One of the best parts of being an Art Director, and being as plugged-into this community as I am, is seeing an artist grow over a few years and really come into their own. A great example is Wylie Beckert and her new Wicked Kingdom Deck, now on Kickstarter and already funded.
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| Wicked Kingdom on Kickstarter |
Wylie’s work was already impressive when she wandered into the SmART School summer class Marc Scheff & I were running a few summers ago, but what was really fantastic was her work ethic. She poured more thought and attention into her thumbnails than I’ve seen many artists put into their finals. Throughout that class we encouraged Wylie to get to a convention and start to network and make connections, and although she was scared and shy she made it to IlluXcon that fall, and hasn’t looked back. Nearly immediately she landed a cover and process feature in ImagineFX magazine.
Since then she’s been getting commissions and she has been selling out for over a year on Every Day Original. This year I have been thrilled to include Wylie in both my Dream Covers show at Krab Jab Studio in Seattle and the Point of Vision: Women Artists in SciFi and Fantasy exhibition at the Society of Illustrators.
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| Wylie’s great illustration for Dr. Strange and Mr. Norrell |
For a long time Wylie has been working on a self-directed entrepreneurial project—an awesome illustrated deck of cards called the Wicked Kingdom. Of course I backed it, because I wanted to order multiple decks of the cards…but an unexpected bonus has been the campaign updates, where Wylie has been posting some great process posts for many of the face cards in the deck:
Beyond her wildly inspirational paintings, Wylie's amazing thumbnail work is the first thing I always look at to motivate myself at the beginning of a project. She and Greg could make careers out of just their thumbnail comp work alone!
I'm in love with every single one of these paintings. The style, the concept, the execution. Thank the stormy heavens for Wylie and her vision 🙂
I'm in love with every single one of these paintings. The style, the concept, the execution. Thank the stormy heavens for Wylie and her vision 🙂
I've watched Wylie for years on DeviantArt; so glad to see this amazing talent and work ethic rising to the top! Her cover for “The Nutcracker” ballet just made me feel all childlike and joyous and Christmas-y.
I'm going to take a big step and start SmART School in September. So terrified! But Wylie is a huge inspiration 🙂 Love her!