Ray Dillon - ProfilesArchive

About Me

Ray Dillon - Artist and Writer in comics, film, and children's literature. President of Golden Goat Studios, Inc. "The Complete Package Entertainment Studio" as we like to call it.
About me: For the past 5 years I've been working as a full-time freelance penciller, inker, colorist, letterer, and designer in comic books. In that same time, I've worked quite a bit in all areas of filmmaking locally and in Los Angeles. As a writer, I'm working my way into the world of children's literature (currently working on my 4th novel). I dabble a bit in music, photography, and just about anything else I can get my hands into.

I stay in my cave pretty much 24/7. When I'm not doing something creative, I'm weightlifting, bike riding, or doing some general exercise and eating healthy. Oh, and reading and watching movies, of course (audio books while I work). Love music (like everyone). Play a bit of piano, sing, teensy bit of digital composition. I've managed to do a decent amount of travelling, too, from NYC to LA and just about everywhere inbetween in a pretty straight line. That's fun and important to me. Can't wait to get overseas, too.
About my art: Normally, I work entirely digitally with a Wacom tablet and Photoshop 7. No mess, reoccuring expenses (paper, ink, brushes, etc), no scanning, plus I move much quicker and get better results, AND it still feels natural. I recommend it to everyone! Best tool ever. For my sketch cards it varies from pencil, to ink, and, for the painted-style cards, I use markers and opaque white paint.
- What's that? You haven't had enough of me? Here's a buncha sites with more junk about ME!
Website: www.RayDillon.com
Blog: "There are Worlds to be Created"
IMDB listing: Click here.
Forums: Click here.
Company site: Golden Goat Studios
GGS Webcomics: GLIMMER : MONKEYBOY : NIGHTMARE WORLD
Kansas Creators MySpace Group - For professional and aspiring creators of entertainment art, writing, comics, novels, film, music, and more.
Current Projects:
. Rogue Angel inker and colorist (IDW Publishing)
. DC Legacy sketch cards (DC Comics/Rittenhouse)
. Marvel Masterpieces sketch cards (Upperdeck)
. Marvel Heroes: The Complete Avengers sketch cards (Marvel, Rittenhouse)
. Lord of the Rings: Masterpieces sketch cards (New Line Cinema, Topps)
. Wizard of Oz sketch cards (Breygent, Warner Bros.)
. Noble Causes #25 - Lettering, Design (Image)
. Fear Agent - Back-up colors (Image)
. Perhapanauts - Pinup colors (Dark Horse)
. Graphic Novel for film professor - full-illustration
. Demeter GN - Colors and letters (Lerner Publishing)
* Click to read the full story! *
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* Click to read the full story! *
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Click for info
* Click to read the full story! * Click to read the full story.
Story: John Robert Johnson. Art: Ray Dillon.
Let us know what you think!

My Interests

Comic books, children's literature, novels, movies, music, fitness, travel.

I'd like to meet:

Der ... um ... interesting people?

Music:

Harry Connick, Jr.

Eminem
Frank Sinatra

Bing Crosby

Fiona Apple

Incubus

My Chemical Romance

Ray Charles

Jason Mraz

Evanescence

Gavin Degraw

Gorillaz

Wu-Tang

Tenacious D

Johnny Cash

Kanye West

Beatles

Godhead

Paul Simon

Willie Nelson

Weezer

The Marcels

Ben E. King

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Bjork

James Blunt

Movies:

300
King Films: Stand By Me, It, Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption, Storm of the Century...
The Chronicles of Narnia - Grew up on the old BBC versions and the new one was great, too!
M. Night Shyamalan films: (Sixth Sense, Signs, Unbreakable, The Village)
Spielberg films: (E.T., A.I., Hook, Indiana Jones, War of the Worlds, Twilight Zone movie, Minority Report, well, you know. It's Stephen Spielberg)
Hitchcock films: (Rear Window, Psycho, North by Northwest, you know the list. And the TV shows.)
Disney Movies - The Lion King is the favorite of them, but I love 'em all! Bambi was the first movie I watched ever.
Comic Book Movies - From X-Men, to Men in Black, and Road to Perdition to A History of Violence. Some of the best movies out there come from comics.
Lord of the Rings - I'm doin' the sketch cards!! GAH!
Shaun of the Dead
Incredibles
Gangs of New York
The Last Samurai
The Never-Ending Story
A Beautiful Mind
8 Mile
Se7en
12 Monkeys
The Goonies
The Secret of NIMH
Cinderella Man
Flatliners
Harry Potter
White Oleander
Frailty
Peter Jackson's King Kong
Batman Begins
Walk the Line
Brokeback Mountain

Television:

Strange Days at Blake Holsey High - Great series on Discovery Kids

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Twilight Zone - new and old

Learning stuff - Science, Discovery, and History Channels

PBS - Kid's stuff, Bob Ross, painting, piano guy

Surface

Breaking Bonaduce

Kid's Cartoons

Adult Swim

Happy Tree Friends & Friends

Oprah

Survivorman

Books:

Cormac Mcarthy - No Country for Old Men, The Road
Joe Hill - (Stephen King's Son) 20th Century Ghosts, Heart-Shaped Box, Locke and Key
Stephen King - definitely one of my biggest influences. Love his Dark Tower series. Love the face he puts on evil. Love the characters he brings to life and the way he expresses nostalgia.
Alan Moore - Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell, and pretty much anything by Alan Moore) is definitely one of the best books I've read. Figured it would be a good "comic book," ya know? But it turned out to be fantastic literature.
The Chronicles of Narnia - by C. S. Lewis. Childhood favorite. HUGE influence on me.
The Spiderwick Chronicles - by Holly Black & Tony Diterlizzi.
The Lord of the Rings - by JRR Tolkein. Classic. Read the series in high school and loved it. Read 'em again before the movies. And I'm doin' the sketch cards. ;o)
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes - 22-years old (or so) and already 7 quality novels published. Works in the realm of vampire and fantasy lore. Unique.
Fahrenheit 451 - by Ray Bradbury. High school favorite. Loved the symbolism and vision behind it.
The Catcher in the Rye - by J. D. Salinger. The quality of book I'm aspiring for.
Metamorphosis - by Franz Kafka. Horror in disguise.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - by Douglas Adams
Neil Gaiman - Curently reading "Neverwhere." Just getting into his prose work, but I'm likin' it.
The Voice of the Night - By Dean Koontz. Compelling and intense.
R. L. Stine - Inspiring and scaring kids for generations.
Mark Twain - His stories have always been favorites of mine and, now that I'm older, I'm appreciating them more and more.
Digital Webbing Presents - THE best anthology in comics right now.
Noble Causes - I wouldn't still be working on this if it wasn't great.
Nightmare World - Yay! It's now in print! Get the collections!
Capote in Kansas - by Ande Park. Available on Amazon.

Heroes:

Deborah Sue Dillon-Tesch
My big sis. I am who I am today in large part because of her. I'm an artist because she was an artist. I work so hard because I watched her work hard. She was always such a good person and I've tried to live up to that. She took care of me and gave me a safe place when no one else would. I owe so much to her. Love you, Debbie!
Dale Alvin Dillon
Me pappy. ;o)
My father is the only hero I need. He's been through childhood poverty (the kinda poor that's hard to know these days), Vietnam, 50+ years of manual labor, nearly losing my mom and his own life (probably not the first time), and all kinds of stuff that I don't even know about, I'm sure. Now that he's retired and in his mid-sixties, he still gets up every morning at 3am to deliver the local paper, regardless of the weather, walking several miles. When he's done with that, he makes his way back home and fixes breakfast for my mom. Every morning.
He's done more things, read more books, and been more places than I can even imagine.
He's got the best sense of humor and kindest nature of anyone I've ever known.
He's led by example in teaching me to be a man, and I'm still learning from him every day. he's stuck by our family no matter what has happened. No matter how bad things got I never once felt like he wasn't there for us.
I've got a long way to go before I can fill his shoes, but being his namesake means the world to me.
Aw ... me pappy. ;o)

My Blog

Vintage Movie Poster cards!

This is a new set from Breygent, the company that did the Wizard of Oz cards we worked on. Now, we're recreating old movie posters on 3.5" x 5" cards for such classics as "Creature from the Black Lago...
Posted by Ray Dillon on Wed, 22 Nov 2006 03:04:00 PST

Marvel: Avengers & Lord of the Rings: Masterpieces cards!

It has been quite a while since my last blog. Four+ months, actually. I don't have time to get everything caught up, but here goes: . San Diego was awesome! Sat at the Upperdeck booth, sketched and si...
Posted by Ray Dillon on Wed, 22 Nov 2006 03:15:00 PST

[Art] New Sketchbook! - Hulk, Batman, Green Lantern, Captain America...

Hi, all!!Got a new sketchbook, which is always a blast, and had the urge to draw. I think I'll try keeping up with the scanning on this one, so I don't have to do it all at once (like the still to com...
Posted by Ray Dillon on Fri, 31 Mar 2006 03:21:00 PST

Published! - My first prose short story.

Hey, all-Most of you know me as an artist, but, if ya didn't know, I also write.Wanted to let you know that my first prose short story has been published by the online literary magazine, Angel Atrophy...
Posted by Ray Dillon on Fri, 31 Mar 2006 09:50:00 PST

[Art] Batman Cinematic!

Hey, all!Got an extension on one of the projects that has been kicking my butt, so I decided to take some time to relax and just draw for fun today. Kinda give me a restart for tomorrow morning (and t...
Posted by Ray Dillon on Wed, 29 Mar 2006 01:04:00 PST

[Art] Illustration Friday - "Monster."

*Click for Larger*Just a quick digitally painted sketch for the latest Illustration Friday; prompt of "Monster."Anyone who takes their anger out on a child, physically or verbally, is a monster.Listen...
Posted by Ray Dillon on Sun, 26 Mar 2006 12:22:00 PST

WIZARD OF OZ sketch cards!!

Yippee!! My newest project (the one I've been hinting at) is Wizard of Oz sketch cards for Breygent and Warner Bros. And I'm psyched!I'm hard at work on 'em, as there's very little time left to get th...
Posted by Ray Dillon on Fri, 24 Mar 2006 10:51:00 PST

My full LORD OF THE RINGS Gallery!

Hey, all! My entire gallery of 306 sketch cards is now up on the LOTR Sketch Cards Website. Just look down the list of artists on the left and click my name. I'm about the 10th person from the top....
Posted by Ray Dillon on Mon, 20 Feb 2006 01:44:00 PST

[Art] Illustration Friday - "Song..."

Two posts in one day?!? Ohmigoodnesh!! ;o) Today is Sunday and I've been workin' like a dog for the last several weeks, so I decided to take a little time to re-energize. Plus, I've really been...
Posted by Ray Dillon on Mon, 20 Feb 2006 01:40:00 PST

Some recent art...

Totally haven't been keeping up with this blog. But I have been keeping up with my regular blog: http://raydillon.blogspot.com As always, this stuff is done entirely in Photoshop 7 with a Wacom tab...
Posted by Ray Dillon on Wed, 01 Feb 2006 04:33:00 PST