Fine ArtFine Art is a celebration of the work of video game artists, showcasing the best of both their professional and personal portfolios. If you’re in the business and have some art you’d like to share, get in touch!Francis Tsai is an artist who has worked in comics, film, gaming (tabletop and card) and video games, for clients like EA, Rockstar, DC Comics, Eidos and Marvel.
Widely-published, awarded and respected within the field, he's one of the most talented artists going around.
Sadly, Francis was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease in 2010, a degenerative and paralysing disease for which there is no cure. He quickly lost the ability to use his arms and hands, and hasn't held a pencil since early 2011. While this should have crippled his ability to draw, he soon found that he could use his toes on an iPhone, so began using that to paint images like this.
When he then lost the use of his toes, he persevered, finding that there was software which could track his eyeballs, which he's using to communicate but via which he also hopes to be able to resume painting.
Francis has been selling shirts and other merch featuring his art on this site, with all proceeds going towards funding his medical care. You can see more of his work in the gallery above, while his personal site is here and his DeviantArt page is here.
DISCUSSION
Fuck you, incurable diseases, for robbing a man of his livelyhood and passion, and robbing the rest of the world of more of his amazing contributions.
I really hope he's able to find a way to resume painting with the eye tracking stuff, because that would be just the most badass overcoming-an-illness story ever.