Steve Anthony Pierce | Illustration • Concept Art

Friday, March 6, 2026

Back to Life

Real talk incoming. I haven't updated here in the better part of the past decade, and I'm not going to get into any kind of catch up here in this post at least. I am writing to focus on where I am and note that I've essentially left digital art altogether, opting instead for oil paints and other traditional materials.

So, I am at just about one year since I finally picked up a paint brush and just sketched away. I have always just drawn, but the thought of feeling as able to paint to a similar level of competence to drawing, and the flexibility of just painting on its own, had been a distant aim for far too long. But in March of 2025, I painted that profile of a man. Admittedly, it was another couple of months before I returned and painted more, but when I did, the fuse was ignited. That sounds like hyperbole, but truly, I have painted with a consistency previously unseen for me. Only when I was doing daily drawing in recent years have I produced so much work. And it led to a massive transition; a massive shift of future plans - I dropped the PhD program I had been in, choosing to focus on art. This move did also include applying the MFA program at Wayne, but in reality, while I do want to join that program, I am painting regardless of whether I get in. So, the reason why I’m writing this today is primarily to point out this surge and link it to my long term aspiration of being a self-sustaining artist.

Metrics. Oh, yeah, I’d wanted to note some numbers here. Since jumping into painting again, I have created 27 paintings to varying degrees of polish and finish. There were other paint doodles along the way as well, but I can say that I have done 27 distinct pieces worth counting. I am proud of this. The fluency I am building is real and I cannot wait to see where I can take this!

Saturday, May 2, 2015

New Prints (+thoughts about the business of art)

There could also be a subtitle here, "I finally made a print store!"

I've been rummaging through old artwork trying to find things I know that I have legal rights to print. I have a handful picked out and available in my shiny new print store on Inprnt.

In digging through dozens upon dozens of commissions from the past few years , and then having to look for the contracts and terms that were worked out, I learned that I really hadn't put enough effort into protecting my rights as a content creator. At first, I was essentially just signing over full ownership of my work (and for very little, I might add). Then I began adding terms. But these terms were flimsy at best. They did not do what all contracts and terms should do, and clearly define who owns what, and for what use, and for how long. I eventually began adding time limits onto license agreements - but a lot of damage had been done.

At the end of the day, this was a positive learning experience. I dug into the resources of Art Pact and set up a handful of base contracts to use in the future.

Another thing I haven't spent enough time on is personal work. It is so easy, and borderline required (when you have a wife and child), to be tied up in commissioned projects and chasing money. It can feel difficult at times to see the path that I'm on, in relation to my goals. It can often feel like I'm just moving laterally and not progressing toward where I want to be.

I've still learned a lot and will carry this knowledge with me.

Anyway, print store is up and running! Time to get onto making more cool stuff that I can fill that page up with!

Cheers!

-Steve

Monday, February 16, 2015

Updates! New site is live!

I've launched an official website, VeneqArt.com!

And onto some art stuff. 2014 was a strange, yet productive year. I had some health issues at the tail end of 2013, and 2014 had a major emphasis on health. I also freelanced in-house at a local marketing company from April - September.

Onto art! Here is a dose of art created within the last year or so, starting with more Mierce Miniatures! These guys were from a unit of nasty Baalor warriors. A blast to work on! I was also allowed to put more rendering in than I had been in the past. Still grayscale, but I'll take what I can get.

Just prior to working on the Baalor squad, I had the chance to work on some Legionnaire designs, also for Mierce Miniatures. They came out fantastic as well: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/legionary-unit (by Hector Moran).

A couple more things from late 2013, early 2014 for Mierce - I got to design a mount for my first Mierce character, Idruaada; a massive wolverine creature.

Lastly for Mierce, I had the honor of illustrating the game map for Mierce's game, Darklands! This is essentially Europe + Dragons, Serpents, Giant Squid, and some bad dudes from Iceland.

These next pieces were done for Corvus Covax Miniatures. I'd posted this first one in grayscale before on my Tumblr, but recently was playing around with alternate methods of colorizing grayscale images by using the Curves tool in Photoshop. This was the result. After that, 2 other grayscale minis from Corvus Corax.