Ever wish you'd bought Wal-Mart or IBM stock back when it was real cheap? That is, that you'd gotten in on the ground floor so you'd be reading this on a laptop while sitting on a beach in the Bahamas next to Winthorpe and Billy Ray Valentine from "Trading Places" trying to decide between having lobster or cracked crab for dinner? What the hell, you're rich, have 'em both!
That's the way I felt after discovering Ian Richardson. Early last year, when I did a search on CAF for his art, only two hits came up. Not two pages, two pieces of art. Not much to work from, and his page at ComicArtCommissions.com didn't offer many examples of his work there. But the few pieces I saw impressed me so much I decided to give him a try. After getting my first commission back I KNEW I'd hit the jackpot. Now, this INSANELY talented UK artist has done two commissions for me, and this latest one has me beside myself with glee. It features my fan-fic team the Brotherhood about to square off with the Great Ten, a group of DC heroes from China. Just feast your eyes on the unbelievable detail on this piece, and know that he charged less that half of what some artists would have charged. Killer art and low prices. What sweeter combination can there possibly be than that? When I told him what I wanted and he sent me his price quote, I swear its the only time in my life where I managed to moonwalk.
Now, for you nitpickers out there who are counting the Great Ten and only seeing eight characters, well, it shows what you know. See that jet fighter at the top of page? That's actually a character. The Immortal-Man-in-Darkness has a human form, but he bonds physically with his jet fighter so that they are literally one. So where's the missing tenth character?
There is one more member. Her name is the Mother of Champions, and her ability -- and I absolutely kid you not -- is that she gets pregnant and gives birth at one time to up to 25 babies who, in a matter of weeks, develop super-powers and grow to adulthood. The catch is, they also die in a matter of weeks. That's it, that's all she does. Gets knocked up like a super-powered octomom and shoots out dozens of super-powered rugrats that die in a few weeks. I have no idea what Grant Morrison was smoking when he came up with that one. But she was so lame, I left her off. Call me a prude, but somehow having her on here with her legs spread-eagle while squeezing out 25 infant warriors just would've ruined it for me.
Now when you type Ian Richardson's name here, you don't get two hits, you get two PAGES of hits. That tells me his popularity is growing, and not only does he now have his OWN CAF gallery here -- through which you can contact him and get your own commission -- he also has his own DeviantArt site where he can be contacted as well:
http://pencilsandstrings.deviantart.com/
His art has already started turning up in the galleries of such A-list CAF gallery owners as Michael F. Finn, Kevin Moorhead, and Shannon Weathers. Maybe you didn't buy
Google stock when it was ten cents a share, but you don't have to lose out again! Fire off a e-mail to Ian pronto and get your own stellar commission, and when he eventually becomes the superstar artist on some Avengers or X-book, you can smuggly relax secure in the knowledge that you trumped all those johnny-come-latelies.
