The Yak Shack Forum

Greetings,
I don't normally post updates about my website but I've finally added some information about all the past card sets I've worked on. I've had a lot of emails and request about details and information on exactly what I've drawn and now it's finally available all in one place. (Showroom Page) I have as much information as i think I can release, and maybe a bit more than I should. Check back now and then as I have a mess of new projects just finished, ongoing, and upcoming and I will update as I can with any new information.

Also, I've been insanely busy and just wanted to say for anyone that has been waiting an ureasonably long time for commissions from me, that I apologize for the delay and will be getting to them shortly.

Thanks
Warren Martineck

www.warrenmartineck.com

Wow - what a comprehensive list :D I'm off to read it properly ;)

Great to hear from you Warren... any plans to revisit England for another sketch-a-thon?

51% yes

Thank you thank you thank you!

It's very nice to have all of that in one place :)

Thanks for letting us know that you updated your web site Warren. ;D

I'm looking forward to getting some of your sketches from the Wizard of Oz set. 8)

"51% YES" sounds like the statement of a man who worked his fingers to the bone last time he was here :P

Yeah and enjoyed every minute of it too!! ;) ;D

 ;D ;D ;D ;D
YEAH!!! *claps anxiously* I can't wait, Warren!!!

And I am oh so hoping to pull some of your beauties from WOZ!!!! They look fabulous!!  8)

Hey Warren:

I saw from your web site that you grew up and live in Connecticut.  I did too but now live in New Hampshire.  I was raised in Waterbury and went to UCONN.  Where are you from?   :)

Wally World.  :)

Small world Warren!!   :)   Were you contacted to create sketch cards for Topps Evolution set?  I know you were not one of the Artists when it was released.

Evolution's loss

Just couldn't fit it into the scedule.

I totally agree!!!!
 
But we can't wait for WOZ!!!  8)

Thanks for your candor Warren but I did not mean to put you on the spot.  I certainly understand your statement and feel bad for the Artists who had to work under that compensation formula.  Topps should be ashamed of themselves for taking advantage of talent like so many of the Evolution Artists have.  And everyone who purchased Evolution is complaisant in keeping a company like Topps in the black by shoveling our hard earned money at them as if this set was the next best thing to gold.  I do not like being taken advantage of and I am sure the Artists did not either.  It seems like Topps has no ethics and I am afraid many of us who purchased Evolution do not either.  And that is the sad part of this whole episode.   :P   

I don't know what other companies pay for sketches, but when push comes to shove Topps carries one of the most well known names, and Lord of the Rings brings a big audience as well, and yes if an artist is already booked up with work and making tons of money then $1.50 is a joke, but for some artists who are new to the business, or have not been able to reach out and reach fans with there talent, then $1.50 is a great deal as it allows them to develop a fan base of people wanting sketch cards done, and sometimes even bigger commissions.  At the same time the artist has to put themselves out there a little bit during the release of such a product.  I had never heard of people like Cynthia Cummens or Cat Staggs (and many others, too many to name them all) before this set came out, and I have already had Cynthia Cummens do one commission for me and she is working on another, and I have contacted Cat Staggs about doing some work as well (not to mention they both color evolution sketch cards for more $$$, which I am happy to pay them).  Anyways, I am just one case of a person who went from knowing no artists like this, to knowing 47 (or whatever the number is in the Evolution release) and the only reason I stumbled onto Martineck is because of this website, and I love his art, but I don't have any idea how well he draws ARagorn or Arwen, so I might be less likely to fork out money for a sketch card from his website (although I will as I trust he draws them both brilliantly).  Anyways the point I am trying to make is that some of these artists only got $1.50 for there cards to go to topps, but because of it topps was able to put 2 per box, and I will most likely be sending money to many of these artists over the next few years to get more masterpieces to put on my wall.  I would be curious to see if some of the artist who drew for this set feel it was worth it in the long run (through commission requests, or aftermarket colorings, even down to the 6 cards that were returned, I know some have made good money off those)  Anyways, I really wish you would have taken the $1.50 to sketch something out, and then I would have been more than happy to send it back to you and pay you what you deserve to finish it up :)

Zach, Kayanan clearly does it for the love of the material, and to produce amazing mini masterpieces. He doesn't do aftermarket so he must be angelically motivated (or paid differently to other artists ;))

And Zach, if you want to know more about Martineck you should check out the website address he put up, and if you want to see some of the work he was allowed decent time to work on I'd suggest hunting out some images from his Star Trek The Original Series, Arts and Images (Rittenhouse) 2 case incentive... then I might need to fly out and pick you up off the floor :P


From what I hear Topps is the worst offender. I believe that they offered a WETA guy $0.75 a sketch to join the Star Wars set :rofl: it's a real shame as a WETA chap would have been an asset to a LOTR set.


I'm not sure that's entirely true Ed. Warren has worked in this industry pretty much longer than anyone else and is now rather famous. I would imagine that many of the LOTR Evo artists participated for the exposure, for the love of material... and for the aftermarket which seems to be working out very well indeed for them ;D

Topps should be ashamed but don't for a second imagine Topps have set up a Nike-style sweat shop where artists develop urinary tract infections and other such avoidable problems from simply not being allowed to move all day as has been observed in the real sweat shops.

(apologies for the graphic nature of this post :P but it's true ;)

Zach:

I understand your explanation and can see your points but that still does not make me feel comfortable with what Topps did.  And we both know they would not get away with it if people like you and me did not purchase their product.  I guess that's all I am saying.  I am very happy for the great response some of the Artists are receiving from their exposure in this set.  I myself have commissioned CC, Cat, and Grant Gould because I loved their Evolution work.   :)   And I will add my voice to that of Roz's in saying that Warren does outstanding artwork as well!   :) 

Thank You.

Or I can just post an image or two :D
The first is from the Conan set by Rittenhouse & the second is from the Robots series by Inkworks.  The last is one of my favorites from the Complete Battlestar Galactica by Rittenhouse
(http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/631/conanmartineckarchoric2el.jpg) (http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/3781/robotsmartineck168fendersm9rj.jpg) (http://img468.imageshack.us/img468/6249/bgmartineckcolonialviperink5do.jpg)

The reason the boxes had almost 2 sketches in them is because the cards were under ordered. I could have sworn I seen somewhere they said the sketches were originally 1 per box. If Topps could do it over, I bet they would have put 1 sketch in a box and made lots more cases.

I think you are 100% right knmdave.  People are already geting jazzed with rumor (don't know if it has been confirmed) that Topps is going to do another LOTR sketch set.  Pretty much you can bet that we will see another POAU if they do another LOTR sketch set.  Sure there will be some great sketches again, but I think we will se 1 a box as people will go nuts with preorders.

I wish I would have listened to my local shop sports card guy who said that POAU will be overproduced after the success of POA.  I said no way (last dying words of someone didn't know enough) Artbox isn't going to do more than 600-700 cases.  Needless to say it was a costly (literally) lesson learned on my part.  With Topps you can bet they are going to make a lot of product they always do, if people were smart and didn't preorder they could wait to see odds when boxes hit the street.  If it was two sketches a box or for retail Gimli costume was actually in the packs, it wouldn't be to hard to find the product from dealers at close or a little more (not much) than the preorder price.

If they do a LOTR sketch update I will be super excited for it, but I will take a wait an see approach.  If it is as good I will have my order at the ready, if not plenty of other sets to spend my money on.

As I mentioned I love Martineck's artwork, and I am thankful for the Yak Shak introducing me to him, but when push comes to shove I am mostly a Lord of the Rings fan, and when it comes to choosing an artist to do a commission its nice to see a set of cards like evolution that I can see how they draw the characters, as I like all the artists, but some artists seem to be able to nail certain characteristics of Lord of the Rings characters that I love, and thats how I choose my commissions.  I still plan on getting some work done by Martineck, as soon as possible, and in no way wanted to seem like I was downing his work, or saying the artists don't deserve more, as I think they do deserve a lot more, but no company will ever give what they truly deserve to get for the sketch cards they do, even $20 a card would seem low compared to what they can get out of commission sketces.  I was just sharing my thoughts. 

Do i get free one for waiting really long   :rofl: (:D# :rofl: (:D#

Yeah, you just keep laughing.....

 :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: ;)

lol - sorry i couldn't help myself!!  >:D

Hey RupT - don't get Warren going as he has my commission sketch card to do as well!!   ;)  I would not want him to say put a Pirate Captain's hat on my Aragorn sketch or something like that!   ;) 

Don't give him ideas Ed!! :o ::) :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Maybe I should email him and substitute the Helms Deep pic you gave him for Mark's doctored image with him wearing a leather flying bonnet :P

:rofl:

Now that is funny Roz!!!   :rofl:   But fortunately for me that is not the picture Warren is using to create my sketch card!   :)  He is using one of the Oscar Ads from The Two Towers that nominated Viggo as Best Supporting Actor.   8)

You know young lady you are getting into a lot of mischief lately!!   0:)   Aren't you supposed to be watching LOST or MI2?   :D

You know what they say Ed ... 'The Devil makes work for idle thumbs!!' :P :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:   _{I loved  those adverts!! 8)}

I think it's just boredom working it's mischief .. that right Roz? ;) 0:)
_{I'll pick up my tip later *wink wink* ^-^ :rofl:}

You have to admit it Ed - that would be wicked image done on a card ...  :rofl:

Fiddlesticks Ed, you confounded my evil plan to cause confusion and put you lower on WM's commission list than me :rofl: (just kidding)


That is true :P ahem!

Did anybody notice that LOST's Ethan Rom (William Mapother) is on the bad guys team in MI2... see, I was paying attention ;)

Nice to see that they are keeping it in the family then ;)

I thought we were on MI3?

I have never seen any of the MI films so I am not sure whether Ed and Roz made a slip up with the Ethan reference or whether Roz is just slow >:D

We are definitely up to MI3 - a Lost episode got sacrificed a couple of weeks earlier in Oz so JJ abrams could blatantly advertise it :P

Roz is fast, I watched MI1 for the first time over the weekend, MI2 last night and I think MI3 is tonight :P that's some serious film absorption ;D

Can you just hear the Mission Impossible theme song - dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dunna dunna dunna  - yes folks I have too much time on my hands!!  :P

Roz had to catch up with Missipon Impossible before she could go out and see MI3.  I see she has accomplished her mission - this tape will self destruct in 10 seconds!!   8)

Jules:

Yea that image would be interesting but why does it haunt me?   :)

Hey guys, i got my sketches from Warren earlier this week. Only having time now to scan and post them...

I will post my three commissions in the skatch card thread - howeveer i wanted to share this with you all..... I tell ya, when i found this in my package from Warren, i couldn't stop laughing to myself. Hell i'm giggling nowas i'm about to post it!!

thanks Warren, you're a star!!


(http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/8521/wmfree3bg.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)

 :rofl:  That's a great card that Warren sent you RupT! ;D  :rofl:

That is truly one-of-a-kind! :rofl:

muahahahahaha :rofl: :rofl: *unladylike Cackle*

That's genius :P

Way to go Warren!!  I love that sketch card!!  :)

AAAHH HA HA HA!!!  :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
THATS HYSTERICAL!!
GOOD ONE, WARREN!! ;D

Classy riposte Warren - LOVE it!! ;) ;D ;D :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

I've had a few emails about what cards I did for Wizard of Oz... so, with a few pic links...
http://www.warrenmartineck.com/showroom.html
Also I only have a few more commissions to get to, so for anyone still waiting... within days.
WM

Just got a few sketch cards from Warren, and I am VERY happy with them!!!

(http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b192/ztaylork/martineck.jpg)

Excellent work by Warren and nice subject matter Zach!   :)

Oops i think i posted on the wrong message.. oops.. sorry..

here are my Virgin commissions... my very first requests, and i am quite happy with them.. what do you all think???

Thanks for lookin

Julie
(http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u100/itsme_customs/07BladeTrinity.jpg)
(http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u100/itsme_customs/07Blade.jpg)

Julie:

You have some very cool sketch cards there!!   8)  I especially like the battle scene!   8)   

Thanks Savage; the more i look the more i like it too... i have asked him to do one more with a battle scene again, but with one of blades vehicles.. maybe the bike.. cant wait to see this one either.. will post once get..

thanks again

Julie

Julie, those are awesome sketches! Both are so well-detailed!  :o  :)

How's everybody doin?
It's probably not what you want to hear, but I've been turning down commission requests lately due to an overloaded work schedule.
As requests have started coming in for Christmas I thought I would post this if anyone was considering an order. I will need to be holding off doing any commission at least until Januaryish when I think things will lighten up.
 As an alternative for that "have to have it Holiday present", I still have available my own Redemption cards in which you can find more info about them here. http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=112915855&blogID=200504143&Mytoken=E998DABE-6226-4859-A195E1EFE646DDD88302141 (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=112915855&blogID=200504143&Mytoken=E998DABE-6226-4859-A195E1EFE646DDD88302141)

Thanks to all
WM

Ok, I needed to go farther with making stuff available. I got a bunch of emails asking, "ok, what else you got?"
So I set up a list of whats up for grabs after a big studio cleaning. Hope this helps.
Thanks
WM

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=112915855&blogID=327314526 (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=112915855&blogID=327314526)