Keith Parkinson
Encyclopedia
Keith Parkinson was an American fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

 and illustrator
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...

 known for book cover and game artwork for games such as EverQuest
EverQuest
EverQuest, often shortened to EQ, is a 3D fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game that was released on the 16th of March, 1999. The original design is credited to Brad McQuaid, Steve Clover, and Bill Trost...

, Guardians
Guardians (card game)
Guardians is a collectible card game created by Keith Parkinson and Luke Peterschmidt, published by Friedlander Publishing Group between 1995 and 1996.-Artwork:Guardians was most renowned for the quality of its artwork. Artists include:...

, Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering , also known as Magic, is the first collectible trading card game created by mathematics professor Richard Garfield and introduced in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast. Magic continues to thrive, with approximately twelve million players as of 2011...

and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is a high fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game created by Sigil Games Online, and now developed and run by Sony Online Entertainment. Originally, the game was co-published by Sony Online Entertainment , and the company producing it, Sigil Games...

.

Early life

Keith Parkinson was born in West Covina, California
West Covina, California
West Covina is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. Located some east of Downtown Los Angeles in the eastern San Gabriel Valley, it is a mostly middle class suburb of Los Angeles...

, although with his father doing corporate work for GMAC, the family moved to San Diego, New York, Miami, and Lansing, Michigan during his childhood. Parkinson took an interest in science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 from an early age, combining this with artistic interests, "As a kid, I was in love with spaceships
Spacecraft
A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....

. I collected posters and did lots of spaceship drawings." However, by age twelve, he became more interested in music than art, "I got involved with a rock & roll band in high school, and played semi-professionally all the way through high school and into college. For several years, my band toured on weekends. We were into heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

, and played stuff by Blue Öyster Cult
Blue Öyster Cult
Blue Öyster Cult, often abbreviated BÖC, is an American rock band, most of whose members first came together in Long Island, NY in 1967 as the band Soft White Underbelly...

, Rush
Rush (band)
Rush is a Canadian rock band formed in August 1968, in the Willowdale neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario. The band is composed of bassist, keyboardist, and lead vocalist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer and lyricist Neil Peart...

, Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...

, and other heavy metal monster groups." At one gig, Parkinson met his future wife, Mary, who later became the Dragon
Dragon (magazine)
Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, the other being Dungeon. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The...

Magazine Advertising Coordinator, and they had a son, Nicholas.

Parkinson identified Frank Frazetta
Frank Frazetta
Frank Frazetta was an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for work in comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers and other media...

 and Roger Dean as the artists who would most heavily influence his own fantasy work. Parkinson graduated from Kendall College of Art and Design
Kendall College of Art and Design
Kendall College of Art and Design, of Ferris State University, is a college of the visual arts in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States...

 in 1980. His first job was with a company called Advertising Posters, where he worked on the artwork for pinball
Pinball
Pinball is a type of arcade game, usually coin-operated, where a player attempts to score points by manipulating one or more metal balls on a playfield inside a glass-covered case called a pinball machine. The primary objective of the game is to score as many points as possible...

 games and many early arcade game
Arcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...

s, including Tron
Tron (arcade game)
Tron is a coin-operated arcade video game manufactured and distributed by Bally Midway in 1982. It is based on the Walt Disney Productions motion picture Tron released in the same year. The game consists of four subgames inspired by the events of the science fiction film. It features some...

and Krull
Krull (video game)
Krull is a video game based on the film of the same name. The first Krull adaptation was a 1983 arcade game manufactured by D. Gottlieb & Co.. A home adaptation similar to the arcade version was planned for the Atari 5200, but poor sales of that console prompted the decision to release the game...

. "One of the guys in the camera room was a D&D
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...

 player, and got me into the game. The first night I played a ranger
Ranger (Dungeons & Dragons)
The ranger is one of the standard playable character class in most editions of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. They are protectors of nature, skilled woodsmen, and often live reclusive lives as hermits....

 in B1, Keep on the Borderlands
The Keep on the Borderlands
The Keep on the Borderlands is a Dungeons & Dragons module by Gary Gygax, first printed in December 1979. In it, player characters are based at a keep and investigate a nearby series of caves that are filled with a variety of monsters. Designed to be used with the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, it...

, and I was hooked. We played every week." In November 1982, he went to work at TSR, Inc.
TSR, Inc.
Blume and Gygax, the remaining owners, incorporated a new company called TSR Hobbies, Inc., with Blume and his father, Melvin Blume, owning the larger share. The former assets of the partnership were transferred to TSR Hobbies, Inc....

, "I didn’t like a lot of the art I saw on D&D game products, and the company was in Lake Geneva
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
Lake Geneva is a city in Walworth County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 7,148 at the 2000 census. A resort city located on Geneva Lake, it is southwest of Milwaukee and popular with tourists from metropolitan Chicago and Milwaukee.-History:...

, just over the border, so I drove up one day to see if I could do some freelance work. Elmore
Larry Elmore
Larry Elmore is an American fantasy artist whose work includes creating illustrations for video games, comics, magazines and fantasy books. His list of work includes illustrations for Dungeons & Dragons, Dragonlance, and the comic strip series SnarfQuest...

, Jeff Easley
Jeff Easley
Jeff Easley is an oil painter who creates fantasy artwork in the tradition of Frank Frazetta.-Early life:...

, and Tim Truman had all just joined the company, and the art they were working on was fantastic. It really blew my mind. Jim Roslof
Jim Roslof
James Paul "Jim" Roslof was an American artist and graphic designer particularly well known for cover art and interior illustrations of fantasy role-playing games published by TSR, Inc. during the "golden age" of Dungeons & Dragons...

, who was the Art Director, hinted that I could join the staff full-time, but I missed the hint. A few days later, I called him about a job, and he had just hired somebody else the day before, but he'd keep me in mind. The next day, he called back, and had an opening.” He worked on projects including book covers, game boxes, magazines and calendars. Among his book covers are such titles as Dragonlance
Dragonlance
Dragonlance is a shared universe created by Laura and Tracy Hickman, and expanded by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis under the direction of TSR, Inc. into a series of popular fantasy novels. The Hickmans conceived Dragonlance while driving in their car on the way to TSR for a job application...

, Forgotten Realms
Forgotten Realms
The Forgotten Realms is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Commonly referred to by players and game designers alike as "The Realms", it was created by game designer Ed Greenwood around 1967 as a setting for his childhood stories...

and Gamma World
Gamma World
Gamma World is a science fantasy role-playing game, originally designed by James M. Ward and Gary Jaquet, and first published by TSR in 1978. It borrowed heavily from James M. Ward's earlier product, Metamorphosis Alpha.-Setting:...

.

After five years of working at TSR, Parkinson left and pursued a freelance career for seven years. During this time, most of Parkinson's work was painting covers for the New York publishing market. His clients included Bantam Books, Palladium Books, Penguin Books, and Random House. Best-selling authors that he painted covers for include Terry Goodkind
Terry Goodkind
Terry Goodkind is an American writer and author of the epic fantasy The Sword of Truth series as well as the contemporary suspense novel The Law of Nines, which has ties to his fantasy series, and The Omen Machine, which is a direct sequel thereof. Before his success as an author Goodkind worked...

, Margaret Weis
Margaret Weis
Margaret Edith Weis is a fantasy novelist who, along with Tracy Hickman, is one of the original creators of the Dragonlance game world and has written numerous novels and short stories set in fantastic worlds.-Early life:Margaret Weis was born in 1948 in Independence, Missouri, and later attended...

 and Tracy Hickman
Tracy Hickman
Tracy Raye Hickman is a best-selling fantasy author, best known for his work on Dragonlance as a game designer and co-author with Margaret Weis, while he worked for TSR...

, and Terry Brooks
Terry Brooks
Terence Dean "Terry" Brooks is an American writer of fantasy fiction. He writes mainly epic fantasy, and has also written two movie novelizations. He has written 23 New York Times bestsellers during his writing career, and has over 21 million copies of his books in print...

 to name a few.

Game work

In 1995, Parkinson's first attempt at game design, Guardians
Guardians (card game)
Guardians is a collectible card game created by Keith Parkinson and Luke Peterschmidt, published by Friedlander Publishing Group between 1995 and 1996.-Artwork:Guardians was most renowned for the quality of its artwork. Artists include:...

, was published by FPG. Many other artists worked with him on the project. FPG also published Keith's first book, titled Knightsbridge: The Art of Keith Parkinson. He also published two other books containing his artwork in and around 2004: a sketchbook, Spellbound, and a second full-color artbook titled King's Gate. Other works from this time include a set of art trading cards, and a screensaver produced by Second Nature Software.

In 2000, Parkinson devoted more of his time to writing and shifted his commercial art focus to the game industry. He produced art for THQ
THQ
THQ Inc. is an American developer and publisher of video games. Founded in 1989 in the United States, the company develops products for video game consoles, handheld game systems, as well as for personal computers and wireless devices...

's Summoner, and painted the well-known artwork for the original EverQuest
EverQuest
EverQuest, often shortened to EQ, is a 3D fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game that was released on the 16th of March, 1999. The original design is credited to Brad McQuaid, Steve Clover, and Bill Trost...

, as well as its first three expansion packs. In painting the box art, he also created Firiona Vie, who has adorned the cover of every expansion since. During this time, he became a close friend of Brad McQuaid
Brad McQuaid
Brad McQuaid is an American computer game designer who was the key designer of EverQuest, a highly successful massively multiplayer online role-playing game released in 1999...

.

In 2002, Parkinson was nominated for an ASFA Chesley Award, for Best Product Illustration, for his work on Shadows of Luclin.

Through his friendship and reputation with EverQuest designers Brad McQuaid and Jeff Butler, Parkinson was hired as the art director and a co-founder at Sigil Games Online. He worked there on the MMORPG
MMORPG
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....

 Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is a high fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game created by Sigil Games Online, and now developed and run by Sony Online Entertainment. Originally, the game was co-published by Sony Online Entertainment , and the company producing it, Sigil Games...

until the time of his death in late 2005.

Death and tributes

After a long battle with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia
Acute myeloid leukemia
Acute myeloid leukemia , also known as acute myelogenous leukemia, is a cancer of the myeloid line of blood cells, characterized by the rapid growth of abnormal white blood cells that accumulate in the bone marrow and interfere with the production of normal blood cells. AML is the most common acute...

 (AML), Keith Parkinson died on 26 October 2005. He is survived by his wife, Donna, and sons Nick and Zach. Parkinson was described by his friends and coworkers (and in the eulogy by Brad McQuaid
Brad McQuaid
Brad McQuaid is an American computer game designer who was the key designer of EverQuest, a highly successful massively multiplayer online role-playing game released in 1999...

) as having had a true passion for his work, as well as a friendly and positive demeanor until the end. A small graveside funeral was led at Mission San Luis Rey de Francia
Mission San Luis Rey de Francia
Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, also known as Mission San Luis Rey or San Luis Rey Mission Church, was founded on June 13, 1798 in coastal Las Californias, in the present day U.S. city of Oceanside in California. The local Quechnajuichom Native American tribe became known as the Luiseño 'Mission...

 by Vicar David Smith of Faith Lutheran Church in Vista, California.

Although Parkinson fell ill before he could create the box art for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, he did paint the game's three 'mascot' characters: Jeric, Eila, and Idara. At the 2006 E3 Expo, the Vanguard: Saga of Heroes box art was revealed. According to Brad McQuaid, when Keith knew he would not be able to finish the box art for Vanguard, it was his wish for Donato Giancola
Donato Giancola
Donato Giancola is an American artist specializing in science fiction and fantasy illustration.-Biography:Donato Giancola was born in 1967 and raised in Colchester, Vermont, near Burlington, Vermont...

, a friend of his, to paint the box art in his place. The left part of Donato's painting was painted to emulate Parkinson's personal style as a tribute to him. As the painting goes to the right (the left is used for the box art, similar to EverQuest), it transitions into Giancola's style. As a further tribute to Keith Parkinson, Giancola painted a character resembling him into the painting.

An art expo, called "The Masters of Fantasy Art — A Tribute to Keith Parkinson" went on tour from February–July 2007. Laura Naviaux, Senior Brand Manager for Sony Online Entertainment
Sony Online Entertainment
Sony Online Entertainment is a game development and game publishing division of Sony that is best known for creating massively multiplayer online games, including EverQuest, EverQuest II, The Matrix Online, PlanetSide, Star Wars Galaxies, Free Realms, and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, DC Universe...

, explained: "Our goal for 'The Masters of Fantasy Art' tour is to highlight the artistry that is integral to the creation of video games, as well as the influences of classical art on the industry as a whole. By showcasing Keith Parkinson's work on the new Vanguard: Saga of Heroes online videogame and joining up with The Art Institute, we hope to raise the public's awareness of computer and graphical arts as a discipline."

In August and September 2008, Parkinson's alma mater Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University honored him and TSR contemporaries Larry Elmore
Larry Elmore
Larry Elmore is an American fantasy artist whose work includes creating illustrations for video games, comics, magazines and fantasy books. His list of work includes illustrations for Dungeons & Dragons, Dragonlance, and the comic strip series SnarfQuest...

 and Jeff Easley
Jeff Easley
Jeff Easley is an oil painter who creates fantasy artwork in the tradition of Frank Frazetta.-Early life:...

 with a gallery exhibit called "Out of the Dungeons". Director of exhibitions Sarah Joseph said, "We wanted to honor Parkinson... It seemed fitting to include Elmore and Easley, since all three of them worked together for a number of years."

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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