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What a weekend ... I spent three days expecting to get sued after an image I had painted for Upper Deck was leaked onto the internet. The painting is a parody of Stephen Colbert, as a Worlds of Warcraft alliance hero. They hoped that Stephen, who is a known gaming fan, would show it on the air.
Stephen's agents killed the deal, though, whereupon Upper Deck decided that the art should be buried, never to be seen. Upper Deck even demanded that I call Spectrum and remove it from competition. It was to be as if it had never existed. I was disappointed, but I complied.
On February 9th, it was posted on the blog Dane of War, but when it found its way to Digg.com, it exploded.
The story ends happily, with Upper Deck's lawyers being forced to confront parody law, deciding that it's okay to run the card, absolving me, and with the card finally being seen.
The easiest way to sum it up is to send you to the excellent weblog of Mary McNamara, who writes for Variety magazine online. There you can see, for the first time, the card itself.
Check out this nice review of my site and work here, on
Charley Parker's art blog, Lines and Colors: http://linesandcolors.com/2005/12/20/todd-lockwood/
He has very nice things to say about my work, but also about the design and functionality of this website, for which a big tip of the hat goes to my web guy, MD Wray. -->
On Wednesday, October 26th, near 4:00pm PST, the artist Keith Arlin Parkinson passed away while surrounded by his loving family. Keith had been fighting Leukemia for over a year. He seemed to have it beaten, and even discussed attending Gen Con next year, but his Leukemia returned and his body couldn't beat it again.
Long before I started at TSR, I took note of Keith's art. The art book "The Worlds of TSR" was in my reference library before I started the path that led me here, and Keith's paintings were among the standouts. Together with Michael Whelan, Frank Frazetta, Brom, and Jeff Easley (in no particular order), Keith rounded out the top five fantasy artists who influenced my career, and in many ways also my art, outright. One day in my first month at TSR, I was studying one of my favorite reference books, the art of Frank C. McCarthy, a western artist whose compositions and landscapes always pleased me. Paul Jaquays, another TSR staff artist at the time, saw my interest and said "That's interesting; Keith Parkinson always had that book open, too". I knew he was right instantly, of course. I could see the influence clearly once it was made apparent; in King's Gold, for example, or Orcs in the Snow. I always felt that Keith and I had similar artistic sensibilities. His art collection Knightsbridge: The Art of Keith Parkinson is one of the most-visited in my reference collection.
When he left TSR and started doing book covers for the New York publishers, he only blossomed further. In his short years, his impact - on gaming and the D&D worlds, to the many excellent covers in "mainstream" publishing, to his visionary work in video games, most notably EverQuest - is gigantic.
His sense of story and composition were keen, his dragons were among my very favorites, such as the dramatic lava dweller in Fire Sea, the spectral white in Hand of Chaos, or the blue in Ice Dragon. He painted some of the best armor, as well; see The Sapphire Rose, The Shining Ones, or The Lost Prince. He had a love for trees, which was apparent in the care he took in painting them.You can see it in paintings like Chernevog or Arcane Summons. His landscapes were everything from minimalist perfection, as in North Watch, to Bierstadt-like granduer, as in Greeting the Dawn. You can still find new nuggets, mostly hidden, such as in concept art done for various game worlds like Vanguard. All in all, a complete artist.
I only met Keith on two occasions, but I found him to be open, interested, and very intelligent. We wrote a few times, but I always expected I would have other opportunities to get to know him better. I am saddened that now I will only know him through the remembrance of his friends, and through his wonderful art.
Perhaps that is how all artists would want to be remembered.
Thank you, Keith, for the gift of your inspiration.
Todd Lockwood
November 1st, 2005