Artist Profile: Richard H. Fay
By Angela Roberts
April 4, 2011
Richard H. Fay is a talented SF, Fantasy, and horror illustrator whose artwork first came to our attention when he sent us samples of his work. Much of his work has appeared in various magazines and in works published by Sam's Dot Publishing. Intrigued by his interesting style, we decided to profile him for the Gloaming.
Angela: How did you get started as an artist?
Richard H. Fay: This might sound a bit hokey, but I believe I was born an artist. Apparently, I showed an aptitude for art and an innate understanding of the principles of artistic composition from an early age, at least since grade school. That being said, I spent several years of my adult life doing other things, like earning a B.S. in Biology and working as a lab technician, before I finally began composing art for sale on a somewhat regular basis.
A: What is your preferred medium?
R: I prefer to draw using pen-and-ink, in the form of artist’s pens. For colour work, I scan my ink drawings into the computer and colour them digitally.
A: Is there a medium you've always wanted to try or that you would like to try but haven't gotten around to it?
R: Years ago, I occasionally painted using acrylics, but I haven’t painted in years. I would love to get back into painting someday. Additionally, one of these days I want to try my hand at rendering my art digitally.
A: What are your influences?
R: I suppose Arthur Rackham and J.R.R. Tolkien are probably at the top of the list of artists who have influenced me (yes, Tolkien was an artist, too). This list also includes Alan Lee, Brian Froud, Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, Bill Willingham, Jeff Dee, Erol Otus, the Brothers Hildebrandt, and a plethora of other artists and illustrators of the fantastic.
A: Do you have a favourite piece of artwork? One that you still look at and think, "This is amazing"?
R: I am my own worst critic, so this is a hard question to answer. Strangely enough, one of my all-time personal favourites happens to be a piece I drew in 2008, a work that remains unpublished. The drawing depicts winged devils swirling around a rocky tor. Usually I’m finding all sorts of faults in my work, but think I got things just right with that one.
In terms of published work, I’m always pushing myself to improve my art, so my most recent works tend to rank among my favourites. I was quite pleased with my cover art for Shelly Bryant’s poetry collection Under the Ash, published by Sam’s Dot Publishing. I think it’s one of my best compositions yet. I took some chances with the imagery in that cover, straying beyond my usual boundaries, and I believe it paid off.
A: Can you tell us about your first professional sale? How did it come about?
R: From 1999 to 2001, I sold my works (as framed art and bookmarks) at a handful of arts and crafts shows and a local medieval fair. Interest in the possibility of selling my drawings of knights and dragons at the medieval fair prompted me to become a vendor at that event, which led to other opportunities to sell my artistic creations to the general public. However, I then set my artistic aspirations aside for a few years while I concentrated on home-schooling and writing.
An editor’s kindly nudge encouraged me to begin submitting art for publication. I had already started to submit poems to various venues in 2007 when Cathy Buburuz, then editor of Champagne Shivers, suggested that I submit illustrations to accompany my poetry. One of the pieces I produced as a direct result of Cathy’s suggestion, my illustration “Things in the Swamp”, became my first artwork accepted for publication. I’ve seen more gainful sales since then, but that was my first-ever illustration sale to a magazine.
A: Do you get ideas from texts or just from your imagination? Has there ever been a text or magazine where you read it through and you had trouble coming up with an idea for artwork? Any where you were bursting with ideas and you couldn’t wait to start?
R: Having worked on cover and filler art as well as illustrations, I find that my ideas come from many different sources. If I’m illustrating my own text, the visuals often already exist in my head long before I ever create a preliminary sketch. If I’m illustrating text penned by someone else, I read through the piece and see what imagery forms in my head. Sometimes it takes a while for an image to form, but I have yet to experience an instance when the image failed to form at all.
Producing cover and filler art appropriate for a specific publication can be a bit more difficult for me because I don’t always have a concrete foundation of imagery to build upon. This sort of work involves more guesswork trying to figure out what will appeal to an editor’s taste. It also involves getting ideas mostly from the imagination, rather than relying on mental imagery generated by reading a particular text.
When I was working on the cover art for Under the Ash, I had the text of Shelly’s collection to use as a guide. I found that several of her poems evoked strong images, images that ended up stuck in my head. I guess you could say that my head was bursting with ideas. I incorporated many of those ideas into the cover art.
Conversely, when I was assigned the task of coming up with cover art for David C. Kopaska-Merkel’s speculative poetry collection Brushfires, also published by Sam’s Dot Publishing, I was given just the title and a general theme. Even though I didn’t have the text of the collection to use as a basis for my ideas, I still came up with something eye-catching and imaginative, something that matched the collection’s title and theme.
A: Do you have any advice for new or young artists?
R: Keep at it. Keep drawing, painting, or digitally rendering. Keep trying to push yourself to improve your art. Keep sending your art out into the cold, cruel world. Keep weathering the storm of rejection and criticism. Most importantly, keep a firm hold of your hopes and dreams. Don’t let them slip through your fingers. Don’t let the naysayers get you down.
A: Can you tell us anything about your current projects?
R: Currently, I’m working on composing a number of fantasy and science fiction pieces for submission to various publications. Such work is always a gamble, but I’m hoping the gamble will pay off in the end.
I’m also planning to continue work on illustrations for an illustrated poetry collection-in-progress. The idea is to have accompanying illustrations for the majority of the poems in the collection, which is proving to be a daunting task. A publisher has already agreed to publish the work once it’s complete, if I ever end up with enough material to make it a reality.
In addition to my publication-related work, I also want to spend some time creating more images for merchandise in my Azure Lion Productions Zazzle Store. I’ve had some luck selling stuff through Zazzle, and I would like to see if more variety leads to more sales.
I do manage to keep myself quite busy. It’s better than being bored.
Some more of Richard's work:
Aliens Entwined
Kreonan Sky Devil
The Greemlogorg
To see more of his work, visit his portfolio.