2006 Xbox Magazine

Dead Rising Save Point Illustration by Silent James 2006

I learned the most valuable lesson as an illustrator because of this early job for Xbox Magazine. The art director asked me how much I would charge for a full page illustration, I told her, then she told me "it's your lucky day" because their budget was pretty much double what I quoted. From then on, I would ask on calls with art directors how much their budget was. 75% of the time, it was higher than what I thought I could make doing the work. Do not sell yourself short & show no fear!

The idea was to highlight things in games that are frustrating for players. The above image was of the game Dead Rising and how annoying it was to find save points (which were in bathrooms), so the hero is shown doing a pee pee dance. I've never been crazy about zombies, but this was fun.

This image was about how some games had really bright flashes.

Originally, I was asked to create the Dead Rising one as a full page, the other as a quarter, but for some reason they ran them vice versa. I was not happy about that, since they blew up the bright image (they should have asked me for a bigger file, which I had), they also cropped the Dead Rising one. They did send me multiple copies, which was nice, and this was the first major publication I was printed in. I could go to any drug store and they'd have the issue. I remember they took a REALLY long time to pay me, we're talking months, telling me something about they didn't get the invoice. I finally got paid and they sent me this humongous Xbox shirt with it as a "thanks for waiting gift". Unfortunately, this same exact scenario happened to a friend of mine and they were given the same excuse (but no shirt!).