header 1
header 2
header 3

In Memoriam

Keith Parkinson - Class Of 1976 VIEW PROFILE

Keith Parkinson

Keith Parkinson class of 1976, was born on October 22, 1958, in West Covina, California. He attended elementary school at Weinberger School, San Diego, and graduated from Okemos High School, Lansing, Michigan. From a very young age, Keith had an interest in the arts. His take on what exactly constituted “art” was a little different from the definitions of most, though. Inspired by the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, he started painting sweeping landscapes occupied by fearsome monsters during high school. He quickly developed an affinity for his new hobby, and was soon splitting his time between painting and playing drums in a rock band.

Citing a desire for a more stable career as a freelance fantasy artist, Keith eventually abandoned his dreams of rock stardom and left his band to go to art school. Upon graduating from Kendall School of Design in 1980, Keith took a staff artist position at a company called Advertising Posters. Contrary to the way it sounds, the company had nothing to do with advertising or posters, and they may or may not have been owned by the mob. They were silk screen printers that printed and generated all of the art for the pinball, and blossoming arcade video industry. Keith had a direct hand in the artwork of many of the most popular games that mark the beginning of the video game industry.

After working with Advertising Posters, Keith took a job at a company called TSR; the publishers of the popular Dungeons & Dragons role playing game. During a five year stint as a TSR staff artist he contributed to a wide variety of projects. These range from book and magazine covers to calendars to game boxes and modules. Various titles include Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Gamma World and Amazing Stories. With the help of his realistic, yet fantastic style that blended a wry humor with subtle optimism, they all became best sellers. It was during his time at TSR that his first son, Nick, was born.

After TSR, Keith decided it was time to move on to a freelance career. Just before uprooting from his Wisconsin home and moving to rural Pennsylvania, Zachary, his second son was born. The next seven years were spent primarily doing book covers for the New York publishing market. Clients include Random House, Bantam and Penguin Books. Covers for best selling authors include Terry Goodkind, David Eddings, Anne McCaffrey, Orson Scott Card, and Terry Brooks. Keith received many accolades and awards during this period from fans and his peers alike.

In 1995, Keith created a collectable card game called Guardians — his first foray into game design. It was a new experience for him but despite that, many of the top artists in the fantasy art field contributed to the game by illustrating Keith’s characters. While short-lived, Guardians was successful in great part due to the fantastic artwork and Keith’s unique brand of humor. During this time, he also released his first art book entitled “Knightsbridge: The Art of Keith Parkinson.” It has long since completely sold out.

In 2000, Keith began devoting more time to writing and moved the focus of his commercial artwork into the software industry, producing art for the hugely popular EverQuest online game by Sony Online Entertainment, and THQ’s Summoner. He also painted an EverQuest piece that appeared on the cover of TV GUIDE magazine.

In April of 2002, Keith was eager for a change in scenery and moved to San Diego to — along with several EverQuest colleagues — found Sigil Games Online, Inc. Among his many responsibilities as Art Director for Sigil Games Online, Keith created and maintained the overall style of the game, contribute to in-house concept art, in-game art, posters, promotional material, and more.

During his life, Keith traveled the world many times over. He explored castles across Europe, camped in the deserts of Kenya and wandered the busy streets of Hong Kong but his favorite place to be was always at home surrounded by friends, family, and of course, lots of paint.

After a lengthy struggle with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML), Keith passed away on October 26, 2005. He was 47 years old. He was an inspiration to everyone that knew him and he will be greatly missed..

Our thanks to Michael Place class of 1978 for notification: "A Drummer of my favorite HS Band "Oblivion", a great artist, writer and a lost friend. Below is a link to his website with his art, which I believe is still managed by his wife Donna. It says more than I could possibly say." https://www.keithparkinson.com/about/

https://www.everquest.com/news/imported-eq-enus-50033

Oct 28, 2005 - Keith Parkinson: October 22, 1958 - October 26, 2005

It is with deep sorrow that we inform our EverQuest community of the passing of Keith Parkinson, an extraordinary artist who gave the life-breath to Firiona Vie, he's recognized the world over, and created many of our classic EverQuest box art designs and posters.

Keith is best known for the cover art he created for many of the books in the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms series published by TSR, along with numerous other covers for best-selling authors such as Terry Brooks, Anne McCaffrey and Orson Scott Card.

After Keith handed the EverQuest artistic reigns to another, he accepted the position of art director with Sigil Games Online, thus furthering the excellence of art for our entire industry.

To Keith's family, our friends at Sigil, and all those who've had the honor to know him, our hearts are with you.

https://blackgate.com/2011/02/02/art-evolution-20-keith-parkinson-1958-2005/

Wednesday, February 2, 2011 by Scott Taylor  ART EVOLUTION 20: KEITH PARKINSON [1958-2005]

Art Evolution turns twenty, and in so doing fades from this prestigious stage provided by Black Gate, but as the name contends, art is ever changing, and so I will never say never where the process and these articles are concerned. Still, if you’ve missed any of these wonderful works, the journey’s beginning can be found here.

After the addition of last week’s ‘Demented Lyssa’, I’ll take a step back to the place where the true power of this article first struck me.


dragon-mag-106-254In late 2009 I’d just signed Larry Elmore and Wayne Reynolds, my spirits flying high as I spent my nights searching the web for artwork that might also apply to art evolution. It was during this process that a distinct sorrow assailed me in regards to the passing of Keith Parkinson.

To me, Keith represented my youth, so many of his images galvanized in my mind along the way it was difficult to think of this article without him. For the first time I regarded this journey as a thing not involving me, but instead the artists, and the lives they’d touched along the way.

Having heard so much about Keith from his fellows, I couldn’t help but feel that it would be selfish not to include him in the article because he couldn’t do a rendition of Lyssa. Lyssa was secondary to the art, after all, and the mission statement I now followed pushed for a thing greater than my ego.



gamma-world-3rd-edition-254Steeled with this epiphany, I went to a website dedicated to Keith and found a place where you could send an email. I had no idea where the email went, but I placed a note anyway saying that I was doing an article on RPG art and that I’d like to be able to say a few words concerning Keith because of his impact on his friends, peers, and the industry who loved him.

A few days later I got a message from Donna Parkinson, Keith’s widow, who stated that she’d spoken to Larry Elmore about this article and that she believed Keith would be very proud to be considered with the company I’d collected. She also asked what was required for inclusion.

At this point I was kind of overcome, and I’m sure my response was a bit jumbled as I ended up sending her the very same basic tenants I gave all the other artists: young female wizardress, black hair, who always wears white trimmed in gold.


rifts-1st-edition-254Months passed and as 2010 came my thoughts moved forward as more evolution artists came into the fold, but always in the back of my mind I thought about Keith and Donna and what might become of her questions concerning participation.

In February, I got a note from Donna that she and Nick, Keith’s eldest son, had found a piece Keith had done simply for himself, something extremely rare in the world of a professional full-time artist. As there was no other reason than the artist’s desire to create for this piece’s existence, it sat waiting until my requirement came in, and as I looked at it a feeling of profound fate swept over me.


zebulans-guilde-to-frontier-space-254There stood Lyssa, the young female wizardress with her black hair and garbed in white trimmed in gold. Somehow, five years after he’d left the company of his fellows, he rejoined them again for a final shared project. I remember crying when I saw it, thinking of pictures and stories concerning Keith’s smile, his love of life and friends, the stories of amazingly intricate joke plots against fellow pit artists, nights drinking and throwing darts, and the strong sense of camaraderie he felt with all those he worked with. Keith had done it, he’d found a way, as though he somehow knew, so that he could ride one last time in the light with those he called friends.

I wasn’t worthy of this, but I had to carry the torch nonetheless, the cause of Art Evolution now a kind of sacred tribute to the extended family that helped create this piece. However, I’m not the one to tell anyone about Keith as a person, and to that I’ll close this piece with something Timothy Truman, a fellow TSR pit alumni, wrote to me concerning Keith, something that I think gives another testament to a great artist and man.

“Keith’s desk was right beside mine. We were the tag team from hell. We were opposites in many ways: I was a country boy, Keith was from the city. I was grungy, Parkinson was clean-cut. I was really moody and reactive, ‘Keef’ was easy-going and even-tempered. I drew from my “gut” without much planning, Keith was very methodical and precise. I was a lefty-socialist, he was a conservative. I’m not a morning person, but Keith was always bright-eyed and ready to go when he’d get to work. Despite that, we became very close– he was one of the very best friends a guy could have. We shared an almost samurai-like devotion to the illustrator’s path. AND we shared a very bizarre, whacked out sense of humor! Whenever I’d get pissed off by some shenanigans that one of the TSR honchos pulled, Keith would laugh me out of it in 10 minutes. We were the Mutt and Jeff of the crew. Our families got very close. We spent tons of time together. Yep, I really miss the guy. I still catch myself wanting to call him up and see how things are going with him.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Parkinson

Keith A. Parkinson (October 22, 1958 – October 26, 2005) was an American fantasy artist and illustrator known for book covers and artwork for games such as EverQuest, Guardians, Magic: The Gathering, and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. After designing book and magazine covers for TSR, Parkinson moved into game design in the 1990s, and co-designed the collectible card game Guardians. Parkinson died of leukemia in 2005, just four days after his 47th birthday. (continues on Wikipedia)

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/fantasy-artist-keith-parkinson-an-interview-with-his-son-nick/

Published: Mar 1, 2007 by Dana Massey Legacy Author - Fantasy Artist Keith Parkinson: An Interview With His Son Nick

Every gamer and fan of fantasy certainly knows Keith Parkinson’s art. He was the man behind the original EverQuest’s iconic cover art, as well as a cover artist for fantasy authors like Margaret Weiss, Tracy Hickman and Terry Brooks. Parkinson later went on to become the Art Director for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.

It was then appropriate that in early February, Sigil Games dedicated their launch party to Keith’s work and that of his close friend Larry Elmore. Held in San Fransisco, the event marked the start of a cross-country tour to celebrate the two men’s work. At the party, their works lined the walls and showed the range of both men’s talents. It was surprising to see that so many iconic scenes could belong to one man.

In October of 2005, Keith lost his battle with Leukemia and was taken from his family much too soon. As the tour commemorating his work continues onto its second stop in the coming days, we were lucky enough to have his son Nick Parkinson – the Community Manager for Vanguard – to take the time and tell us about his father and his art.

WarCry Q&A: Keith Parkinson Art Interview
Answers by Nick Parkinson
Questions by Dana Massey
WarCry: You mentioned at the party in San Francisco that sometimes you commercial artwork is overlooked. Why do you feel this is?

Nick Parkinson: I think there’s a few reasons. For most people, I think it’s just because it’s everywhere. You pick up a book or a game at the mall and they have cool dragons and monsters on the cover. I think people appreciate it, but not a lot of thought goes in to who created it. Folks are more interested in the actual book or the game they’re there to buy – and that’s fine.

For a much smaller, but unfortunately sometimes much louder group of people, I think it’s more because it was not art done just for art’s sake and they think (incorrectly) the fact someone got paid for it somehow cheapens the art. The upside though is that time seems to wear those sentiments away. Nearly all of the classical masters did commissions for wealth patrons and now they’re critically loved. Even some modern commercial artists such as Norman Rockwell are now critically acclaimed.

The fantasy artwork genre is interesting though, in that solely for the fact that it is a sub-genre it is not mainstream, and therefore does not get mainstream recognition – but at the same time is also one of the most viewed and accessible forms of commercial art out there.

WarCry: Can you outline the contributions Keith made to Vanguard?

Nick Parkinson: Keith was one of the founding members of Sigil and served as our Art Director from the company’s inception to the time of his death in October 2005. During that time, he was responsible for the overall look of the game, and anything related to the game. That included contributing a great deal of concept art, being highly involved in the planning and creation of environmental, player character and NPC artwork and working with individual artists to help develop their skills, as well as a myriad of other things.

WarCry: His array of work is impressive. Do you happen to know which he was most proud of? What about you, is there any particular piece that carries a special weight?

Nick Parkinson: There were a few pieces he was particularly proud of but two in particular stood out as his personal favorites. First, The Druid’s Stone. It was a personal project of his that he put on the cover of his first art book. He got to paint a forest scene, a dragon and a woman – the three things he liked painting the most.

The second is called Chernevog. It was the cover to a C.J. Cherryh book of the same name. This is also one of my personal favorites of his. It’s just a powerful piece, the palette is subdued but strong and the piece invokes real emotion.

My other favorites of his are generally covers he did for some of the authors whose books I loved (David Eddings, Terry Goodkind, Terry Brooks).

WarCry: For artists, can you outline some of the techniques he used and the process he underwent to create new work?

Nick Parkinson: Before he started to paint anything he’d concept out the piece first. Typically he’d go through a few pages of rough thumbnails that he’d then narrow down to two or three. Once he had those selected, he’d do more detailed concept sketches of them and send them off to the publisher or whoever had commissioned the piece and they’d talk about it with him and then choose one.

Then he would decide what medium he wanted to use (typically oil on masonite) redraw the sketch that was chosen on there and get painting. People ask how long it took him to paint any particular piece a lot, and it really depends how big it was and what it was of. For something big like an EverQuest cover, that whole process could take up to a month. For book covers, sometimes only two weeks.

WarCry: How about his early career and path to Vanguard. Can you talk about what he did, how he got started and caught his first break?

Nick Parkinson: He technically got his start at a company in Chicago called Advertising Posters, who had nothing to do with either advertising or posters but instead created the artwork for backings of pinball machines and some of the earliest arcade games.

His big break came though when he was hired by TSR (creators of Dungeons & Dragons) in the early 1980s. He, along with Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley and Clyde Caldwell created nearly all of the art for Dungeons & Dragons and its related (Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, etc) products during the D&D heydays of the 1980s.

After leaving TSR to do freelance work, he moved on to doing primarily book covers. His works have appeared on the covers of books by Terry Goodkind (with whom he was good friends), David Eddings, Terry Brooks, Anne McCaffrey and Orson Scott Card to name a few.

Then, as video games – particularly PC games, started to become big, he started working more and more in that area, which ultimately led to him doing the EverQuest covers and the rest is history.

WarCry: What about video games drew him in?

Nick Parkinson: He recognized early on that the industry was very close to becoming massively popular, and when he got in, he had a lot more freedom to paint the kinds of things he wanted as a lot of guys making the games were the same guys who grew up fans of his D&D art.

WarCry: Your father is known for his fantasy art, but did he ever do work outside that genre?

Nick Parkinson: He did the occasional sci-fi piece but fantasy was his favorite and that’s usually where he stayed, though a lot of his later work (such as the covers to Terry Goodkind’s novels) focused more on epic landscapes.

WarCry: For you, you must have grown up around art. How did the influence your eventual path to game developer and what was it like for you to work at the same company as your father?

Nick Parkinson: I think it was kind of unavoidable that I’d end up in the field that I did. I grew up completely surrounded by it and have always loved not only just the feeling of creating something but the sense of camaraderie you get working with a team of guys who share your vision.

As for working with my father, we’d wanted to work together on something for a long time and while we had a few side projects that unfortunately were never able to come to fruition, Sigil was where we really had that chance. I’d seen him work my entire life, but actually getting to work with him for the few years that I was able to is an experience I wouldn’t trade for anything.

WarCry: Talk about the genesis of the art tour. How did it come to being and what does it mean to you?

Nick Parkinson: We’ve always felt that one of the things that set Vanguard apart from other games was Keith’s artistic style and influence. We want the game art to be reminiscent of an oil painting and what better way to show that then by putting them next to each other?

SOE originally approached us with the idea for the tour and wondered if we could send a couple paintings. We loved the idea and it grew from there.

The show means a lot to me. There’s so many art students out there who are interested specifically in this field and to be able to show at their schools… we know a lot of people are going to see the art, and I really hope it can have the same affect on some of them as it has on all of us here at Sigil.

WarCry: Can you outline the basics of the show, what it’s for and where it is headed?

Nick Parkinson: The show is called “The Masters of Fantasy Art – A Tribute to Keith Parkinson”. It kicked off with the opening party up in San Francisco. Not only were we able to display a lot of Keith’s work but we also had the fantastic Vanguard box cover done by Donato Giancola (who Keith wanted to do the cover, if he couldn’t) and several pieces by the legendary Larry Elmore, the current EverQuest box cover artist and long time friend of my father’s.

The show will stay in San Francisco through February and then we’ll be moving on to Las Vegas. The complete tour dates are:

February 2 – 26
The Art Institute of California – San Francisco
1170 Market St. (at U.N. Plaza)
San Francisco, CA 94102
888- 493-3261
http://www.artinstitutes.edu/sanfrancisco/
March 6- April 2
The Art Institute of Las Vegas
2350 Corporate Circle
Henderson, Nevada 89074-7737
702-369-9944
http://www.artinstitutes.edu/arlington/

April 9- April 27
The Art Institute of Washington
1820 North Fort Myer Dr.
Arlington, VA 22209-1802
877-303-3771
http://www.artinstitutes.edu/arlington/

May 8 – May 25
The Art Institute of New York City
11-17 Beach Street
New York, NY 10013
(in TriBeCa, near corner of Varick)
800.654.2433
http://www.artinstitutes.edu/newyork/

June 4 – July 31
The Art Institute of California – San Diego
7650 Mission Valley Road
San Diego, CA 92108
800-591-2422
http://www.artinstitutes.edu/sandiego/

And depending on how it goes, you may see another city or two added in there as well.

WarCry: Are there any plans for anything else based around your father’s work?

Nick Parkinson: There absolutely is. There’s a lot of art he’s done that’s kind of been hidden away for a long time, which is a shame — because this stuff was painted to be seen. We want to get it out there, and while it’s too early to give a lot of details we definitely want to at least put out a few more books.

Keith was an extremely talented artist with iconic works. The tour is well worth checking out if you’re in the area. You can also see more of Keith’s art on the official website.

A special thanks to Nick and to Sigil and SOE for putting this together and talking to us about it.

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?8808

Author Picture
  • Author: Keith ParkinsonAuthor Record # 8808
  • Legal Name: Parkinson, Keith
  • Birthplace: West Covina, California, USA
  • Birthdate: 22 October 1958
  • Deathdate: 26 October 2005
  • Language: English
  • Webpages: Facebook, keithparkinson.com, SFE, Wikipedia-EN
  • Used These Alternate Names: Dominic Harman (I), Parkinson, 

    Кит Паркинсон?

    , Geoff Taylor (in error)

  • Note: Keith Parkinson was an American fantasy artist and illustrator known for his many book covers, as well as game artwork for games such as Everquest, Magic: The Gathering and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. He attended elementary school at Weinberger School, San Diego, and graduated from Okemos High School, Lansing, Michigan. During high school, and inspired by the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, he started painting sweeping landscapes occupied by fearsome monsters and went on to graduate from Kendall School of Design in 1980. As a staff artist at Advertising Posters, he had a direct hand in the artwork of many of the most popular games that mark the beginning of the video game industry. Then, during a five year stint as a TSR staff artist he contributed to projects ranging from book and magazine covers, to calendars, game boxes and modules. Titles include Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Gamma World and Amazing Stories. His next seven years were spent primarily doing book covers for the New York publishing market. Clients included Random House, Bantam and Penguin Books; covers for best selling authors include Terry Goodkind, David Eddings, Anne McCaffrey, Orson Scott Card, and Terry Brooks. In 2002, along with several EverQuest colleagues, he co-founded Sigil Games Online, Inc. Among his many responsibilities as Art Director he created and maintained the overall style of the game and contributed to in-house concept art, in-game art, posters and promotional material. (source: adapted from his biography maintained by the Parkinson Estate on Facebook)

  • Author Tags: fantasy (1)

Image supplied by ISFDB on this Web page

Showing all translations. Never display translations Registered users can choose which translations are shown.

Other views: Awards Alphabetical Chronological

Nonfiction

Essays

Cover Art

Interior Art Series

Interior Art

 

https://www.keithparkinson.com/about/



Click here to see Keith's last Profile entry.