Illustrator Workshop - 1st & 2nd Day

The Illustrators of the Future workshop was being conducted concurrently in another conference room at the same hotel, starting on Tuesday, 21 August.

The workshop instructors are Ron Lindahn and Val Lakey-Lindahn. Ron is of course the coordinating judge of the illustrators contest and both Ron and Val have served as judges for Illustrators of the Future for 19 years. They welcomed the winners and gave them an overview of what was to come for the rest of the week.





Standing is Ron Lindahn and next to him to the left and around the table are:

Yuliya Kostyuk (from Russia), Lorraine Schleter, Marcus Collins, Artem Mirolevich, Geir Lanesskog, Randall Ensley, Amelia Mammoliti, Bryan Beus and Lars Edwards.

Ron and Val are covering different techniques of illustrating with the winners.




Illustrators of the Future judge, Stephen Hickman who has been illustrating science fiction and fantasy for three decades addressed the illustrators at the workshop.

Stephen's illustrations have been used as cover work for many contemporary writers: Stephen Brust, Hal Colbatch, Tom Cool, Gordon Dickson, David Drake, Harlan Ellison, Robert Heinlein, Anne McCaffrey, Larry Niven, Andre Norton, Jerry Pournelle, and Steve Stirling among others. Several of these of course are Writers of the Future judges.

Hickman’s work has earned him critical acclaim, including a World Science Fiction Convention's Hugo Award and 5 Chesley Awards from the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists.

Since 1976 Hickman has illustrated over 400 covers for Ace, Baen, Ballantine, Bantam, Berkeley, Dell, Del Rey, Doubleday, Phage Press, Tor, Warren Publications and others. The illustrator winners soaked the advice up, eager to start using it in their own careers.




Another judge for the contest, Judith Miller, gave further insight into the craft from her experience as an illustrator. She has a master’s degree in fine arts from Rutgers University and has gained experience in many aspects of illustration, with works published in numerous books and magazines. Her award-winning and coveted paintings can be found in private collections around the country. Here is Judith in action at the workshop.




And if that wasn't enough, the illustrators were treated with another talk by industry professional Cliff Nielsen, who is producing awesome art for book covers such as the Chronicles of Narnia series and who has worked in the business as a professional illustrator for many years.




Cliff covered the 4 C's of illustration. They are:

- Concept
- Composition
- Craft
- Care

He also talked to them about the business aspect of being an illustrator, the different markets and how to best approach them to sell and make money.

All in all the illustrators were thrilled with all the presentations from these professionals who took the time and the care to help them get a grip on how to launch their careers.

At the end of Day 3, there was another talk given to both the illustrators and the writers by three staff from Galaxy Press. First we had Kimberley Catalano who runs the Sales Department at Galaxy as the Senior Vice President for Operations. She talked about how to set up, promote and hold a successful bookstore signing event and how the writers and illustrators should work with the staff at Galaxy Press to make them as successful as possible. Here is Kim during her presentation.



Then I as the Senior Vice President for Administration talked about venues of marketing on the internet, specifically through blogs and how a new author just starting out should proceed in the blogosphere including how to get listed in the various blog directories. Additionally I gave them information on how to make themselves known through articles about their writing projects as well as how these articles are distributed online to reach their target audience and bring people to their website or blog. Here I am at the workshop.





Concluding the evening, we had John Goodwin, President of Galaxy Press, going through the procedure of how to conduct an interview on radio and TV, covering pitfalls and things to be avoided as well as specific guidelines to keep in mind when being interviewed by the press, all the while forwarding the intended message about the book they are promoting. I heard several comments afterwards from winners that these presentations were very much liked, but that they would have liked to cover these subjects in even greater detail. What I can say on that is that all the writer and illustrator winners are welcome to contact any of us at Galaxy Press and we can help you with questions and guidance and provide you with whatever you need in these areas.

John also took this opportunity to show the winners a real treasure. He actually gathered up original pulp magazines which contained fiction stories by L. Ron Hubbard that had been published throughout the 30's, 40's and 50's and these were passed around so everybody could see them close up! This was a special treat and elicited rave responses especially due to the spectacular pulp art that is featured on these magazines. Here is John doing this presentation.




Okay, this takes us through Wednesday night at which point we have had 3 days of writer workshop activities and 2 days of workshop for the illustrators who started on Tuesday.

I will cover Thursday and Friday in the next posting which will have awesome photos from the awards ceremony featuring the Gold Award winners for both the writers and illustrator contest, showing them during the award acceptance speech. It was an incredible moment which Stephen Kotowych, the Gold Award winner of the Writers Contest encapsulated on his blog and you can find it here at this link:

http://kotowych.blogspot.com/

Stephen wrote the story "Saturn in G Minor" which is sci-fi with an interesting and very original twist.

The Illustrator Gold Award winner was likewise speechless when she found out at the ceremony that she had won and I'll have some great shots posted on that too. Her name is Lorraine Schleter and she did the illustration for the story "Mask Glass Magic".

See you soon for the posting on the final 2 days!

Best,
Peter Breyer
GALAXY PRESS