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Wraithmarked Creative has undertaken creating the most beautifully illustrated version of Douglas Adams’ novels from his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series.  This omnibus edition includes new covers by Tom Kidd and Chee Fong as well as forty-two (42, a very important number!) new full color illustrations to grace the insides of this tome.

I have been honored to contribute two new end paper works for this.  As a life long fan, it was a real joy and professional milestone to create these oil paintings.

As a lesson for all artists out there, and a reinforcement of the beliefs I teach as a mentor that you can never know how commissions will sometimes ‘find’ you, it was a wonderful circumstantial meeting which made this project possible for me.

I was at DragonSteel convention in Salt Lake City last year, waiting in the lobby of the hotel just before my flight to hand off a drawing to the winner of my Donato’s Drawing Drawing lottery when Bryce O’Connor spotted me and stopped to grab a seat.  Bryce, the CEO of Wraithmarked, had approached me at the con earlier in the weekend, but if you know convention floors, we barely had more than a few sentences in discussion before we moved on.

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In the lobby we were able to talk in greater length about possible collaborations when Bryce revealed that Wraithmarked was negotiating to land the Hitchhiker’s Guide books from the Adams’ Estate for a limited edition treatment.  I shared my love of those books, my story of meeting Douglas decades ago, and said to call me if that deal came through as I would love to contribute something.

So here we are!

Wraithmarked has created a Kickstarter campaign for this compilation, with a Pre-Lauch page:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wraithmarked/hitchhikers

preliminary drawing, graphite and chalk on toned paper, 18″ x 24″

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