Jack and the Beanstalk

Pencil, graphite powder, ink and digital. 10x10"


Pencil, graphite powder, ink and digital. 10x27"

Hey guys, I'm graduating. Isn't that sweet? Sweet but weird and scary.

This was the last project (aside from some academic stuff) that I did for my whole college life. Thanks for hanging on these last couple years. I'm going to try and keep up the work flow as much as I possibly can (I'll be doing one or two more pieces before the month is out, that I know for sure), so stay tuned. It should get interesting.

I don't have much to say about these things. I've been looking at them for so long now, I'm just kind of tired. I can say I set out to do something colorful (especially after my largely black and white work last semester) and weird. Expect to see me drawing more pigs soon. They are crazy fun.

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.

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.

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.

Jack and the Beanstalk

Something new from The Illustrated Book with Allan Comport, the same class that gave us that huge Lovecraft project last semester. Storyboards are up next. This ought to be a little more light hearted and a lot more colorful.

The people.

The non-people.


There are tons of versions of this story, and I'm really just picking and choosing things that I like from each one and altering them to my own purposes. I'm going to be rewriting the whole thing start to finish (it isn't that long, obviously) and maybe pitching it around after school's ended.

These were the first round of character designs for the project. Some are more finished than others.

Coming up empty for the Society of Illustrators show was a bummer. Hope it's not the case with 3x3/American Illustration/Spectrum. Congrats to Kali, Aimee, Jess, Marika, Annie, and Annika, as well as everybody else who got in.

Furthermore, like everyone, I am now on twitter.

twitter.com/sbosma