Melissa A. Benson of Ranting Centaur Studios, is an illustrator and fine artist with a colorful, realistic style that she uses for both fantasy and decorative work. She has been creating quality artwork for over fifteen years. She works mostly in a mixed media of watercolor dyes, and color pencils. Black and white work is high contrast multi-weight graphite pencil and large pieces are done in oils.
Her name is best known in the gaming industry for creating powerful and imaginative illustrations for many of the top collectible card game (CCG) publishers. Melissa worked with Wizards of the Coast before they became a corporate giant, when they first published Magic: The Gathering in 1993. She created several iconic character designs for that game, most notably Nightmare and Shivan Dragon. She did illustrations for many subsequent expansions of the popular role playing game as well.
She has also worked for White Wolf Publishing when they started Vampire: the Masquerade, Iron Crown Entertainment's Middle Earth game, the Dragon Storm rpg game published by Black Dragon Press, the oriental card game Shadowfist published by Z-Man Games and Camelot Legends among others.
Melissa specializes in believable anthropomorphic creatures and people in natural and historic settings. The bulk of her recent work has been private commissions for clients who want an accurate portrait of their role playing characters. Melissa takes their descriptions and makes suggestions (you really shouldn't have EVERY piece of equipment they own in the picture) until they are confident that they will be getting great results.
Testimonials from several very satisfied clients can be seen on the Testimonials page of her website. You will often see "It looks great...", "I'll be bragging about this one...", "...everything was wonderful as usual." and "...exceeded my expectations..."
She has a number of shops with several of the "Print on Demand" virtual malls on the web where she sells her work on a wide variety of apparel and gift items. She also sells 14 different limited edition prints on her website www.melissabenson.com and has original artwork and prints currently available in Gallery@37 located in Derby, Connecticut and has shown her work at the Tepper Gallery in NYC, the Art Institute of Seattle in Washington State and Willow Fine Art Gallery in Connecticut.
And on a more personal level...
Melissa’s birthday is December 16th and she has lived in Connecticut all her life. She has two Liberal arts degrees. One in music and one in art, along with her Bachelors degree in Illustration. While studying music, she tutored her classmates in music theory and harmony. Her major instrument was bassoon. While studying for her music degree, she always took life drawing classes.
She was the lone woman journeyman in a steel engraving shop where she worked for 6 1/2 years before going back to college. During that time she sang in a local volunteer opera chorus to keep active in music. While there, she also helped out with props, makeup and costumes.
Melissa decided that if she had to work for a living, and it certainly appeared that she must, she was going to do something she loved. This is when she went back to college to further her art education. In 1989 she graduated with a Bachelors degree in Illustration from the Paier College of Art in Hamden CT.
The main reason Melissa chose Paier was that the instructors there still "work in the field". Probably the best known instructor there was Rudy Zallinger who painted the famous dinosaur mural in the Peabody Museum in New Haven CT. Her most influential instructor was Ken Davies, a noted Trompe-l'oeil artist. His portfolio class was conducted one-on-one where he took on the role of "Art Director" behind the desk as well as the "Critic".
This portfolio class instilled in students the importance of ethics, a thick skin, preparedness, negotiation, punctuality, objectivity, public relations and most of all quality.
She has freelanced with several graphics and marketing firms, Titan Sports (WWF), book publishers, a fashion manufacturer / designer, a theatrical make-up artist/ wig/ costume designer out of New York City as well as with New England Lyric Opera.
Odds and Ends:
Melissa loves Indian food and has bartered art for dinner more than once. She regularly visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History both in NYC. She was a skeet shooter with a 99 average in 12 gauge national competitions. She loves old movies and a good read. Among her favorite authors are Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, C. M. Kornbluth and Fritz Leiber, Ellis Peters, David and Leigh Eddings, and oddly, Clive Cussler. She has an extensive clip file and an EVER expanding reference library.
Melissa collects mineral spheres and Ivan Rebroff recordings. She will trade art for either. Many German fans have taken advantage of that Ivan Rebroff offer, by the way.
As of May 20th, 2001 she became Mrs Joseph D. Jacouzzi and they live in Shelton, CT.
