few other small changes. From there I enlarged the drawing, mounted it too a board and got to work, here is a few progress shots: a thin rough underpainting and two of me working my way around the painting.




and here is a close-up for everyone who read to the end: