Featuring fantastical swashbuckling illustrations of adventure, romance, and bravado! The Artwork of Dominick Saponaro.
Dominick Saponaro is an award-winning artist from Philadelphia, PA working in the illustration field for over ten years. His work has been featured in Spectrum, Expose, ImagineFX, and showcased in numerous galleries and illustration shows. Some clients include publishers of books, video games, and magazines such as Simon & Schuster, Tor Books, Harper Collins, Audible, The Science Fiction Book Club, Applibot, & Solaris Books.
A cool little trailer for The Eidolon by Libby Mcgugan which I had the pleasure of working on. I wish more books had trailers!
A few shots of my work from the most recent Spectrum 20 & Expose 11 illustration annuals. I was thrilled to have both Destroyermen II (In glorious full page detail!) and Destroyermen III included in Spectrum. Destroyermen III is also featured in Expose as well. A Huge thank you to Matt Kalamidas over at the Science Fiction Book club. This series has been so damn rewarding!
The quality and number of entries seem to grow considerably for both competitions every year so I am simultaneously thrilled and shocked when my work does get in. It's an insane honor to be included with some of the top illustrators working in the field today.
This just reminded me... Call for entries for Spectrum 21 is coming up! 1/25/14!!! Get those entries in people!
Really looking forward to seeing everyone at Spectrum Live in May!
The awesome folks over at The Science Fiction Book Club had some fun chatting up Taylor Anderson's fourth Destroyermen cover I recently finished for them. All on the hottest day of all time anywhere! Such a great series to be a part of. Thanks guys! You can check out the final cover art right here.
Did he just say my cover was hot as balls?
Dominick Saponaro Imagine FX FXPose Feature
Every month Imagine FX features an artist in the FXPose section of their magazine. They have both a traditional & digital showcase. Back in their April issue I was fortunate enough to be featured in... traditional!
"Traditional you say. That's an outrage! Who do you think you're fooling?!"
Hmmm... so what happened here? I'm not sure if someone actually thought my work was executed traditionally or if their criteria for the showcase is a little more open. It's hard to tell but I think it was probably the later. Maybe they just look for work that has a traditional feel to it without actually worrying too much about what medium was used.
Either way it was a welcome surprise and I was honored.
While I'm certainly not out to fool anyone as to the medium I use, I do put ALOT of effort into giving my digital paintings a traditional oil painting look and feel. After all, I worked in oils for many years, most of my influences have or do work in oils, and for the love of god I just cant take another super digital lens flare! :-)
If your not familiar with Imagine FX head on out and grab yourself a copy. Every month features some of the best workshops and interviews with artists from the science fiction, fantasy, gaming, and comic disciplines. It really is a great resource for beginner and seasoned artists alike. Also of note, the iPad version of the magazine is outstanding. While being identical to the print version in every way, it also has just enough interactivity with galleries, videos, and slideshows without trying to reinvent the whole magazine format for a tablet experience. Download the app here and subscribe today. You can also get past issues such as the April 2013 issue from above.
So... who out there thought I worked traditionally? Comment below.
Roscoe P. Coltrane 2000 - 2013
My companion, friend, brother, son, & studio mate of thirteen years has now passed on. Thank you for all the wonderful moments of inspiration and laughs. May you rest in piece little buddy.
To read a little bit more about Roscoe head on over to Christy's blog for a loving tribute.
Unannounced game design commission
The Eidolon book cover
A few sketches from some recently completed commissions. Be sure to check out the final painting for The Eidolon here.
A nice little mention from ImagineFX this month! If you haven't already gotten your copy, head on out and check out page 55. I was fortunate enough to be chosen as one of the honorable mentions for their 2012 Rising Stars competition in the Illustration category. Such a great way to cap off an already awesome year.
Some shots of my work in the most recent Spectrum 19 & Expose 10 illustration annuals. I was certainly honored to be included, but when I received my artist copies in the mail I was downright ecstatic! Destroyermen I was printed full page showing off all the brush work and Swashbuckle Dom (Printed full page as well) received an award of excellence. My A Princess of Mars, 1027, & Destroyermen II pieces were also included. Really looking forward to Spectrum Live this May!
While I don't have any, Ive always loved tattoos. So when the good folks over at Spirit Gallery Tattoo contacted me and said they had a client that wanted to use my 1027 painting as the basis for some ink, I said "Absolutely!"
Since I used myself as the model for the main figure in the painting I love the fact that someone now has my face permanently tattooed on their body. Poor guy.
Now, if I can only get someone to tattoo Swashbuckle Dom on themselves. Im thinking very large sprawled across their back would be best. Any takers? Anyone...
A few sketches from some recent unannounced cover commissions. Really looking forward to showing off the finals soon!
All the necessities of a 19 hour road trip.
All the necessities of a 19 hour road trip. This has been a long time coming but here are a few shots of my booth from Spectrum Live this past spring in Kansas City. Cant wait for this coming May to do it all over again!
I have a confession to make...
I hate thumbnails! Let me rephrase that by saying, I hated thumbnails. Up until recently I have always felt my thumbnails left a lot to be desired, not only for myself but also the client. While I have never gotten a complaint as to the level they were ever at I just felt they never really showed my final intentions. I’d always be chomping at the bit to move along and get started throwing value down on the final canvas as quickly as possible. I just didn't enjoy all the preparatory work involved with creating the final image, even though I knew it all was necessary.
Recently I have forced myself to really push my thumbnails as far as possible, trying to create full blown miniature black and white paintings of the image I have in my mind. This has helped me immensely! Even though I spend more time on these sketches it saves time down the road at a later stage of the illustration. Everything is now figured out and there is no trial & error moving forward. I know what I am looking for in reference, what I have to do for the final drawing, and even know what’s happening value wise with the final painting. Best of all, I have really come to enjoy the thumbnail stage of a project now!
Check out the thumbnails above (click to enlarge) from some recent projects and let me know what you think. Also let me know your thoughts on preparatory work. Love it or hate it?
-Dom
My A Princess of Mars piece was selected from over 300 entries for inclusion in the upcoming Frank Frazetta tribute exhibition at Gallery Provocateur. The Exhibition will open concurrent to the Chicago Comic Convention which runs from March 18th - 20th. Proceeds from the show will be donated to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation for Frank's granddaughter Jessica, who has type 1 juvenile diabetes, in hopes for a cure.
Like so many, Frazetta’s work was a tremendous inspiration for me as a young artist and continues to be to this day. More specifically Frank’s Dark Kingdom piece from above was probably the single greatest influence on me and fueled my desire to pursue illustration. Copying from my older brothers Molly Hatchet album, I would spend countless hours trying to recreate the masterpiece as a child. That original album hangs in my studio to this day.
More info on the artists and exhibit can be found here, and many thanks to Veronika Kotlajic of Gallery Provocateur for putting together such a great show for such an awesome cause.
I am very honored to be a part of this show.
Just in time for his birthday here is a recently completed portrait of our sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln. I have always been fascinated by Lincoln and have wanted to paint him for quite some time. Such great sunken eyes!
I also thought this would be a good opportunity to show off a step by step of my painting technique. I’ve added a new section to the website called “Process” which can be accessed from the site’s main navigation bar. So if you've been curious as to how I go about a typical painting click here and check out the step by step process and video slideshow.
Happy birthday Abe!
Here is my assignment for this years
I attended a couple of weeks ago in Amherst Massachusetts. (For those unfamiliar with IMC check out my previous blog post on last years
.)
For this years Assignment I chose to take on the Maid of Orleans... Joan of Arc. We were free to interpret this book cover anyway we wished through either a historical viewpoint or, as I chose here a more fantastical one. I’ve been wanting to do an angel piece for quite sometime and this was the perfect opportunity to take on the challenge.
You cacheck it out in my portfolio
or check out a larger view with some zoom details of brush work
. Enjoy!
This years IMC class was a little different than last in that
chose 10 artists to be featured in an upcoming article. I just found out that I was fortunate enough to be one of the select artists. Ill post an update when the article hits the stands, but in the mean time here is a list of all the artists that were chosen.
Congratulations to everyone, Im honored to be in such good company!
-Dom
Featuring fantastical swashbuckling illustrations of adventure, romance, and bravado! The Artwork of Dominick Saponaro.
Dominick Saponaro is an award-winning artist from Philadelphia, PA working in the illustration field for over ten years. His work has been featured in Spectrum, Expose, ImagineFX, and showcased in numerous galleries and illustration shows. Some clients include publishers of books, video games, and magazines such as Simon & Schuster, Tor Books, Harper Collins, Audible, The Science Fiction Book Club, Applibot, & Solaris Books.
