Greetings from the Northern Virginia area :D

[randarrington]

Hi guys....I didn't see the introduction thread before I started posting...I'm sorry about that.

I live and work in the burbs of the Washington DC area. Is there anyone else on the forum that lives in the area?

I've worked in print design, interactive design, video editing, special effects with After Effects, 3d modeling and animation, multimedia development, web design, UI and UX, some development and sometimes even doing illustration as a contractor. Oh..and my wife and I have been doing specialty cakes for the last 20 plus years. I have sadly....I've never really pursued being an full time illustrator until now. That doesn't mean I haven't done some things along the way....I was lucky enough to work with a local conglomerate group of artists and produced 2 graphic novels. The most successful one was called Trickster and was nominated for and Eisner. No thanks to anything that I had done but it was certainly a treat being apart of the experience.

I'm currently working on a few projects and will be posting work soon. I'm hoping that you guys will be willing to provide some feedback and well as a community to talk to. For most of my career I've been an army of one and I've missed having creatives in my life.

I love playing board and table top games. I'm not able to do it as much lately but it is something that I really enjoy. Anyone else here ever played Warhammer, Xwing or Armada?

Looking forward to getting to know you guys!!!!!

Rand

[Nyrryl Cadiz]

Hello! Welcome to the forum

[randarrington]

@Nyrryl-Cadiz THANK YOU Nyrryl!!!!! I'm looking forward to getting to know you

[Tristan Lapetz]

Welcome to the community! You'll find a lot of helpful folks here with a lot of helpful feedback haha. Take a look around if ya haven't, there're plenty of new questions, dilemmas, and "stuck"pieces posted here every day!

[randarrington]

@Tristan-Lapetz THANK YOU TRISTAN!!!!!! I've certainly been enjoying exploring the forum and seeing all of the awesome work being posted here. I'm really looking forward to getting to know everyone!!!!

[carlianne]

@randarrington welcome!! You have such an interesting background! I'm excited to see your work do you have an Instagram or portfolio or anything to share?

[hakepe]

Nice to meet you @randarrington Interesting to hear about your background. Sounds like we are both getting into illustration at a later age. I used to work as a freelancer in graphic design. I designed logos, printed materials and websites for small businesses, also did some Photography and wrote content for clients webpages. For most of my career I too have been "an army of one" like you said so I can relate to having missed creatives in your life. Thank's for your comments on my earlier post about illustration portfolio. You said that you enjoy playing board and table top games, perhaps you would like to illustrate them in the future? Best of luck to you.

[ellenseal_art]

Hey Rand!

I'm from RVA & went to school in NOVA. Happy to see another Virginian on the forums

I dabble (very lightly) in board games & am slowly working my way through Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion with my partner. I'll have to look into the three you mentioned for sure.

See ya around!

[randarrington]

@ellenseal14 Hi Ellen!!!! That's awesome!!!!! Are you still in the NOVA area? I'm originally from a very rural area of the state. The nearest town for us was called Grundy. You ever heard of it?

Gloomhaven is a fun game. Before COVID, we'd have a weekly game night and have played to many games to list. Lately though, they happen less often....

I can't wait to get to know you more!!!!!!

Cheers,

Rand

[randarrington]

@hakepe Hi Hanna!!!!! It's very nice to meet you too :D!!! It sounds like we certainly have a lot in common already. We'll have to share war stories lol.

I would certainly be interested in doing some artwork for the gaming industry someday. I've honestly never really posted much work....and have always been very self conscious about it. But at my age, it's now or never so maybe I'll send some game companies samples. LOL!!! The 3 Point Perspective podcast has really motivated me to at least try.

I hope my comments helped and that I came across as helpful and not being a jerk. I was certainly trying to not be mean or rude. I've always been reluctant to say much to people due to fearing I'd upset them. I think carlianne did a much better job of showing you. I'm sorry I failed to provide more information but it was a good lesson for me to see a really good review.

Really looking to get to know you!!!!

All the best,

Rand

[randarrington]

@carlianne THANK YOU Carlianne!!!!! So nice to meet you!!!! I do have an instagram account (I've had it for years.....but i've never used it until recently) I've been listening to Jake, Lee and Will's podcast and they've gotten me motivated to at least try. I've always been really reluctant to share my work or was unable to because of where I work. I've had a url for a website for years as well....but I've been to much of a chicken to use it. I'm a wuss. I do so promise to post and share work from this point forward as long as you guys want to see it.

Looking forward to getting to know you!!!!

Rand

[carlianne]

@randarrington Okay so super curious, how have you been getting gigs without a portfolio site??

[randarrington]

@carlianne Well I've worked for companies my entire career so I have a portfolio but it's not digital. It's also very varied. It has design and illustration work in it. I'm also pretty technical and can point to applications that I've been apart of that live on the companies network.

As for commercial illustration gigs.....I haven't really gotten any. The two books that I was apart of, were through word of mouth. There's an underground comic scene locally and they reached out to a meet and draw group I was a part of. They looked at our work (sketch books and comic pages I'd done for my own stuff) and asked up to play. Other than these books, I've never really done anything and it's depressing how little I've earned commercially.

I'm just now starting to put myself out there...I'm hoping that maybe I could finally do something. I have a lot of experience in printing and using Adobe products (I've been using Photoshop since version 2 LOL and Illustrator since version 3.2 so I have a good foundation, at least I think) but I've never felt good enough to share my work...me giving feedback to Hanna was a terrifying reach for me. I've just never felt like I was "there" yet. Still don't but listening to Jake, Lee and Will has encouraged me enough to try.

I feel like a huge failure...because I've never tried.

[carlianne]

@randarrington said in Greetings from the Northern Virginia area :

e...I'm hoping that maybe I could finally do something. I have a lot of experience in printing and using Adobe products (I've been using Photoshop since version 2 LOL and Illustrator since version 3.2 so I have a good foundation, at least I think) but I've never felt good enough to share my work...me giving feedback to Hanna was a terrifying reach for me. I've just never felt like I was "there" yet. Still don't but listening to Jake, Lee and Will has encouraged me enough to try.

Well, I've learned personally that even people who have been working commercially and have "success" decide one day they want to do something different and go down another path. I think our lives are full of these moments of pivots and changes. But what we've done in our past work and jobs gives us a foot up when we start down our next path.

I started out working in games, and about 2 years into that left, and then went to work in educational children's media, and now after 6 years I'm trying to leave that and start something else. I'm not even sure yet what that will end up as.

So I know you're getting onto this path a lot later than you wanted to, but I don't think that makes you a failure! I think that makes you REALLY brave. I choose to believe it's never too late to go after that thing that makes you happy. And I'm sure it'll be faster for you to get there than someone just now starting college, because you have that wealth of knowledge from other experiences behind you

[ellenseal_art]

@randarrington We're actually in Richmond. The traffic in NOVA is no joke...I couldn't cope! Perhaps now that more people are working remotely, that's less of an issue? I have not heard of Grundy, but some quick googling shows me it's close to KY. I haven't really explored much of VA further west than the Roanoke/Blacksburg area just yet. NOVA must have been a big adjustment for you!

I hear you on the game night... We actually started playing DnD weekly with our friends over zoom which has been awesome. Highly recommend. Board games would be super tricky to play that way though.

[randarrington]

@ellenseal14 I've only been to Richmond once I think. It was more of a drive through than a stop :D. The traffic in NOVA was really great during COVID...but it's pretty much back to normal now. I thought maybe we'd get a little break with people starting to telecommute and maybe it's slightly less....but there's enough people here that will never be able to work from home to make it awful.

I have friends that do the online DnD game. Apparently there's an online system they use that tracks a lot of the game for them. There are options for board gaming online as well. One site is https://www.yucata.de/en and https://en.boardgamearena.com/lobby . They're actually pretty good so you might want to give them a go.

[randarrington]

@carlianne Thank you so much for such kind words and encouragement!!!! It's sounds like you've had a number of cool experiences already. Can I ask why you decided you change paths from gaming and the educational children's media? I'm just curious and if it's too personal, please ignore and forgive me for asking.

Hopefully all of the experiences I've had will help in accelerating progress and I'll be able to find some type of project. I've got some of my own ideas that i'll be sharing as well. I'm excited to get input on them. I've been doing market research with my friends but I'm afraid they may be biased. They mean well LOL!!!

[carlianne]

I don't mind! I honestly really miss my job in gaming because I worked for Disney interactive and my coworkers are INCREDIBLE and the quality of work we made was amazing. I was super happy there but the studio I was working for closed and the gaming industry can be unstable.

Also, I knew that games aren't the healthiest choice for people and I wanted to create art the would benefit others in some way.

I am still working in children's media and education and I love the effect I create with my art and helping others. I do get to illustrate books and comics. But I don't have creative freedom. I am working for a corporation so I can't work in my own style or tell my own stories or even choose what to draw a lot of them time.

So now I'm figuring out how to move forward, wether I want to stay with children's media or do something else. But for sure I want to work in my own style and create my own "brand"

So that's what I'm working on now ️

[randarrington]

@carlianne Thank you for sharing and I can totally get the desire to want to do your own brand and to be free to work in your own style. I"m currently working on a comic strip about my gaming group. We've had some characters come and go in the group and it's led to some pretty funny stories to tell. I'm still developing the scripts for the strip just to see how far I can take it and to see if the material grows and becomes easier to create or more difficult. It'll be a fun exploration regardless.