Hiatus over, new site!

This site hasn’t been updated in a while and that’s because I’ve migrated everything over to Thigpen Designs.  Come check it out with a new look, feel and new art to buy! Just in time for the holidays!

Wicked Replies

Last week I launched a contest to promote my Etsy store where I am currently selling prints of my work.  The rules of the contest is to leave a friendly/witty reply or comment and I would pick three people to give a free giclée print of my work. 

I have received many great replies on my facebook fanpage, twitter account and email.

What I noticed the most was that most of you are really interested in my “Wicked” print (a personal favorite of mine) requesting to win that one.  Well your chances for that piece have just improved because I am adding in two 8x10 prints I’m giving away of Wicked.

If you have already made a comment, you do not need to send another one (of course I’m not stopping you if you’d like to post another one) however if you are reading this for the first time, then please feel free to send me a reply (via facebook, twitter or email) and I’ll be happy to throw you in the pot!

S.T.udios Contest Giveaway!

I’m opening up an Etsy store to sell my prints online and what better way to start it off than with something free, for you?  I’m giving away limited edition prints to three lucky people who will receive either my art of “Wicked," “The Bumbling Blue Bear Brothers” or “The Red Hood” all you have to do is enter!  But wait … you want something free right now?  Well how about free desktop wallpaper of the three images that are in the store.  (Click each link for desktop: The Bears, Wicked and Red)

Contest rules:

Just leave me a friendly and/or witty comment and I’ll go through and pick the best three!

There are three ways to leave a comment:
Follow me on twitter and send me a reply (using @sthig) and make sure to use the hashtag #sthigcontest

Become a fan on my illustration page on Facebook and underneath the post about the contest, leave your comment.

Don’t prefer to use Facebook or Twitter? Then feel free to email me with your comment.

The winner will be announced on July 6th.  I look forward to hearing from you! 

Twitter Bird Icons

I’ve noticed several people doing their version of twitter birds so I thought I’d throw my hand to it.  These are free for the general public so please feel free to use them as your twitter icons.

Cutie Pie

Zen Bird

Bird Nerd

Hypno-Bird

Getting by giving

Lately, I’ve been blogging about the economy.  I do this because just like many people, I’m concerned about whether or not I am “going to go under” or whether I’m destined to be a greeter at Wal-Mart.  I found that writing about the current state of the economy helps me to remain positive and keep moving forward.

As is probably true with many people right now, finding work is tough but I’m holding on okay.  When things get tough though, one thing I’ve found to be really rewarding is to give.

I’ve started giving my time once a week to a local homeless shelter called “The Open Door.” It’s located in the heart of downtown Atlanta and provides acts of service such as feeding the homeless, providing a place for the homeless to take showers, offering and participating in a foot clinic, and offering up a place of community.

When I volunteer my time, the worries I have about money and the economy seem to just melt away.  One thing that continues to amaze me when I’m volunteering is that there is always enough food.  Just the other day 5000 sandwiches were donated—we couldn’t give away enough of them!

I want to list a few benefits of what giving can do for you (or at least what it’s done for me):

* It makes you feel so good inside. 
* To help others is very cathartic.  You realize what you have and what you’ve taken for granted.
* The old saying of “it’s better to give than to receive,” holds true
* It doesn’t take much to give and what you give is huge
* Giving makes you feel human again

I’ve found that I can’t wait for Thursday mornings so I can volunteer my time at “The Open Door.” And as an added touch, volunteering my time has wiped away much of my cynicism.

So, my encouragement to you is to find a place where you can give of your time, whether it be through a church, a shelter, or a charity such as Habitat for Humanity.  There is always someone who can benefit from your generosity and there’s always time to give.  The gift you receive is the greatest feeling ever.

Hope

While doing my daily reading on the internet I ran across this article where cartoonist Mark Lynch says how companies are cutting budgets thus cutting creatives (me) from potential jobs.  I’ve already seen this happen to me as most of my illustration jobs come from magazines and newspapers. 

While the article does focus on doom and gloom there were two nuggets of joy I got from it which were:

All we cartoonists have to do, to quote of all people Rupert Murdoch, is turn a certain percentage of those eyeballs looking at that Web page into dollar signs. I’m do not like who Murdoch is, but disregarding the messenger, the message is spot on.

And, hey, everyone loves cartoons. I know I said that, but it gives me hope, so I say it again.

and

Back when vaudeville was in vogue, a comedian could make a career out of one comedy sketch. When radio came along, comedians played to the entire country, and so needed to come up with new material each week; which put a lot of vaudevillians out of work, but opened up new opportunities for writers and voice actors. Television cut into the market for voice actors, except as announcers or cartoon voices, but opened the doors for other performers and writers.

Media change, but there will always be a place for creative people. The trick is to find it, and figure out how to make a living from it.

This gives me hope and courage to try to stay on the forefront of being a creative.  I’ve switched from doing publishing work to illustrating logos and banners for the web with surprising success.  So my challenge to you creatives is to keep looking for new avenues for work.  Illustration will always hold a special place in media, it’ll just be different avenues.

Being creative in a harsh economy

This economy has gotten everyone scared and uptight.  Companies are freezing their budgets or they are just going belly up.  It’s enough to give you ulcers at night! 

I’ve determined that I’m going to grab 2009 by the horns and do everything I can to keep my illustration and design business afloat.  I’m sure I’ll run into some bumps and bruises along the way, but I’m remaining hopeful.

While surfing the net I ran across a few articles talking about how to remain successful in the face of financial turmoil.  Here are are some of the highlights

From David Airy’s blog

The truth is, as freelance web designers we have good reason to be optimistic. With slashed budgets, marketers may increasingly turn to email, viral and web marketing as they seek better value for money and return on investment. And when companies begin to lay off staff, it is often the freelancer who benefits when they step in to complete the work that starts overflowing.

And from Tech Crunch

In every recession, abundant opportunities are inherently rife. To simply believe that this is a generic time to step off of the playing field to warm benches or take a seat in the spectator bleachers in the hopes of emerging once again to readily have a shot at winning the game is illogical. Businesses, and customers, do not stop making decisions—they’re just more discerning during volatile economic climates. But make no mistake, if you choose to stop vying for customer attention, the world will move ahead without you.

This is your time to vault in front of your competition, to earn rapid and sweeping visibility, for a fraction of the time and money that was required to excel during the “good days.”

Pardon our progress

Hi and welcome to sThig.com, pardon the dust as I put on the finishing touches of my illustration site!

Almost done!

My website is near completion.  I’ve worked out all the bugs in the coding (Thanks, Mike) and made sure it was optimized for search engines (Thanks, Chris).  All that’s left is for my wife and I to comb over the entries and correct all the grammar and spelling issues (and there are a lot...I’m terrible at grammar.  I sometimes wondered how I graduated college!).

The Monster Within: Near Final

I sent this update off to the art director for him to make any last minute tweaks.  I added a shadow and some definition to the vamp’s fingers.  I think it looks much more foreboding now. 

The Monster Within: Update

I’m working on a picture for a client and it’s called “The Monster Within” which talks about the monster within all of us.  The art director chose a vampire to be displayed back in the mirror (which is odd because vampires don’t have reflections) and we went through a few sketches before we nailed something down.  This is my first work in progress with the color.  I’m not completely satisfied with it but am waiting on feedback from the director before I moved forward with it.

The monster within

One of my oldest clients contacted me with a fun job.  It’s called “The monster within” which talks about the dark side of all of us.  It’s just ripe for halloween as the art director wants a guy looking in a mirror and his reflection is Dracula (which actually doesn’t make 100% sense since Dracula doesn’t really cast a reflection, but oh well, we’re not going for monster accuracy here, just illustrating an article).  This is my first submission sketch to him and we’ll see what he thinks.  Revisions may come.

Site near completion

My site is near completion, I have a few odds and ends to snip up, but I think I’ve got it.  I entered in 130+ images and I’m going to contract my wife out to make sure there are no grammar or spelling errors (because I’m infamous for those).

Laura Coyle: Illustrator, singer

I recently found out something interesting about fellow Atlanta illustrator Laura Coyle.  Not only is she an illustrator who’s worked for Hasbro, Better Homes and Gardens, Delta Airlines and Cingular Wireless she’s a fantastic Jazz singer, too.  I recently stumbled across this the other day on Facebook.  She had a link to her music and I wast just blown away.  You must go here the set of pipes on this wonderfully talented artist!

Search Engine is a GO!

I spent a portion of today setting up the search engine on my site.  I’m amazed as to how powerful Expression Engine is.  I literally just plugged in some variables (and a little help from Mike Boyink’s tutorial) and it worked like a charm.  My site is inches closer to being live...well, except for the fact that I have 196 images to upload, document and categorize.  That’s going to be tons of fun.