Apr 28, 2009

AI 28

Hey dudes, quick post here.

This and this will be a part of American Illustration's online gallery TRIBUTE that accompanies their newest annual. Would've been nice to get into that, but I guess they had over 8,000 entries? Most ever? Online representation is better than a sharp stick in the eye, for sure. Congrats to everyone. Everyone!

I am super busy trying to finish this semester among other things. Had to do some serious redrawing on one piece, but things are shaping up. Big updates next week, for sure.

Apr 26, 2009

Color Test 2


The butcher hears something he likes.

The giant's wife is quite hospitable indeed.


v.2: Now with value adjustments!

I'm finishing up the first two pieces for this project (I posted the colors for those last time) while simultaneously working on these and the cover. I've got two weeks left to finish all of these (and a piece for thesis), so I'm going kind of nuts.

I'm really trying to push some unexpected colors together cohesively for these pieces, which just means tons and tons of tweaking. The top piece still has some drawing to be done, mostly in the background. The bottom piece has gone through more small changes than any of the others, and still has some to go.

As always, let me know what you think.

Apr 21, 2009

Color Test


Fee-Fie-Fo-Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread.

I'm working on balancing Jack's escape through the forest (greens and green lighting) with the giant's threats of violence (reds), while maintaining the clear treasure (golden goose).



Jack stopping for a break going up the beanstalk. I'm trying to keep this calm and cool, while not falling into the traditional blue sky/white cloud sky. The bark on the beanstalk was a little more purple, but Kali said it reminded her too much of the Incredible Hulk. I don't see why that's a problem, but it looks better now anyway.

Two of the Jack and the Beanstalk pieces are approaching their final colors. This is before any variation or tone is added, and before my lines are colorized. I just figured I'd post these because I'm pretty happy with them. There are sure to be minor variations here and there, and a couple of major lighting changes for the top one.

...and I just got done giving Daniel Krall's Illustration II class (which I TA) an assignment about mood in environments. I figure these better be pretty good so I prove I'm not just full of baloney.

If anyone wants to grab these and do major color overhauls for fun, I'd love to see what you come up with. It's always a blast to see what sort of color pallets people work with.

Apr 13, 2009

State of the Union

Hey dudes, I figured I'd let you folks in on what's been going down around here. I'm working hard on things that will eventually, eventually be finished. In all likelihood these things will be done by the time I graduate next month. If not, I am in some trouble.

Here is the updated Hamlet. Lots of stuff was tweaked based on the suggests you beautiful, talented, incredibly creative people suggested.



Next is just a quick heads up that in addition to getting me on Drawn! and itself appearing on the cover of Boston's Weekly Dig, this charming simian will be gracing Spectrum 16 whenever it decides to come out.

Remember that this started as a throwaway piece for a gallery show that I finished just after getting back from a stint in the ICU. I only did it because I didn't like my first painting, and I did hardly any prep work. You never know what's going to turn out well. I'm a little bummed none of my Innsmouth work made it in, but hey, something did.

This next thing is a little reminder that Popgun Volume 3 is now available from your local places. Book places. Just get it from Amazon or something? The quality is startlingly high, especially for a comics anthology that nearly breaches five hundred pages.


This is the first/title page of the 12 page comic I did for the book. Ever wonder why I didn't post anything from my first semester Senior Thesis? Well, this was it. It printed really well. I was worried for a second, but no! That Mark Andrew Smith sure can edit the hell out of some comics. Man.

The narrative in mine is ambiguous and a little wobbly. Most of it was crafted while I was in the ICU during that whole debacle last September, so forgive, forgive.

I'll probably put the whole thing up sometime, but maybe you should just go buy the book or something. Or maybe I'll put up all of the pages, just not in order, right? Yeah. That would really show you. Fix your wagon good.

I just bought my first round of leave-behind postcards featuring that monkey and this. I hope they turn out well. When they come, maybe I'll see if anyone wants one. You'd have to email me your address or something. Dangerous. These are dangerous times.

Apr 8, 2009

Jack and the Beanstalk // updates

Some progress from my Jack and the Beanstalk project for Allan Comport's Illustrated Book Class. These are all in various stages, but are more or less just updated sketches. They all have at least one, maybe two versions of the drawing left to go before color gets applied digitally.


Cover comp and updated drawing.


The swarthy butcher plans on cheating jack out of his goat friend.


Jack, halfway up the beanstalk, stops for a sandwich.


The giant's wife shows some hospitality. Got a ways to go on this one.
The giant is less generous with his golden birds.

As you might notice, a few characters got some redesigns. It'll probably drift further from the original designs as I keep drawing.

Apr 1, 2009

Prince Hamlet

Ok, I think this is done.
I've been tweaking away at this for the last couple of weeks here and there, trying to make small changes.

I haven't had a whole lot of time to work on it, largely because building my website and finishing that Munny took top priority, and I've had a ton of work to do outside of school. In reality, this version came together rather quickly and then, well, there was a lot of tweaking.

This is Prince Hamlet, by the way. More or less, right?

The original version of this was an acrylic painting, but it didn't work as well as I wanted it to. I tend not to give up on pieces dealing with a subject I have a profound interest in, and I've been known to redo a piece or two in my day. This is a combination of the original acrylic painting, pencil, powdered graphite, and Photoshop. At the end of the day I am pretty happy with how this turned out and the process involved. I've got a few more projects coming down the pipeline that will be treated in the same way.

As always, your comments are lovely. The way you write...it's...how do you say? Beautiful.

ADDENDUM:
It was recently brought to my attention that my website did not display properly on lower-resoluton monitors. This has been fixed. Such is the issue with html coding on a 24" imac. Please take the time for a short celebration on my behalf.

ADDENDUM 2: I uploaded a second version of the piece where the design on the shirt is kicked back, becoming less of a focus. Let me know which you prefer. The contrast on the second one is a little different as well, but that's mostly to account for blogger washing out jpegs.