KEITH PARKINSON
BIOGRAPHY
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. They were silk screen printers that printed and generated all the art for the pinball, and blossoming arcade video industry. Keith had a hand in the artwork of many of the most popular games that mark the beginning of the video game industry.
TSR was the next stop. 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.
After the five years at TSR, Keith decided it was time to move on to a freelance career. The next seven years were spent primarily doing book covers for the New York publishing market. Clients include Random House, Bantam Books, Penguin Books, Avon Books, Berkley/Ace Books, Baen Books and Tor Books. Covers for best selling authors include Terry Brooks, David Eddings, Anne McCaffrey, Orson Scott Card, Hickman and Weis, C.J. Cherryh, Terry Goodkind and Dennis McKiernan. Keith received many awards during this time for various works; back to back Chesley Awards for best hard cover jacket illustration in '88 and '89 are the most notable.
Since the beginning of his freelance career Keith has licensed his artwork for use on computer games packaging, puzzles, foreign publications and many other miscellaneous uses.
In Aug. of 95, FPG financed and published "Guardians," Keith's first foray into game design. This was a new experience for him and FPG as well. Many of the top artists in the fantasy art field contributed to the game by illustrating Keith's characters.
FPG has also published an art book of all of Keith's best cover work done to date in a 128 pg. book, hardback and paperback editions are available. His first set of art trading cards have long since sold out and FPG has published a new set of colossal cards. Keith also has a best selling screen saver of his work that Second Nature software produced, currently over the "50,000 units sold" mark and still going strong.
After spending nearly nine years in southeast Pennsylvania, Keith moved to Arizona in June 1999 with his wife Mary and their two sons, Nick and Zach.
GALLERY
All images copyrightŠ KEITH PARKINSON. All rights are the personal property of the artist. No image may be published or reproduced in any form or for any purpose without the written consent of the artist.
DragonsGate Productions. 2000
