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I love the Eowyn/WK and Aragorn/Lurtz ones!

What size paper/card did you use for those Grant?

Erm... digital seems photoshopped to me

Thanks, guys!  Glad you like my art blog, and..uh..  topless Sawyer.  LOL

The Eowyn/WK and Aragorn/Lurtz ones were drawn on 11x17 (roughly) then I scan 'em in and color them in Photoshop.  Really the sketch cards are the only thing I color by hand (with Prismacolor markers) - anything bigger than that I prefer to color in Photoshop, otherwise it would take way too long and I'd go through way too many markers.

Haaahahh      

Hey, speaking of aftermarkets, since I don't get around to posting a lot these days, if you guys are ever interested in seeing my latest stuff, check out my art blog.  I've got a big ol' pile of aftermarkets I'll be working on over the next couple months, and I'll actually be posting the first couple probably sometime tomorrow, so just a heads-up for anyone who's interested.

That said, I need to sleeeeepp   :'(
(Those are my there's never enough hours in the day tears.)

This isn't going to be popular with the artists here, but...

....After spending $50 for a box, why should a collector have to spend more money to make the sketch worth keeping (as opposed to mailing it back to Topps)?

I see what you're saying..  I'm not suggesting you should have to get an aftermarket to make "it worth your money," so to speak.  I was just throwing an option out there. 

It really is all in the eye of the beholder.  If Alan Lee were to do sketch cards and scribble down those exact same lines that Paul did, you'd be framing it on your wall (even if you weren't sure what it was a picture of).  I've seen big name talented artists at comic conventions do quick sketches for people, and they're like 2 or 3 fast lines, and people love 'em.  I'm just pointing out that it isn't always about the number of lines in a sketch.

But this is a debate that could go on and on, and we all love each other, so there's no point in diving too deep.  Bottom line is: one collector's trash is another collector's treasure.
 

Seriously, head over to Paul's site and contact him about getting an aftermarket card.  I can almost guarantee he'll do it for cheap and he'll draw an amazing aftermarket for you.  Trust me, the guy's bigtime talented -- don't let one card make or break your opinion of his stuff.

Hi, everyone!  DANG you guys have been pulling some awesome cards.   

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately -- I've had to cut down on my "internet play time" because I've had a mountain of commissions and personal card orders to catch up on.  I had to put a halt on taking new orders, but once things slow down a little I'll start up again.  Just keep an eye on my site and I'll announce when that happens.

Oh, and if someone would please sell me a kick butt Kayanan card for under $200, that would be much appreciated.  LOL
Grant

To our Artist friends:

Have any of you received any feedback from Topps about your work since Evolutions was released?  Topps has to be pleased with the success of this set!   

From what I've heard from Topps and those that talk to Topps, they're REALLY happy with the over all quality and success of the Evolutions set and sketch cards   

I have a question for our artists. 

IF you were supposed to do 500 sketches (for example) for the set did they just send you 500 cards?  Did they give you any extra ones to allow for mistakes?  I pulled a card or two that looked like there was a small mistake and wasn't corrected or obvious that an attempt was made to cover it up.  I am assuming they only sent you the alloted sketch cards they wanted you to do.  Is that correct.  I am sure they wouldn't want the "mistake" cards to end up on ebay as an official sketch.

I personally did not receive any extra cards for mistakes -- They only sent me 206 total.  200 for pack insertion, and then the 6 cards to send back to me for personal use.

Great pulls!  I love all three of those guys   

unfortunately the first box had no sketches at all (second dud I have opened)

Oh man, that sucks   
That's the first I've heard of anyone opening boxes with no sketches.  I would be pretty ticked..

*sigh* I just love the detail on Eomer's armor... and yes, I've bid on it

Thanks!  I'm glad ya like it   

Hi, guys -- Here are a couple of my aftermarket colorings (I've got the Eomer one on eBay right now, and the mumakil was done for somebody).  The image on my aftermarket cards usually goes to the edge of the card, and for the most part all of the "pack pulled" ones by me stay within that little border.  So that's generally how you can tell with mine.   

   

I want to here and now take a minute to personally thank Cynthia Cummins, Cat Staggs, Grant Gould, and you Allison Sohn for creating some of the most beautiful and inspiring Lord of the Rings artwork I have seen.   

Thank you!  I'm really glad so many of our cards have been met with warm response..  This was really an amazing set to work on. 

Wow, that Kayanan card is %#%$@&# amazing.  Personally I would keep that thing.  You can always sell it in the future.  Somehow I doubt the value on his stuff will go down much over time.

And, yes, I believe Kayanan only did one-of-a-kind cards.  No doubles for that crazy guy!   

Thanks!      I drew this Aragorn on one of the 6 cards that Topps sent back to me for personal use.  Some of them I'm planning to sell as "choose your own characters" and I may just draw another one on my own, like this one.  I'm still not sure..  I was tempted to keep this one for myself, because I'm a huge Aragorn fan and I was pretty happy with the card..  But alas, I need money to help finance my convention trips this year.  Anyway, here's the link then: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6261302866

Hi, guys!  I hope it's okay that I'm mentioning this here -- I won't post a direct link to the auction.

I'm selling an Aragorn card right now.  It was done on one of the cards I got back from Topps for personal use.  Here's a pic:



And I can't remember if I mentioned this, but I'll be at the Midwest Trading Card Show this weekend, so maybe I'll see some of you there   

beckham1, that is a gorgeous galadriel card!!   

Yeah, those are some nice pulls!  I bet you could get some good money on ebay for that Jeff Chandler Eomer card in the middle   

For our artists just curious which sketches you did for the set that you are most proud of.  It goes without saying post the scan if you have one of the card.  Maybe top 5 or 10.

Hmmm... well, how about I break it up into color and b&w.  These are probably my 3 favorite color ones that I did:

   

And these are probably my 3 favorite b&w ones that I did:

   
I'm not sure why I like that Aragorn one so much.. It's one of the more simple Aragorns I drew, but I love how it turned out.  And that last guy is my favorite orc..  the one with the white eye who spots Sam & Frodo in the company of orcs.  I'm secretly hoping to find that one on ebay sometime and buy it back.  hehe

It's hard to pick favorites though..  I was pretty pleased with a lot of my cards.  I really wished I had more time to work on them, because I would've loved to have made them all color, or at least a large percentage of them..  But over all, I'm pretty happy with 'em.  And I hope the fans like 'em too.   

I have another question for our artists - if we see a particular sketch we like, is it OK to ask the artist to do a replica? For example, I would love an exact copy of the Galadriel I mentioned earlier as its exactly what I am looking for, but it may be stuck inside a box for years before it turns up. Would this be appropriate?

Personally, I'm cool with that.  I prefer not to try and duplicate one of my drawings exactly, but if someone were to ask me to copy one of my other poses and maybe even improve upon it, I certainly give it my best shot.   If anything, I'm better now at drawing the LOTR characters, so the "replica" would probably look even cooler than the original.  If you're interested in having me do any cards for ya, send me an email -- I'll help ya out for sure.