Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Mark A. Nelson

Mark A. Nelson is a prolific artist, primarily of fantasy subjects, who has drawn widely for comics, illustrated role-playing games and worked for computer games (Raven Software, where he was senior artist in 1998-2004, Big Rooster, Emergence Games, Sega Games).

Nelson was born on 28 November in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and was educated at Moorehead State College, at Cleveland Institute of Art and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He later worked as a professor of art at Northern Illinois University for over twenty years.

His comic strip credits have included Starslayer (First, 1985), Aliens (Dark Horse, 1988-89), Feud (Marvel/Epic, 1993) written by Mike Baron and Blood and Shadows (DC, 1996), written by Joe R. Lansdale. His work has also appeared in Graphic Classics from Eureka Productions, and he has also contributed to IDW Comics, Eclipse Comics (Airboy), Now Comics, Kitchen Sink Comics and Just Imagine Comics.

His illustrations have been published by Hero Illustrated, Subterranean Press, Cemetery Dance Publications, Borderlands Press, Roadkill Press, Ziesing Books, Journal Wired, Byron Priess, Sight and Sound Books, Worldbook-Childcraft, David C. Cook and Fantasy Newsletter.

Nelson has had a long association with the role-playing games industry and has produced illustrations for many Dungeons and Dragons books and Dragon magazine.since the mid-1980s. He had also produced artwork for games including Villains and Vigilantes (Fantasy Games Unlimited), Earthdawn and Shadowrun (FASA) and Orpheus (White Wolf). He also produced illustrations for the collectable card game Magic: The Gathering.

He has published two collections of artwork: From Pencils To Inks: The Art of Mark A. Nelson (2004) and Strange Thoughts and Random Images (2008).

Nelson nowadays works as a conceptual artist creating digital skins and textures for computer games. He was the lead instructor of the Animation Department of Madison Area Technical College in Madison, Wisconsin.

He now lives in Missouri City, Texas, with his wife, artist Anita C. Nelson. They jointly run Grazing Dinosaur Press.

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