"As early as I can remember, I would just lie on the floor and draw pictures. It was always a relaxing, meditative activity."
From living room floor beginnings, sketching out spaceships and battle scenes, CG artist Jonathan Rollins has graduated to creating similar works for much larger audiences - including his work for the stories in this issue, and illustrations for Jim Baen's Universe.
Lots of kids start out drawing pictures; far fewer carry the child's dream over into practical adulthood. When Rollins saw the work of Arthur Adams in issues of Marvel's X-Men and New Mutants comics series, he knew he had found his chosen path - unsurprisingly, perhaps, as visual talents run in the Rollins family.
"My oldest brother was my biggest influence," Rollins says. "He wasn't a professional artist, but he could draw really well, and it inspired me to try." As his work progressed, he became interested in the book cover and magazine work of Michael Whelan, Michael Parkes, Frank Frazetta, H.R. Giger, John Harris; and, more recently, Stephan Martiniere, John Foster, and James Jean. Rollins took compositional elements, line styles, flourishes and detail from these varied influences and adapted them to his own palette.
"I use a number of different 3-D applications: Photoshop, Vue, Lightwave, and Poser are the main ones I work with," Rollins says. "No matter what though, I always start with some sketches to flesh my ideas out. Even though almost all the art I do now is digital, my favorite medium is still pencil and paper. There's something about the simplicity of sitting down with these basic things and creating a world that amazes me."
