[Raya]

In the coming days, prepare your eyes for a feast. Very soon, the new look of Silky Venom will be unveiled. The entire look, with input from the SV staff, has been created by Feyshtey, SV's resident artist. How lucky are we that this very talented man shares his art with us every day.

Have you seen his paintings in a museum or gallery? No? Maybe some day. This 34-year-old IT technician currently creates his art in his spare time. However, he does hope to be able to do it professionally somewhere down the line. Read on to see more of his beautiful work.

Feyshtey, which is a Gaelic word, meaning to question, to interrogate, or to explore, has a life that seems, in many ways, to be idyllic. He is married, with a family, and his wife manages a boarding stables on a huge tract of land. The family lives in the second house on the property (the first house is for the owners), along with 120 horses. No, the horses don't live in the second house; they have a stable and pastures and paddocks all their own. The business involves boarding people's horses and giving riding lessons, in which Mrs. Feyshtey is apparently an expert. It's a great place to raise kids and explains why Feyshtey is not prepared to relocate to more suitable locations to pursue his art career.

So, he dabbles (some dabbling!) and shares his art with family and friends. We almost didn't get to see his art at all, though. He was nearly scared off in college by some misguided teachers who gave very bad opinions and worse advice. It disillusioned him so much that he dropped out of both art and college for eight years.

Feyshtey learned two things from his college experience: "If you want to go to school for art, go to an art school...and get thicker skin than I had at the time."

I asked him what saved him from dropping out of art altogether.

"I probably owe a great deal of what I've learned to an old high school buddy that just had 'it.' He taught me a lot," Feyshtey said. "I spend a lot of time on sites just staring at artwork from all kinds of artists, and try to imagine how they did things. Then I play with it till I get it to look ok."

The friend, Sam Gebhardt, is a talented artist in his own right and was credited as a surfacer in Shrek 2 when he worked at Dreamworks. He continues to encourage Feyshtey a great deal.

The other thing that helped Feyshtey continue with his art was the online art community.

"I have found that the digital art community really embraces newcomers," he said. "It's been a godsend. I frequent cgtalk.com a lot. The artists there are honest, but not punishing. I've not actually posted a lot there, but I've learned a lot by reading critiques of other people's work."

I gazed wistfully at his beautiful artwork. One of my hidden dreams is to become an artist. It will never happen, of course -– no talent -– but my admiration knows no bounds for people who have "it." I asked Fey about his style.

"I'm not really sure if I have a style yet per se. I kind of think I'm still discovering where I want to go. I like realism, and I tend to try a bit too hard to hit realism. Right now I'm actually focusing on trying to loosen up some. I enjoy playing with light a lot too. I'm just not all that good at it yet," was his reply. I just stared at his work and then back at him, wanting to demand his definition of "good."

Falling back on the trite question that most non-artists ask, which nonetheless seems to elicit meaningful answers, I wanted to know who his favorite artist is.

Feyshtey was thoughtful for a moment. "Can't really say that I have one to be honest," he replied. "There are a number of them that I really respect. Oddly enough, I would have to say that Keith Parkinson was one of my stronger early inspirations. Sam taught me a lot about the passion involved in art. But his style and his subjects are a bit different than my own personal tastes. I've always loved dragons and fantasy material, and I still remember the impact Keith's work had on me when I was young and saw old Dragon magazine covers, or D&D books. It marked me pretty profoundly."

That was interesting, Keith Parkinson being the art director at Sigil, involved in the creation of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. I asked Fey if he liked Keith more so than, say, Vallejo or...Royo?

"Honestly, I've never really liked Vallejo. His work seems way too staged, and contrived. The poses are dramatic to be sure. But they aren't natural...ya know?" he said. "Royo I enjoy more so, but mainly because he can sometimes come up with some twisted stuff. Some other artists that I have a great deal of respect for are Ryan Church (concept artist with Lucas Films), Feng Zhu (also has worked as a concept artist but previously worked with Sam at Blur Studios), Craig Mullins (a relatively unknown concept artist, but incredible vision of light)."

Feyshtey became involved with Silky Venom, largely because of his very high respect for the work that some of the Sigil staff has done and his appreciation of EverQuest, as his first MMO experience, which he considered amazing.

"I started paying attention when Brad and Co broke off to start a new endeavor," he said. "I believe in a lot of their philosophies of game design, especially having experienced the alternatives first hand. And I'm hoping to get back to that happy place I was in with EQ. Silky Venom itself seemed to me to be born from a passion for integrity in the games, right in the middle of all the secondary market debate (that I've always been a little hot about anyway). I felt that I needed to display some support of the ideals Sigil is setting. And partnering with some pretty proven and recognizable names in the community just made it a simple choice."

Feyshtey has been working diligently on the new design for Silky Venom. I asked him if he could share anything about it and when it would be ready to go.

"I'm actually really excited to get the new design out there. The team has given great input on it, and hopefully everyone will be happy with the outcome."

As for when it would be completed, he answered, soon, then added with a twinkle in his eye, "I think you're really going to like our new layout -- Kendrick plug...couldn't resist…"

His final comment on the whole Sigil/Vanguard/Silky Venom part of his life: "I'm really looking forward to gaming with a lot of the members of the community that I've come to respect over the last year on the VSOH forums."

Note: All the artwork contained in this article were created by Feyshtey and used with the artist's permission. All work is © by Feysthey and may not be reproduced without the artist's permission.