Jamaican-born artist Clarence Bateman is a winner in the L. Ron Hubbard Illustrators of the Future Contest earning him a trip to Hollywood, a week-long master-class workshop and his winning story will be published in the international bestselling anthology, L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 39. Mr. Bateman lives in Bronx, New York City, New York, USA.
Clarence Bateman was born on the little Caribbean island of Jamaica and currently resides in New York. His passion for art was inspired by comic books from an early age. He fantasized about one day being a comic book artist for Marvel as Spiderman was his favorite superhero at the time. In his early teenage years he would hustle family members by doing Christmas cards and lightly twisting their arms to buy them. He would do art for his friends in school and they would pay him with comic books. He dropped out of high school to enroll in the The Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston, Jamaica attending for three years before emigrating to the US.
After a series of dead end jobs he decided to go back to school for art enrolling in the New York City Technical College part time while holding down a full time job in the garment district as a pattern maker. He did a three year advertising program with the intention of becoming an Art Director and instead ended up working in the advertising field for the next thirty plus years as a freelance pre-production sketch artist. Sketch art at the time was done primarily with magic markers, color pencils and inks. When work started transitioning to the computer he taught himself how to use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.
Clarence’s primary focus is Science Fiction and Fantasy art encompassing such a wide range of subject matter he considers it practically impossible to have artist block. He spends his late nights honing his skills, constantly learning, and working to become a better artist.
The Contest, one of the most prestigious writing and illustrating competitions in the world, is currently in its 39th year and is judged by some of the premier names in speculative fiction.
The Writers of the Future Contest judges include Tim Powers (author of On Stranger Tides), Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert (Dune prequel series), Robert J. Sawyer (Quantum Night), Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn series, The Stormlight Archive), Larry Niven (Ringworld), Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game), Nnedi Okorafor (Who Fears Death), David Farland (Runelords), and Katherine Kurtz (Deryni series) to name a few.
The Illustrators of the Future Contest judges include, Bob Eggleton (11 Chesley Awards and 7 Hugo Awards), Larry Elmore (Dungeons & Dragons book covers), Echo Chernik (graphic designs for major corporations including Celestial Seasonings tea packaging), Rob Prior (art for Spawn, Heavy Metal comics and Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Ciruelo (Eragon Coloring Book).
Following the 1982 release of his internationally acclaimed bestselling science fiction novel, Battlefield Earth, written in celebration of 50 years as a professional writer, L. Ron Hubbard created the Writers of the Future (writersofthefuture.com) in 1983 to provide a means for aspiring writers of speculative fiction to get that much-needed break. Due to the success of the Writers of the Future Contest, the companion Illustrators of the Future Contest was inaugurated five years later.
The intensive mentoring process has proven very successful. The 382 past winners of the Illustrating Contest have produced over 6,000 illustrations, 360 comic books, graced 624 books and albums with their art and visually contributed to 68 TV shows, and 40 major movies.
The 452 past winners of the Writing Contest have published 1,150 novels and nearly 4,500 short stories. They have produced 32 New York Times bestsellers and their works have sold over 60 million copies.
The Writers and Illustrators of the Future Award is the genre’s most prestigious award of its kind and has now become the largest, most successful and demonstrably most influential vehicle for budding creative talent in the world of contemporary fiction.
Since inception, the Writers and Illustrators of the Future contests have produced 38 anthology volumes and awarded over $1,000,000 cumulatively in prize moneys and royalties.
For more information about the Contests, go to www.WritersoftheFuture.com.