Spectrum 2012

Spectrum Fantastic Art Live! 2012 – The inagural show… and what a show it was indeed!

Onto the news update that I had been wanting to get to, for literally some years now. See when I first heard rumblings that the publication Spectrum Art was thinking about putting a show together so long ago, I was one of the first people to contact them about what it was, if it was going to happen, and more importantly, WHERE it was going to be held.

Fast forward about a year and a half, and Spectrum Fantastic Live has become a landmark event by simple fact that I cannot think of anywhere else shy of MAYBE GenCon or DragonCon that can pull this much art talent under one roof, but unlike those shows, the emphasis was very much on the creators and the artwork creations themselves.

 One fellow in attendance that I was trying all weekend to work up the courage to talk to was the crazy talented Gerald Brom. We were so lucky to have him do a panel that covered his career and the ups and downs that he’s gone through over the years.

When a friend of mine first got me into the whole Dungeons and Dragons thing when I was in high school, my initial exposure to it had the works of Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, and Brom that graced the covers of novels for the wonderful worlds of Dragonlance, GreyHawk, and DarkSun. I knew that these guys were the real deal. So much detail, so much movement and life captured in the designs and compositions. But of the three, Brom was the one with the darker more aggressive edge to his paintings.

Stylistically, I don’t pull a lot of influence from his work nowadays, but for many years, I would spend hours looking at the work that Brom created trying to figure out just how he pulled it off.

 Sunday brought a great chance to see the Tumbler and the Pod from the Batman movies.

The show had an overall attendance of about 2000 people. Which in reality, was a rather low number of attendees, but that actually didn’t bother me. See the thing about this show was that it felt like a group of artists that forged out together to found an art show based on the themes of sci-fi and fantasy, with prominence given to the understanding of mediums digital and traditional, and a chance for so many of us to finally meet one another after many years of mutual admiration, to the discovery of talent old and new.

I literally learned so much and got to meet so many very cool people. The best part about it was the unusual sense of comraderie that seemed to be everywhere and amongst all of the artists at the show. The photo below shows I believe almost everyone that had participated as artists.

It’s still left to be seen if next year will go forward as a show. This was very much an inagural effort on many levels for everyone involved. I know that the faces below will proabably change and the ranks may swell or shrink, but I do hope that Spectrum Live is given every opportunity to become the powerhouse event that it should be.

Until next time, support your local artists, be kind to your fellow beings, and always take the path less traveled!

- Mario, the Artisan Rogue
Illustrator, Podcaster, Writer, Toy Collector, and Animal Rights Activist

www.theartisanrogue.com