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Tobin's Artwork
Copiest Masks on Black
CD Covers3D Digital ArtIllustrated NovelsVideo Gaming ArtFractalsCollaborationsAwards
Tobin's Artwork

I was lucky to be a part of the first wave of digital art, beta testing some of the original 3D modeling programs for personal computers. I got to know some great artists, collaborating with Martin Murphy, Stephen Hägg-Ståhlberg, James Neff and others.

In the early years at ArtsForge, we began several illustrated novels together. As I became more involved in the illustration process, I gained the expertice to create art for my album covers as well. See below for examples of album art, eBook illustrations and more.

Click on images to view enlargements.

13 Masks cover
13 Masks

More than masks that hide the truth, these are meant to be interior faces of the subconscious that whisper, lear and assert themselves in ways known and unknown.

Cover art for my solo piano CD, 13 Masks. Pencil on paper, colored in Photoshop.

Other original art CD covers: Of Two Minds - Flow - Come In Funky - Afterwords

A Bit of Light cover
A Bit of Light

Base on the photo compilation "Six Views of a Breezeway," Al Ligammari added a ghostly font and this became the back cover of my release, A Bit of Light.

See PHOTOS for more photography, especially Cape Cod Photos.

Other CD covers incorporating Tobin's photos: As Simple As Soap - Song of Myself - If I Could Live Long Enough

Image used for Morning Whispers cover
Morning Whispers

Photo of a woman walking the bayshoreline from Provincetown, Cape Cod, is the artwork used for my first solo piano CD, Morning Whispers.

3D Digital Art
Finding Galatea: A Self-Portrait
Finding Galatea: A Self-Portrait

I've always been intrigued by the myth of an artist creating something so beautiful it actually comes to life. What happens after that is another question...

Digital art, modeled in Bryce 4, finished in Photoshop.

Illustrated Novels
The Power of 10

The eBook starts like this:

"Witherferd shifted his position slightly...and all hell broke loose.

"The entire room puckered, as if God had just swallowed a lemon rind. Is this what the Gates of Heaven looked like? The Gates of Hell? With what he figured was his last dying thought, he whispered into the swirling chaos, 'I hope my computer is okay.'

"In retrospect, he never should have started praying. Bargains with gods always seemed to start with random comments like this..."

And so begins the adventure of a 16 year old nerd, Witherferd Fehlter Hardling III, a normal kid from a small town in the Midwest, USA. Witherferd gets caught up in events far outside the confining boundaries of his undimensional daily existence. Since they involve beautiful naked godesses and strange multi-dimenional beings, the illustrations were great fun to work on.

Although the novel is meant to be funny, the illustrations tried to be as rich and epic as possible. I worked with illustrators from Hong Kong, Brazil, Canada, Sweden and the USA. When the eBook company that was to market the novel went bust, the project stopped. Feel free to read more about this on my Writings page.

If you want to read the first few chapters, see The Power of 10 - Chapter One.

If you'd like to read about storyboarding, etc., see The Power of 10 - Contents.

Dreamless image
Dreamless

The eBook starts like this:

"Brittle plastic splinters across the floor like radiation from a blackmarket electromag generator..."

A first person, present tense political sci-fi thriller, this is only story I never did any illustrations for, although the storyline was mine. It's based on a half-finished rock opera, Dreamless. Most of the music found its way into Audiocracy's album Revolution's Son, so all was not lost.

If you want to read the first few chapters, see Dreamless - Chapter One. If you'd like to help finish either of these incomplete stories, work on them in any way, contact me. Both stories would make great reads, regardless of illustrations. Maybe I will finish them someday.

Video Gaming Art
The New Worlds of Xianu Override
The New Worlds of Xianu Override

From 1998-2002 Ambrosia Software had a great game called EVO, with an open source plugin concept, Override, that enabled subcontractors to build overlays onto the game engine. The ArtsForge team came up with a cool intergalactic concept, Xianu Override, including a whole new story. Here are some links to the artwork:

Fractals
Fractal Image

Fractals are curves or geometric figures, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole. Because they appear similar at all levels of magnification, fractals are often considered to be infinitely complex (in informal terms). Natural objects that approximate fractals to a degree include clouds, mountain ranges, lightning bolts, coastlines and snow flakes.

Fractals are useful in modeling structures such as eroded coastlines or clouds in which similar patterns recur at progressively smaller scales and in describing partly random or chaotic phenomena such as crystal growth, fluid turbulence and galaxy formation. View some of the early fractals we worked on at ArtsForge here: The Fractal Gallery

Collaborations
Discovering the Heavens

The first art collaboration we did at ArtsForge began with the black and white 6th Century woodcut, Discovering the Heavens. Artsforge collaborators then come up with colorizations and other variations of the famous image. Some of the results were very interesting. Many people used a previous contributors' work to create further variations to the series - like mirrors within mirrors. It was our first viral visual project and helped propel Artsforge to receive over 30,000 visitors a day back in 1999.

If you want to add to the collection, go here to join in.

Dancers

Dancers, my first collaboration with Martin Murphy, was one of many early works that came out of beta testing Bryce 3D digital modeling products. Martin's best Bryce-based work, by the way, is Autumn Flirts With Winter. Check it out.

Awards and Honors

Top Ten Digital Artists Award winner, 1999 highest vote getter.
Bryce Forum Select Gallery Award Winner 1998-1999.
DigiFad 10 Ten Award, 2000.
Digital Paint Award, 1999.


Web Design Awards:
Mind Tour Award of Excellence, 2000.
Visionary Award, 2000.
Webdancer's Pick, 1999.
Digital Waterfall's "Spotlight Award", October 1999.
"Best of the Best" Softwind Design Award, 1998.
"Killer Site Award", 1999.
Digital Artworks Award, 1999.
The Art & Ramble Award, 1999.
The Information Revolution Award, 1999.