I have recently completed book five which will be the last fantasy art book for a while. I have two new design books in progress, a novel and some journalism under way.

I was busy most of 2008 with a new book and 'processing' the death of my Dad. Now, with five books behind me and five years in Italy, its time for a change... so I am moving to Oxfordshire in May (but keeping the Italian house)...
I'll be busy moving for the next couple of months, after which there will be new art posted, a revised website, regular newsletters, a proper blog and an eBay shop.

2009 will include:
- Moving towards self publishing with various new projects including a new fully illustrated fantasy art book.
- Getting back into music and live internet performance
- getting the first novel finished (2000 words every evening before bed at the moment)
- Tarot set - watercolours.
- More watercolours - erotic
- More film work
- selling off a lot of original 'rock art' to clear some space.


Recent work includes:
- launching the Luxuria Awards 2009
- An exhibition of 80 watercolours of elegant women (email studio@the1001nights.com for a catalogue, mostly sold but some still available)
- Working on a series of novels which I began ten years ago and have finally gotten around to writing.
- various logos and graphics comissions
- illustration for a Syd Barrat calendar
- more in the 'Back Catalogue' poster series with Storm Thorgerson and co.
- working on a new occult publishing project
- various film work
- monthly events for the Luxury Marketing Council and the Bachle Network
- Some theatre posters and set design in Italy
- Several portraits
- consultancy, lectures and talks


Thanks for all the support
x
f

By way of a complete diversion from work on the new fantasy book here are some architects visuals I knocked out last week for a client near where I live in Italy. A totally different way of working... but I love doing it
It is still, however, all about realising a dream...

I get a lot of emails asking how to tackle the 'blank page' syndrome. Here is a short extract from my recent book that might help.

From: 'the Fantasy Artists Pocket Reference: Incredible Characters".
HB ISBN 978-1-60061-011-0

When I was growing up people use to say "Use your imagination". I used to hate hearing this because it sounded so simple but the truth was – I didn't know how to use my imagination. The thing is, you have to feed your imagination; when you are trying to think of a hairstyle for your drawing of a fairy you need to have twenty ideas for hairstyles in your head just to get one good one down on paper. And that's what this book is about, its main aim is to feed your imagination so when you think 'warrior' you don't just think 'furry boots' and 'loincloth'. We will look at the classic archetypes, and how they are normally portrayed, then suggest a few variants that will hopefully inspire you to seek out new possibilities for the stereotypes we all know and love. This book will help you to look at the typical formulas, then show you how to come up with a new angle or a modern spin on them. Using your imagination isn't easy – you have to feed your head !

My aim with this book is to ignite the spark that will turn you from the story reader into the storyteller... this book should act as the bridge between finding the character and bringing it to life.

HOW IS IT DONE ?
Here are a few basic points to consider....


PUT THE HOURS IN
" Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains" Thomas Carlyle
When the Scottish philosopher made the comment above he was saying that great artists and thinkers will always go to an enormous amount of effort to make their work as good as it can be. He was suggesting that being a genius isn't something you are born with… it is something you achieve by just putting the hours in. It would be a pleasure to have all the time in the world but the pressure of a deadline can be good too


FILL THE RESERVOIR
The creation of a believable fantasy world involves an inverse pyramid of research, text and imagery. You always start off with far more information and imagery than you need. For example, there was far more research, notes and drawings left out of this book than actually ended up in it. This is a natural process of refining and defining your ideas… you need to put a lot of material into your reservoir.



USE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
You can fall in love with a place. You can fall in love with every tiny detail of it. Every leaf, every flower, the scents the sights, the smells. Let your heart lead you to the places that you love. Then, whenever you turn a page, you will find yourself returning to that place in your mind; you will remember the slant of sunlight on the grass, you will remember the shape of a flower or leaf. The love you have for a place or memory will inform your art and you will return to that special place in your heart again and again throughout your artistic career. That special moment in your life will become one of your themes.
The same can be said for people; the ones you love will haunt your work forever and you will always be trying to capture their hair, their smile. They will mark you for life and you will return to them again and again. It doesn't matter what happens in the real world – they will always re-appear in your work and their presence in your life will help define your look and style as an artist.
You can't put something of yourself into every single drawing or story you create but its good to always try and put something emotional into your work. If your work has personal aspect to it then it will have more depth and there will be a good chance that the emotional charge of the work will transfer to the viewer or reader. It is this emotional involvement that will give a work meaning and, hopefully, it will stand out from work that is sterile and soulless.





LOOK IN THE RIGHT PLACES
Don't ever use other fantasy art as a reference point – use it for inspiration but you have thousands of years of art and history to find details and ideas. Don't get stuck on the latest Hollywood film.
One of the hardest things with carrying out research is knowing where to begin, so at the bottom of each page in this book you will find a list of 'keywords' that you can use to find imagery and information. You can use these keywords on the internet or at your local library to find amazing visual examples of everything you need to inspire you and flesh out your designs, For example, typing in the words 'orientalist painters' will lead you to an enormous list of the artists who travelled in the middle east during the 18th and 19th centuries. You will find a wealth of details in their work that you can then copy into yours; you will find shoes, weapons and costume details that you could never get from looking at fantasy paintings and films and this will help you bring new ideas and skills into your work which will help you in your career as you build up your own reference library of historical imagery.



DRAW EVERY DAY.
One thought struck me hard during the production of this book: You have to draw every day. Fact.
I was producing artworks here and there in between other jobs… and they were ok… but the whole process wasn't really clicking for me. Then I got a month of free space and worked on the book all day every day. But in the first ten days that I sat down to do this I produced a lot of bad work. There were a few good ones here and there but for ten long, lonely days I was just not in my rythym. Then, on the eleventh day I hit my stride, I was 'in the zone' so to speak and in one weekend I churned out 90 drawings, all of which were pretty good (well, I was satisfied with them anyway). The point here is that you have to be prepared to produce a few bad drawings every single day in order to be able to produce a good one every now and again. This thought should give you some comfort when you are, indeed, producing nothing but a load of rubbish. Don't let those bad drawings and those bad ideas get you down. You have to churn out some dross to get to the good stuff.



EQUIPMENT
Pencils, Paper and ink.
You don't need lots of equipment to be a great artist. Many of the artworks you will see in this book have been produced using computers and software such as Photoshop but this doesn't mean its essential to have a computer, scanner and graphics tablet. The aim of this book is to show you how to use your imagination, not how to use a computer. Take another look and you will see that the greater majority of artworks in this book are produced with nothing more than pencil and paper and could just as effectively be coloured with crayons, felt tip markers or coloured pencils and you could STILL get a great result. The beauty of all fantasy art is that you need to be able to draw with a pencil and paper first… before you ever get into computers or oil paints. This is great because a pencil and paper is the cheapest tool you can buy in any business. The best equipment in the world will never make you a better artist…it might not even help you get things done quicker. I didn't start using computers to colour my work until I had been working for 14 years ! Up until then I had relied on pencil, paper

Brushes and paints
As tools for art, brushes and paints have really stood the test of time. They've been around since the beginning and they are still the number one tool of choice for any artist. This may have something to do with the fact that they are very responsive to the hand and allow the artist a great deal of expression. You can use watercolours for working quickly and creating great colour blends and effects, oils and acrylics require more technique but you allow more freedom and potential than watercolour. Use coloured inks for creating areas of flat colour. As for brushes, the simple truth is you get what you pay for, the best approach is to start out with a bunch of cheap brushes and one or two expensive ones.



Computers
If you decide you can't live without the opportunities offered by digital art and you decide to buy a computer make sure it's the best you can possibly afford... and that means cancelling that holiday or resisting the temptation to buy the 'Lord of the Rings' boxed set, no matter how essential it may seem for 'research' purposes. Do your research on the internet or the public library for a while instead of investing heavily in sumptuous art books and DVD's. A computer can be a huge advantage to producing, reproducing and disseminating your work. The cybersphere may be confounding at first but just remember, it's a learning curve and we have all been through it… and we are all continuing to learn new things every day. Be patient and enjoy the journey… if you find that its just not for you, then that's fine, the traditional mediums of drawing and painting are still valid… although, I admit, I couldn't work without at least having email and the ability to send images back and forth via the internet.



Other Materials
As an aspiring artist the first thing you should go out and buy is a human skull… its absolutely essential, before you do anything else. Some people may say this is ghoulish, they may even say its sick… and they'd be right.

A word of encouragement
Most of you who know my work know this: I'm great with a pencil… and not bad with ink. But… 1) I'm lousy with a brush… and 2) I can't paint to save my life. I can handle Photoshop to a reasonable degree but I don't know where to begin when it comes to all those wonderful 3D packages that everybody's using these days.
So how does this help you ? Well, I'm not saying you should be lazy but, ask yourself the question – "can I really be absolutely the best at everything ?" Maybe it's a matter of just being brilliant at one thing and merely 'good enough' at every thing else. It's a matter of developing strategies for your survival as an artist. In my case I compensate for being bad at painting by being able to touch up my paintwork in photoshop. I compensate for my lack of skill with a brush by being excellent with a pencil or in pen and ink. I don't know much about Sword and Sorcery but I'm an expert on folklore and myth – I'm second to none on The Arabian Nights and approaching phd level on Northern Europe but when it comes to Australasia and the Americas, I'm bottom of the class. So it's a matter of trying a bit of everything to begin with… then focusing your energy on an area that really suits you and, more importantly… finding the area that you will be prepared to go the distance with.



FINLAY USES:
A 0.9mm propelling pencil with B leads.
Any paper he can get his hands on.
Lightbox made for him by his Dad.
Propelling erasers by Muji
Adobe Photoshop
Pitt Artists black ink pens by Faber Castell
Watercolours by Schminke
Computer is a Macintosh G4 Powerbook (laptop) DVD superdrive with a 17" screen.
Approximately 1 Terrabyte of external hard drives for backing up.

Just delivered book 4... a killer, this one really wore us out, coming straight after book 3 '100 fantasy characters'. Chiara Giulianini joined me at home in the Italian countryside to plough through this one...I couldnt have done it without her... I was almost jealous at the speed she learned the skills !... we delivered just over deadline because some artists let us down at the last minute... fortunately, I LOVE that artist... and being an artist myself I understand how tough it is.... but please, please... any aspiring artists out there...DONT say you'll do it and then dont deliver... even if you cant deliver, just be honest and say so !!!! Its not fair to leave us hanging on ... just communicate !


Anyway, said artist is forgiven... because he did the best he could... end of story.
In the meantime... here are a few sneak previews from the book coming out in Spring 2008 with David and Charles (UK) and Impact (US) and Spain and France etc... and thanks again to Chiara (my right hand), Bob Hobbs and Saya Urabe for hanging in there...
Any other artists want to give me a call ? Please do... but dont let me down !!!!


Here are three out of the 100....first up, the Varcolac... a Romanian werewolf so big it could eat the moon....








.. and Nidhoggr... the dragon of Norse myth who gnaws at the roots of the world tree.. there's a lot classic dragons in this one...





Le Drac is a famous French dragon...





read more about this one in the book...its a fascinating story...





... and finally, the Dhobar Chu... a bizarre Irish killer otter monster... something about the story really put the chill in me and I had to try and depict it...





All the classic dragons and 100 more obscure creatures from around the world in the book... 100 Fantasy dragons and beasts ( or something... check out David and Charles or Impact for details...or Amazon...or Ebay...etc)

Back in Italy I get down to doing some serious research, refining the content list and doing some layouts for the new book. I decide to go ahead and put together some final spreads... I need to know that the stories I am writing will work within the format that I envision. My assistant from the last book, Chiara Giulianini (www.myspace.com/bittersun)is still with me...getting involved with the long process of piecing together the initial spreads with all the background tints, items and artworks necessary to bring this thing to fruition... these are a couple of the spreads I sent out to our comissioning editor





This book will be delivered October 2008 for publication in spring 2009...

Here is the the cover process for Fantasy Characters due Autumn 2007 from David and Charles (UK) and Impact (US) as well as Spain, France, etc.

I delivered a quick sketch...





They liked it and said go ahead but I was not happy with the wizard so...





No problem, they said... but I still hated the wizard... then I realised... I didnt spend my whole life working towards publishing so I could draw goddamned cheesy LOTR wizards so I changed it....





... and they said "fine...Finlay.. we spoke to the sales people and they loved it... but can you make the woman more...ummm.. warrior like ? Would you mind giving her larger breasts ?".... this comment came from a woman incidentally... and , as you know, I dont do big breasts as a rule... but I really dont mind as long as I dont have to draw f**cking Gandalf... ever ! and, to be honest.. the 'sales people' really DO know what they are talking about !





Sara, the designer at my publishers, put together a rough layout and we agreed it looked ok.





...so I did the final... god, I hate doing covers... in the best of all possible worlds (voltaire quote) I could do killer covers... but compromising for the market kills me... it doesnt seem to be a problem with the rest of the book... but the covers are a nightmare... still, book 5 will change all that...anyway, here's the final... which I am quite happy with... but in 'the best of all possible worlds'.... (Voltaire'Candide', read it)

Book 5 : I wanted to do some research - a quick flit to Switzerland for a Luxury Marketing convention at the five star Badrutts Palace Hotel in St Moritz allowed me some time to discover the wonders of ancient pagan festivals (and they say the Swiss are boring - not true !). Then, on to Finland to meet me oldest friend Veera ...





...where we discovered the traditions of the Volksboats (literally folk boats) and spent days on the bay of Helsinki and dotted around the islands on the traditional 'tar boats'.





I learnt much about the Finnish folklore and particularly the epic Kalevala whilst cruising the islands...





and indulged in many (intoxicated) conversations about the folkore of Scandinavia, Finland and the Lapps late into the night...





We spent long hot summer nights on the island where I was able to work on the second instalment of Subway Slim 'The Ghost in Me" (See www,myspace.com/subwayslim)





A few days later we took the ferry across the Baltic to Estonia... and delved into the deep mythic history of this extraordinarily robust people ...






Veera showed me around this town that she had know since the communist era...
where just a few years earlier many innocent people had been deported to the Siberian Gulags through this very building... the bottom floor windows blocked off to muffle the screams of the tortured inhabitants...a legacy that has not been forgotten...






A fascinating view into a vibrant people who have already surged ahead of the rest of Europe despite their suffering... and left me with a dozen great mythic stories to tell...

100 Fantasy Creatures is the second in the series of pocket books which we produced in record time largely thanks to my new assistant and colorist Chiara Giulianini who has been living with us in Italy and working day and night. Bob Hobbs has contributed to all my books so far and publisher David and Charles have just signed him up for two of his own books on 'Fairies' and 'Witchcraft' ... a serious passion of his. Well done Bob. I'm talking with my comissioning editor about doing a book a year for the next three years one of which will be a seriously lavish production covering all the highways and byways of myth and legend that I've been exploring these past few years... it's the one I've been training for since childhood.

Here's some previews of the creatures book which contains many of the classics, plenty of dragons and a whole host of demons.




Here's Lilith - I've been dying to have a go at her since the last book where Bob grabbed her. She's one of mythologies ultimate supergroupies having slept with both Adam AND Satan...









The Minotaur needs no introduction...








The Beast of Gevaudan - a true story which inspired the movie 'Brotherhood of the wolf'







Belphegor, a female demon (a Femon ?) - My favourite model Nicola Groves posed for this.







And of course... there's a whole section on Dragons and serpents including classics such as the Draid Y Goch... the famous Welsh dragon...

Down to Abbey Road studios in West London to attend the launch of Storms new graphic design book... 'Taken by Storm' which features a fair smattering of my roughs for him over the years (check out his website for more, including the conceptual drawings for Muses latest which you'll find in the news section).

The party was held in the famous studio 2 where the Beatles recorded the imaginatively titled 'Abbey Road' and Floyd recorded 'Wish you were here' amongst others. The event was a great success... absolutely packed - 3/4 of Pink Floyd showed up and did an impromptu acapella version of Mike Oldfields 'Tubular Bells' in its entirety.. it was amazing.

Storms old creative partner Aubrey Powell from the Hipgnosis days was there too. He was responsible for Led Zeps 'Houses of the Holy' sleeve amongst many others. All the original artworks used to be piled up in Storms back bedroom and I spent many a happy hour rifling through them... 'Houses of the Holy' was all black and white photos cut out by hand and glued on with bits of correction fluid covering the gaps, 'Dark Side' was just a pen and ink diagram because the colour was added at the printers in those pre-photoshop days when clients didn't have the luxury of changing their minds every ten minutes.

Back to the party, Storm was inundated with fans of all ages snapping up hard copies of his book and queuing to get them signed. Rick Wright asked where the toilets were... which was strange because he's recorded there about twenty times over the past forty years... rock and roll.

I saw Storm a few days later and he asked me to whip off a few sketches for a new Pink Floyd logo for some re-release thats coming up or something... they're doing a box set of 'Piper'...it might be for that... For this logo he wants to have it done as an illustration, which makes a nice change. The logo has the tag line 'Still the first in space' which was a private joke the band had going on between them for years apparently, and Storm came up with some very surreal images in the style of Magritte which I executed for him... always nice to return to the Mothership.