The Short Version

A.C.Farley is known to the SF/Fantasy and comics community for his years of illustration work for paperbacks and role-playing games and comics. At this date, he's working primarily for Sun Microsystems as an Animator/Illustrator. He began his illustration career as a soldier in the U.S. Army Intelligence Agency, where his assignment required a Top Secret/SI clearance to perform his work as an illustrator. From there, he worked for 12 years in the defense industry for the Sanders/Lockheed Defensive Systems Division where he produced paintings and technical drawings of equipment to be developed and used in the field. Since 1987, he's worked as a freelance illustrator and interactive multimedia producer.

He has done numerous paintings for Lego, Doubleday, TSR, Game Designers Workshop, West End Games, Asimov's Magazine, Analog, TOR, Baen Books and special first edition SF books for Easton Press (MBI). Also, 14 very busy years with Mirage Publishing, the company that originated the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, creating paintings and comics and a lot of other duties.

Craig has produced various multimedia CD Rom and web projects. Some of which are... The TMNT Licensing Styleguide, both hardcopy and CD Rom with an interactive index. Also for Mirage, kid's games for delivery on the TMNT website and a 2:30 min animation that chronicles the history of the licensing of the TMNT, as well as QTVR web resolution movies of toy prototypes. One Man Band, an Enhanced CD featuring the work of musician Christopher Haynes. A complete QTVR walkthrough of the Words and Pictures Museum of Sequential Art, 4 floors and the street and roof top as well. "The Year In Humanics", a CD Rom that chronicles, with audio, video and still photos, the Springfield College 1998-99 year in regard to a philosophy known as 'Humanics'. 'Funatix!' a portfolio/demo CD Rom promoting an intellectual property development company, included QTVR of toy prototypes and all manner of animation and illustration. Then, illustration and web design for the Pressman Toy Corp website. Throw in a lot of painting and drawing into that mix and you get the whole picture.

One of Craig's own projects is called "Recombatants™" (...formerly "Bioneers"). This began as a Science Fiction adventure comic and features lots of high tech robots, equipment, and heroics. A "Recombatants" electronic game demo is in progress. Craig is very involved in multimedia and computer animation and design. Altered Earth Arts is all Craig's work. Get in touch with Altered Earth Arts.

And now follows the long version...

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Career History

Freelance Artist 1987 - Present.
Illustration and design for a variety of publishers (Acrylic paintings for cover art), including Baen Books, Doubleday, Random House, Analog and Asimov’s Magazine, Game Designer’s Workshop, TOR Books, TSR, Easton Press, Lego America, Pressman Toy Corp, Mirage Studios.

Sun Microsystems, Technical Publication Sevices, 2005 - Present
Responsibilities include creation of technical animation and illustrations of Sun hardware for print and online publications. Illustrations and animations are created using existing CAD models. The illustrations and animations are instructiive for customers and field service personnel. This work is performed in close association with writers and engineers. The 3D models are used as B&W line art for pubs and realistic shaded renders animated at full video resolution for use as marketing tools. Full understanding of 3D apps, Image editors, interactive apps and video editing is required.

Mirage Studios, Contributing Art Director, 1992 - June 2004.
Responsibilities included the production and maintenance of the TMNT Licensing Styleguide for use by licensing clients of Mirage Studios. This includes a hardcopy version delivered in a 3-Ring binder complete with camera ready art, and a hybrid (Mac/PC, all in one) CD-Rom version of the same containing computer files and a functional interactive index that allows a user to copy the files from the CD while browsing through preview images of the files. I am responsible for the overall design and all technical aspects of production. Including, layout and design, working with pre-press and printers, building software installers for cross platform distribution, programming the interactivity and mastering the CD-Rom.

Other duties include providing illustration & design, (Cover paintings, Comics art, Logo designs) along with computer layout and design and 3D modelling and video editing work needed by Mirage for promotional and marketing purposes.

I have been in charge of IT/Tech Support at Mirage providing support for up to 20 people at one point. I have set up and maintained three different webservers for Mirage. A Sun Cobalt Raq 4, a Mac G4 running OS 9 Server and an Apple XServe running the Panther OS 10.3 Server. These servers have all been set up to serve e-mail to the company as well as perform file sharing, print and web server duties. I maintain all computer stations, provide technical support and make hardware/software purchasing decisions. I have provided ongoing tech support/maintenance and design and HTML for Ninja Turtles website.

Xeric Foundation 1994 - 2004 www.xericfoundation.com I was a founding member on the board of directors of the comics grant program for ten years. I was one of the three people that reviewed and selected artists to receive grants to self-publish comics projects.

Freelance Artist 1987 - present. Illustration and design for a variety of publishers (Acrylic paintings for cover art), including Baen Books, Doubleday, Random House, Asimov°s Magazine, Game Designer°s Workshop, TOR Books, TSR and the Easton Press. Some of my illustration work can be viewed on the internet at the following address: www.alteredearth.com/farley.htm

Senior Artist, Sanders Lockheed Corporation, Nashua, NH, 1978 - 1987 Prepared artwork in a variety of media for use in military handbooks, proposals, presentations and marketing activities in support of the Defensive Systems Division. This work involved technical illustration, figure drawing, layout and design and painting. This work was performed in conjunction with engineering technical writers and marketing staff. Top Secret clearance required.

Illustrator, Spec 4, U.S.Army, 1975 - 1978 Production of artwork for use as training aids at the U.S.Army Intelligence School, Fort Devens. Top Secret/Special Intelligence clearance required.

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Multimedia Production for the following companies...

	Mirage Studios, Northampton, MA- Some non-linear video editing for web and trade shows. Created a full video resolution 2.5 min 3-D computer animation to illustrate the licensing timeline of the TMNT phenomenon. This animation was created for promotional use at licensing trade shows. (Infini-D, Premiere). TMNT Licensing Styleguide production, for print and hybrid Mac/PC compatible CD-Rom. Original set up and tech support for the TMNT website. (www.ninjaturtles.com)
	Pressman Toy Corporation, New York, NY- Additional website design (Dreamweaver/Fireworks, Photoshop) and content authoring for an existing e-commerce site promoting a line of games and toys. Some limited web animation, and 3-D illustration (Form Z, ElectricImage). www.pressmantoy.com
	Springfield College, Springfield, MA- Production of an "Enhanced CD", hybrid Mac/PC multimedia CD-ROM title: ¿Friends In Humanics of Springfield College. An Enhanced CD contains Audio for a home stereo, but it also has interactive content for computer use. This project involved digitizing video and non-linear video editing as well as sound recording and editing along with programming the interactivity (Macromedia Director, Adobe Premiere).
	Vision Graphics, Ludlow, MA- Production of interactive hybrid CD-ROM presentation. This presentation contained several of my own examples such as: a QTVR object movie of a Smith and Wesson handgun, a QTVR tour of Words and Pictures museum (...see below) and 3-D modeling from some of my own projects. This project involved interface design, video digitizing, non-linear video editing, sound digitizing and editing, VR production , along with programming the interactivity (QuickTime VR Authoring Studio, Macromedia Director)
	Words and Pictures Museum, Northampton, MA- Visit the Museum's Website I initiated the website and made a complete QTVR walkthrough tour of the entire four floors of the museum, plus the street out front and a view from on the roof next to the museum's massive gargoyle mascot. Now that the museum exists only as a website, the QTVR is a nice reminder of the original museum building and how impressive it was. See the QTVR Tour. (Apple QTVR Authoring Studio, CubicConverter, CubicConnector,)
	Funatix! Inc., Northampton, MA- Produced an interactive hybrid CD-Rom to promote a company of toy designers and artists. Some of my own CGI samples were included in the computer generated art section of the disc. Designed the F! logo. (Photoshop, Macromedia Director)
	Eastman Studios, Northampton, MA- logo design and typography design for various projects including the Heavy Metal:2000, FAKK II animated feature film. Supervised computer coloring for several book projects. Such as, "Bodycount" and "Very Angry Seven".
	Zeromayo Studios, Northampton, MA- 3D Computer modeling (Form Z) and animation (ElectricImage) for ¿Planet Racers, a new comic book project from Peter Laird and Jim Lawson. Built 3-D models of various way out motorcycles, robots and environments from the comic. Many of which were rendered as web resolution QTVR object movies. A full resolution video, "Jimagination", was created for a looping display at comic conventions.
	Larien Products, Northampton, MA - Designed a 3-D model and QTVR animation of a "Bagel Biter" and "Bagel Box" for design tests and promotional and marketing purposes (Infini-D).

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Traditional Illustration

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