Welcome. This site showcases the work of Troy Riser. The range of his visual arts talents encompasses fine and commercial art and graphics design. His writing background includes technical, business, and promotional work, as well as published, award-winning fiction. He has also written film reviews and conducted interviews with show business industry figures. Troy Riser's graphics design portfolio includes corporate and organizational image, brand reinforcement, multimedia presentations, and GIF and Flash animation, as well as website development using CSS and content management systems such as XOOPS. This website was built, for example, using Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004, Flash MX, Adobe Photoshop CS2, Adobe ImageReady CS2, and a wide array of other tools and utilities. As a freelance writer and fine and commercial artist, Troy Riser offers a happy balance of creative accomplishment and technical expertise. For him, there is little division between the two, creative and technical. Both comprise a strictly, purely professional whole.
life studiescommercial projectsFine Art

 Insofar as fine arts are concerned, Troy Riser favors gouache, Conté crayon, and pastels for color work; pen & ink & brush for black & white line and wash. He also cuts linoleum and wood. He makes no claims as a master of all media, which wouldn't be true in any case. He doesn't have, for example, the patience for oils and doesn't like the unpredictability of watercolors. But the tools he does employ—Exacto knife, Speedball graver, brush, pastels, pen & ink, computer software—are effectively extensions of his mind and hand.

Draughtsmanship, classically structured compositional clarity,
and eye-catching color orchestration are his strengths.



Works included in this online portfolio best exemplify Troy Riser's artistic aims: beauty of line and form, harmony of color, and originality of conception. The gouache painting at left, Sun Goddess, represents a breakthrough, the culmination of many years' searching and experimenting and striving and work. As a writer, he has struggled to develop an individual voice; as an artist, he strove to achieve a plastic vision instantly, recognizably his own, going about it by immersing himself in color studies and art history, copying those masters whom he most admires, honing his draughtsmanship via life studies and studio modeling, establishing a work schedule and adhering to it. While it is true a spark of talent is necessary, it is equally true the development of talent is a matter of study and discipline. Troy Riser doesn't believe in the Muse, which is another word for waiting around for that magical moment of inspiration. He believes in setting realistic professional goals and attaining them by dint of work and will and desire. Like many others, Troy Riser believes the search for beauty is synonymous with the search for truth: find one, you find the other. Click on the painting at left, Sun Goddess, to view his resume.

Motion graphics, specifically Flash animation, has become a preoccupation. The work itself requires painstaking, meticulous attention to detail and as much technical proficiency as artistic talent or design skill, but the rewards are tremendous. Telling a story or capturing a theme and depicting something approaching natural movement is enormously challenging, taking everything he has: all of his intellect (such as it is), all of his artistic abilities, all of his technological expertise.

From here, you can peruse the remainder of Troy Riser's portfolio, clicking here or on the animated GIF icon below, or you may view his resume. This site is interspersed with links to some of his short stories and poetry, some previously published, some not. Since Troy's livelihood depends upon getting paid for the art he makes and the stories he writes, please do not download or print any of the images on this site without permission. Here's a strange thing: it is his religiously themed art which—according to trusty site statistics—gets downloaded most without permission. As a protective measure, some of the works on this site (such as Sun Goddess and Soli Deo Gloria, above) have been watermarked and copyrighted. All you need do is ask. Work shown inappropriately or without credit or permission is stolen work.

Don't steal.

As an aside, Troy Riser co-wrote a science-fiction novella with his friend, RJ Carter. Clicking on the book cover graphic below brings up its Amazon page. Buy a copy. Buy lots of copies. One can never buy enough copies of Troy's and RJ's book.

    To commission work, simply click this email link. We'll talk. Thanks.

gif link to portfolio
copyright © 2007 Troy L. Riser