 The Art Section
Art. I do a bunch of it. Because I do it for a living, I am loathe to do "art for art's sake" in my own spare time. (and because I work for myself, every waking hour is a working hour, so I have no "spare" time). Yet I have managed to create a bit of non commercial art over the years. This section will feature examples from both camps.
Art Explorations!
Real art, man! Check it out!
 FaceValue Portrait Studio
I am now offering my portrait services and have organized a website detailing my services. It features a variety of styles from cartoony to highly realistic. Take a look and let me know what you think.
My Online Portfolio
Here is my original site which is dedicated to being a professional tool to help me attract work and to communicate with clients. I built this site with NetObjects Fusion in 1996, which in terms of the world wide web is like saying 40 years ago. (While it would certainly benefit from an overhaul, it is an absolutely monumental task and besides, it still stands up rather well. In the early days, I learned how to hand code html, an exhaustive, unforgiving procedure, and I still need to do a lot of it today. You really can't get away from it).
The site has over 100 pages of my professional art, from several categories. Check it out at http://www.scottfray.com
 My Corporation
Yes, I'm self employed. Have been almost forever. These days I work out of my 111 year old house in a NASA-like studio replete with a small herd of Macs and deliver via the net. A few years ago I incorporated as Archipelago International, Inc. I thought everybody knew that word, but it turns out that they don't. An archipelago is a collection of islands (like Hawaii), and I thought it would be a good name because I have a wide variety of interests that I would like to bring into the professional sphere and thought the name appropriate for that reason. I have now added my first subsidiary with my new Flash venture, Ideaction Media Productions.
 How do I do it?
I spent a number of years creating art via traditional means, pen and ink, brush and ink, drawing, painting, airbrush, collage, etc. All kinds of things. I've hand painted huge wall murals in downtown locations. I've done a lot of sign painting, screenprinting, racecar detailing, and more. I've had a shop at the Michigan Renaissance Festival for 6 years where I sold my work, designed and created costuming, and built two period style buildings. I've also done a lot of advertising work of all different kinds, CD-ROM, web graphics, TV, book and magazine work. (If you're interested, check out my Resume).
Now I have a lot of computer skills that I use in creating art (and making a living). People seem to think that making art with the computer is somehow impure or cheating. I don't think so. I'm sure that a couple hundred years ago when the lithography press was invented people whined that "people just don't draw by hand anymore". And don't think it isn't a whole lot of work either! Computers don't do everything for you, they are just another tool. Truth is, I still like to draw (although I certainly don't do very much of it), but take a look at this Goddess illustration to the right. It was composited out of dozens of layers of photographs and has a realism and textural dimensionality that I really like. In the end, I'm not very interested in making art as a process, but I'm very interested in creating provocative images. Any means that I can employ to that end is fair game.
Portfolios on PDF
You can view these Adobe Acrobat "Portable Document Files" right over the web. (click the "escape" key to stop the slide show, click the arrow buttons to move forward and back). You probably already have the plug-in needed to view it, but if not, click here.
Digital Art / Retouching
Lettering
BookDesign
Locked in the Vaults
Comps from the Client Demo Site
Over time, one of the main ways that I have shown new work made for a specific client is to make a website especially for them. Often very straightforward and basic, it nonetheless communicates the visual idea very well. I have decided to post a selection of some of the better examples of my backlog here for your perusal. No attempt has been made to alter or clean these up in any way. (The image to the right is from the Directory of Illustration 2000 Client Demo).
Each consists as a series of images- just click on each image to advance to the next.
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