Happy Independence Day! Updates on Dave Dorman Appearances and our Heavy Metal Revisited Documentary

Hi Everybody,

Happy Independence Day!

For those of you in the U.S. who are following me, I hope you’re having a Happy Independence Day! We are celebrating with friends tonight and looking forward to taking a few hours off (yes, we solopreneurs are both working today). I will always believe the United States is exceptional and the greatest nation on this planet, despite many citizens and politicians’ very best attempts to collapse our system from within. I am hoping that those who reproduce and vote every four years are awakened, paying very close attention, and will vote in future politicians who genuinely value our U.S. Constitution, our freedom, and our liberty. I also encourage you to do whatever you can to help our Wounded Warriors and our military families, who suffer from the uninformed, unwitting whims of a highly military unfriendly government. What has gone down in the Veterans’ Administration over the past several decades is unforgivable and that guilt is on both sides of the political aisle. I mourn for every single military family who has lost a loved one due to the greed and stupidity of those in charge at the V.A.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, here is a link to my interview on Chicago’s WTTW last week regarding the new Lucasfilm Museum of Narrative Arts that Chicago was awarded by George Lucas. http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/tags/dave-dorman (just click on the photo of my art).

We are looking forward to the new museum and I personally am eager to see George’s massive collection of my favorite illustrators from the 20th Century. Somehow, people think Norman Rockwell is the only one George collects. I guess they are just unaware that there are other illustration giants out there.

HEAVY METAL REVISITED Documentary News

In other news, our HEAVY METAL REVISITED documentary with Evan Beloff and Frederic Bohbot of Bunbury Films is in production, and I hope to grab some footage in Austin, TX next week of Harry Knowles and Bernie Wrightson (and if we get very lucky, Robert Rodriguez). Here’s a an older video trailer to give you a feel for what we’ve been working on over the past several years. http://vimeo.com/11669127

Last Friday Mark Voss and our production team did a really fun interview with Sammy Hagar, who co-wrote the theme song HEAVY METAL with Jim Peterik, and Sammy had some surprising things to say.

Taping Sammy Hagar Singing “Heavy Metal” last Friday night, Joliet, IL

Photography by Mark Voss

Sammy with his “Sammy’s Beach Bar Red Head Macadamia Nut Flavored Rum”

As I mentioned, next week I will be in Austin, TX for Capital City Con, so I look forward to seeing my Texas friends there. I will have plenty of art for everyone to buy, but I tend to sell out quickly, so please be sure to hit me up on Day 1.

In the next few months you’ll see some changes to my website as I transfer over to a new fan management system with StageBloc.com – they have a terrific all-in-one solution of eCommerce, blogging, social media outreach and fan club management that will better serve you, my fans, and help me make more informed decisions on which products you want to see more of, and where you’d like me to appear for shows.

For those of you who are interested in what goes on behind the scenes here at the Dorman household, check out my wife’s blog at http://comicbookwife.com

Please connect with me & share me out on social media as well:

http://facebook.com/davedormansstudio

http://facebook.com/davedormanwastedlands

http://twitter.com/davedorman

http://linkedin.com/in/thedavedorman

Thanks for reading, everybody,

Dave

Dave Dorman News & An Opportunity to Help A PTSD Survivor

Dear Friends,

My art (including Captain Nemo!) is on display at HEVANSTON GALLERY in Evanston, Illinois, curated by Charlie Athanas. I am joined by artists Aaron B. Miller and Douglas Klauba, so if you are in the area, please check it out. It’s really a wonderful gallery show.

I’m off to see Captain America today, which I’m really eager to see, but I wanted to give you the heads up about an important project that I think deserves some attention, so please share this with all of your military and philanthropic friends. Iraq veteran Melissa Thurber, the daughter of my good friends Steve and Karen Baker, served our country honorably in Iraq, but like way too many, she returned home with PTSD. She is enormously brave, and a talented photographer, so she is putting together this wonderful photography book sharing the stories of fellow veterans with PTSD, who are trusting her alone to tell their stories. I am wondering if any you out there can find her a grant to fund her project? Perhaps Starbucks‘ Howard Schultz could include Melissa’s project in his $30 million to research PTSD, since these brave veterans are baring their souls in telling their sides of the PTSD story. Here is Melissa Thurber’s description of her important project, and a link to her GoFundMe.com page:

Iraq Veteran and PTSD Survivor Melissa Thurber Needs Help Funding Her Book

I am an Iraq war veteran with PTSD. I have been a photographer for as long as I can remember. Photography is my release. It is my healing tool. I have been wanting to start working on a photographic book about PTSD. I want to reach out to other veterans and try to help them heal the same way I am through the powerful images I can create. 

I know first hand how very hard it is to talk about why I have PTSD. I always just tell people it is from my deployment. My goal is to reach out to other veterans with PTSD and through my photography tell their stories and hopefully help them heal some along the way

I already have many Veterans with PTSD that I have spoken to that are 100% willing to participate as they trust that another Veteran with PTSD will be honest and real with their stories. 

Funding this project will bring light to an unspoken problem with today’s veterans, including myself, and hopefully will reach other veterans not in participation to see that it is ok to share our stories, no matter how it’s told!!

Thanks, everyone, for reading. I am hopeful you’ll join Denise and me in helping Melissa Thurber reach her modest goal to produce this PTSD book.

Dave.

Dave Dorman’s The 5 Essential Truths of Art Directing

Dear Friends,

After a lecture at Chicago’s Columbia College this past Thursday night for Dave P.’s character visualization art class, my wife Denise asked me to write an article on boiling down art direction to five essential truths. Below is what I came up with.  I sit on both sides of the desk, doing the art for art directors, and doing the actual art direction, so I have very definite opinions based on my 30 years of experience. I even taught a class for the Florida 4th District Advertising Federation on How to Art Direct the Art Director. All of you artists and art directors following me, let me know if you agree, disagree or have tips you would like to add to this list?

Dave Dorman’s 5 Essential Truths for Art Direction

#1. You MUST review the artist’s comprehensive portfolio. Don’t judge an artist by just one piece in their portfolio. Look closely at all of the elements.  Ask them to show you the pieces that aren’t online. Does anything contained within match your needs for your project? What are the strengths of the artist? What are their weaknesses? Do they or can they paint in the style you need? Ask yourself, “Is this artist capable of giving me the art I need for this particular project?”

Real-World Example: Someone looking at my portfolio might think I only do muscled super heroes or hyper realism, but truth be told, I did a lot of manga early in my career for Robotech covers, I did toy design for Hasbro,  and I did very loose children’s illustration for Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings trading cards.

#2. Always provide a thorough review of the project with the artist. Ensure they understand your needs for the art and that they are comfortable in delivering the goods. An artist who does killer character design may be strong in creature art, but weak in landscape or architectural backgrounds.

Real World Example: Just because I did a detailed background on one painting doesn’t mean that I want to put that amount of work into every single painting I do. Personally, I hate painting architecture. If an art director wanted me to do a Stephan Martiniere cityscape, I would be up front in declining and saying, “No thanks. Here’s Stephan’s phone #.”

#3. A good art director should never ask the artist if they paint traditionally or digitally. First off, the art director’s eye should be trained to see the difference. There are effects you cannot get with digital, and there are effects you cannot get with traditional. Secondly, the final art is the final art, delivered digitally, no matter what tool(s) you used to get the final product. Any Star Wars painting I do with light sabers, I am taking into Photoshop to get that perfect glow on the light saber, although the original piece is oil on illustration board or a combo of oil and acrylic. Mind you, I could whip out my old air brush and get that same effect, but why go through the hassle when I can do it in PhotoShop?

Here's a painting with traditional and Photoshop Combined

With the plethora of art directors now being of the age that they came through their art education via digital art and very rarely–if ever–touching traditional media to produce their final art, I have seen a definite bias in those art directors to choose artists who work in the directors’ preferred medium: digital. The art should speak for itself regardless of the medium in which it’s created. I believe that if the art director is contacting the artist to do a project, then they are judging the artist by the art they see, whether it’s digital or traditional.

Real World Example: I had an art director call me once, absolutely raving about my Alien art. She had a big project for me, and I was eager to do the project, because it was right in my wheelhouse. Then she asked dreaded question: Do you paint digitally? I don’t, and the project instantaneously evaporated, despite the fact that my look and feel was a perfect match for her project. I believe this art director is short-sighted and I hope she has wizened up since then.

Graphic Novel Cover of Aliens: Hive by Dave Dorman

#4. Never, EVER assume an artist is outside of your budget. If you like someone’s art, speak with them FIRST about your budget before you strike them off of your list. Any freelancer can attest, we have months when we make a king’s ransom, and we have months when we go hungry. There’s rarely consistency unless you’re working on a videogame project, and even then, that consistent money can go away after a year or two.

Real World Example: As a traditional artist, I will often take on projects for little to no money, because I know I’m working on a licensed piece and I will have an actual painting that I can sell to collectors for top dollar once the project is completed. Obviously, digital artists are at a major disadvantage here! I once did a cover for the now-defunct but uber-cool GEEK Monthly magazine, for their San Diego Comic-Con issue. I was the first-ever painted cover they’d published. They were afraid to ask me to do a cover because they assumed they’d never be able to afford me. I did the piece for free. My piece was a modern day Transformer alongside a 1980s Transformer. I did it for free because I knew it was great publicity for the audience I wanted to reach, and then there was the value of the physical painting. I turned around and donated the painting to my favorite charity, USACares.org, to help raise funds for their not-for-profit, helping financially challenged active military families.

GEEK Monthly Cover I Did for FREE

Side note: I wish someone would revive a magazine like GEEK Monthly. It was brilliant, I never missed an issue and I miss it.

#5. As an Art Director, it’s your duty in fairness to your artist to have your project details organized properly. 

Real World Example: I once painted a beautiful sci-fi comic book cover, based on a major license you would all know. AFTER I delivered the piece, they broke the news to me that they didn’t have likeness rights. You can imagine my disappointment. I think the fans were less than satisfied with the piece, probably thinking to themselves that it was lame without the likenesses.

Another Real World Example: I painted a beautiful sci-fi cover for a major license you would all know, but they were in the midst of filming the movie, and they were afraid to provide me with photo reference of an actor I had never seen before, for fear it would “leak out.” First of all, that would never happen on my watch, and it was frustrating for me that they trusted me enough to paint their licensed characters, but not enough to provide me with proper reference. They literally provided me with a postage stamp-sized photo reference and I could not get the facial features right without decent reference.  Eventually they capitulated, but it took a lot of back and forth.

So…let me know your thoughts. I am interested to hear your frustrations with artists and art directors and your “master list.”

In other news, I think I will be converting my Facebook Group Page for The Wasted Lands to a Facebook Fan Page soon, so please watch for that. For those of you unfamiliar with it, The Wasted Lands is my own I.P. (Intellectual Property) – an alternate universe, adrenaline-pumping motorcycle western action adventure with Steampunk aesthetics. If you like it, let me know. Given the rate of growth of my personal page on Facebook, I will likely transition it over to a Fan Page soon as I’m going to hit the limit soon to people I can friend.

I recorded a 2-hour interview last night with Alpha Nerd podcast out of Australia, so I will be posting that link here as soon as I have it.

Well, I’m off to watch Godzilla v. Mothra with my son. It’s so much fun having a mini-me!

As always, thanks for reading,

Dave.

Facebook: http://facebook.com/davedormanartist

Twitter: @DaveDorman

LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/thedavedorman

Website: http://davedorman.com and http://wastedlands.com

Publicity Firm: http://writebrainmedia.com | @writebrainmedia

 

Osama Bin Laden Takedown Now Available as a Dave Dorman Print

Dear Friends,

I am selling prints of my painting of Osama Bin Laden getting surprised by the Special Forces on eBay for $30, with free shipping. Here is the link: http://bitly.com/lju0aV.

This is a piece I painted long before history was made by the Navy Seals, but the reality is close to what I had earlier imagined. This art is included in my new book, ROLLING THUNDER: THE ART OF DAVE DORMAN (IDW Publishing/Desperado Publishing). Here are some images of the print:

As always, thank you for checking out my art.

To follow me on Social Networks, here I am:

On Facebook, I’m Facebook.com/DaveDorman

On Twitter, I’m @DaveDorman and my hashtag is #DaveDorman

On LinkedIn, I’m LinkedIn.com/in/theDaveDorman

On iTunes, my FREE podcast is “It’s Comic Book Day”

DAVE

My Thoughts on Thanksgiving Weekend

Dear Friends,

I have so much to be thankful for this year, I don’t know where to begin. I’m thankful for those closest to me–my wife, my son, my best friend Steve Smith, my friend Charlie Athanas, my in-laws who have helped me out tremendously this past year, Colin Pritchard of Rocket No. 9, Kevin Sandstrom at Blick Art Supply, the 501st, (especially Chris Spice of top-rated Star Wars site Sandtroopers.com) the great art directors and editors I’ve worked with this past year, and also for all of you who take an interest in my art and are the reason I keep doing what I do. I am thankful for my U.S. military family, for USACares.org and  for The Dennis Miller Radio Show who has been kind enough to have me on to share my projects and my military art passion project, Project 52.

I especially thank all of you who have purchased my new art career retrospective and memoir book, ROLLING THUNDER: THE ART OF DAVE DORMAN, by IDW Publishing/Desperado Publishing, either for yourselves, or for a loved one as a holiday gift. Even if the book wasn’t mine, I would enjoy 4.5 pounds of art in hardcover to peruse over my mulled cider during the holidays.

Today I wanted to share another blog with you, written by my friend and fellow 501st member David Syczylo. David is the Snowtrooper who posed for me for this year’s Star Wars Celebration painting. He did an excellent job of explaining the poses, not to mention providing us all with a brilliant display he has created of my Star Wars Celebration prints:

http://www.djsyczylo.net/chronicles/DormanHoth/DormanHoth.htm

I hope you enjoy David’s blog as much as I did about how the Star Wars Celebration piece came about. The best part of this project? I have been very fortunate to get to know David over the past 6 months and he is a special person to me and my wife. You will never meet a kinder or more giving person. He drove all of the way to my home in northern Illinois from Indianapolis just to pose for me, and refused to take even  gas money. That’s the kind of guy David is. Ask him about his film career when you meet him. He has great stories.

Thanks for reading. More to come. I just did a Captain Marvel this past weekend for the very first time in my career, but I have to check with an editor first to see when I can post it.

Be safe this holiday weekend,

Dave.

P.S. I finally got to see “Walking Dead.” I’m hooked. What do you all think of it? Any of you watching? If not, check it out – let’s compare notes. My friend and fellow judge in the December 6th Chicago 10-minute horror play international competition Death Scribe 2010, Jay Bonansinga, is writing the novelization of the series and he’s an excellent writer.

Thanks for Listening to me on Dennis Miller’s Radio Show Today

Dear Friends,

On Veteran’s Day, I thank all of the brave men and women serving in all branches of the military who sacrifice SO MUCH to ensure we continue to enjoy our freedoms. As the son of USAF Lieutenant Colonel Jack Dorman, I understand how much the military and their families sacrifice. Thank you also to all of you who were listening to me on The Dennis Miller Radio Show today. Here is the link on Dennis’ site to my interview: http://www.dennismillerradio.com/b/One-Of-A-Kind-For-Our-Military/-338762614549322936.html

Dennis and Christian were kind enough to let me come on and the share news about my military art project, Project 52, which helps to raise funds for military families who are financially challenged, given through USACares.org. Here is the link: http://www.indiegogo.com/Project-52.

Last year at this time we auctioned my Transformers painting, which was the first-ever illustrated cover art for GEEK Monthly magazine for their special Comic-Con issue, juxtaposing the “old school” Transformers character vs. the modern day version. I donated all of that money to USACares.org.

 

 

Dave Dorman and Dennis Miller with Dave's Transformers Painting We Auctioned for USACares.org

Today, I’m asking you to help me spread the word about Project 52. Please post it on your FaceBook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn accounts, and anywhere you connect with your social networks. On Twitter or Cinchcast, the hashtag reference is #Project 52. Please tell your military friends and your family about Project 52. For just $5, you or the person you designate will be mentioned in my Project 52 book, which I’m self publishing. For $1,000, you can own a Dave Dorman original oil military painting. There are tons of contribution opportunities and options between the $5 and the $1,000 range, but please contribute whatever is comfortable for you, even if it’s just words of support. The initial $52,000 we are raising will cover expenses for publishing the book, art materials, printing the limited edition signed and numbered lithographs and helping to defray costs for me taking time off of commercial work to focus on this project. Fifty percent of all earnings from the books and lithos will go to USACares.org. The remaining 50% of book and lithograph sales will go to the Make a Wish Foundation in honor of Katie Johnson (501st founder Albin Johnson’s late daughter) on behalf of the 501st Organization, for which I’m honored to be an honorary member. For those of you reading who are unfamiliar with the 501st, these are the great men and women worldwide who donate their time, wearing Star Wars costumes and marching in parades, visiting children’s hospitals and continuing to be good will ambassadors of Lucasfilm.

I thank you all for your kind words and moral support. I’m very passionate about doing Project 52 and ensuring it is done to perfection.

We are still in the throes of unpacking from our big move, and the other day I discovered the old reel-to-reel audio tape recordings of my father, from when he was serving on behalf of the United States Air Force in Viet Nam. We didn’t see my dad for an entire year, so we communicated with him solely by letters and tapes.  I’m getting these recordings made into CDs for my sister and brother, but if you  know of a military museum out there who might want some of these recordings, please let me know.

As always, I thank you for reading and following my work.

Dave