Legendary artist Keith Parkinson recently passed away

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 Goodkind, David Eddings, Anne McCaffrey, Orson Scott Card, Hickman and Weis, C.J. Cherryh, Terry Brooks 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, 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 his first art book, called "Knightsbridge: The Art of Keith Parkinson." In 2004 his second full color book was published by MG publishers and should already be in stores. His first set of art trading cards have long since sold out as well as a subsequent set of colossal cards.

Keith also has a best selling screen saver of his work that Second Nature software produced, currently over the "70,000 units sold" mark and still going strong.In 2000, Keith began devoting more time to writing and moved the focus of his commercial artwork into the software industry, producing art for the popular EverQuest o­nline game by Sony and THQs Summoner. He also painted an EverQuest piece that appeared o­n the cover of TV GUIDE magazine.

In April of 2002 Keith accepted the position of Art Director with Sigil Games o­nline. Here he has reunited with EverQuest colleagues Brad McQuaid and Jeff Butler as a co-founder of their new company. Among his many responsibilities as Art Director for Sigil Games o­nline, Keith will create and maintain the overall style of each game, contribute to in-house concept art, in-game art, posters, promotional material, and more.Keith Parkinson was 47 years old. He is survived by his wife Donna, ex-wife Mary, and his sons Nicolas and Zachary

Keith Parkinson (1958-2005)