Let's start this blog talking about an amazing friend of mine and a beautiful girl as well! Her name is Allegra and she is rather famous in the Cosplay/fandom world of comic and fantasy/sci-fi conventions.  Her alias is "The Chainmail Chick" and if you've ever been to DragonCon, MegaCon or ConCarolinas, you probably have seen her.  Not only is she beautiful on the outside, she is a wonderful person on the inside with a great heart.  Here is her blog and if you read it, you can find out a lot about various southeastern conventions.  Check it out! http://thechainmailchick.blogspot.com/.

Here's a really cool link to a fantastic website for the comic/sci-fi fan! http://scifianimeheroes.com/
and some really great links to other sites as well!
http://scifianimeheroes.com/links-to-the-best-around-the-internet

Today, I will discuss the stunning and brilliant design works of one of the greatest visual futurist of all time - Mr. Syd Mead. Syd is an industrial designer who has worked for Ford Motor Company, U.S. Steel, and Philips Electronics and then found himself lending his vast concept design and artistic creative talents to the movie industry.  He is directly responsible for creating the amazing visual style for Ridley Scott's Bladerunner, Disney's original TRON movie and Star Trek - The Motion Picture.  He also created the brilliantly designed and fully functional robot for Short Circuit (No. 5) and the set designs for 2010, A Space Odyssey.  His works have influenced so many future concept and design artists including myself for many years and he continues to create dazzling worlds.  I can only hope he is called upon again for BladeRunner II (Coming Soon) and possibly a remake for Logan's Run.  I feel he would be one of the key ingredients for creating a fantastic future world needed in Logan's Run, if they ever remake it and remake it well.  I've always admired his work along with thousands of other artists in the concept design industry.  Here are some of examples of his work and notice not only the amazing color palette he tends to use with iridescent lighting but his highly practical design features that bring an air of believable functionality to each design.  You can see and purchase his works at www.SydMead.com.  All works below are copy written and protected by Syd Mead.   All rights reserved by Syd Mead.

DRAGONCON 2012!

DragonCon 2012 was an amazing success for me and my art.  I had my exhibitor booth in the Marriott Marquis ballroom - booth number 304 and we got to see our friends and meet many more wonderful people this year! My collectors came and bought more prints and original paintings.  I also unveiled my first painting of a dragon this year which to my delight received a lot of good reviews and we even sold a large amount of prints of it.  Needless to say, I'll be working on more to hone my skills as a fantasy artist.  I also got to see a lot of my friends that are established fantasy artists and met some new amazing ones as well! I'll be writing about them in my next blog.  I'm also currently and frantically working on my new website as we gave out over 1000 business cards all linking to my existing website which is frightfully outdated.  You can see my latest works at www.facebook.com/jameshillgallery (fanpage) which links one to my Fine Art America site.

Anyway, here are some of the photos from this year's DCON! Enjoy! :)

 The wonderful Allegra at my booth dressed as the Goddess Kali

 My Beautiful wife regrouping after a busy run on my art before the doors open again.

 R2 came by and said hi!