Illustration Finals

Here is a sampling of some of the work I produced for our final project in Sketchbook and Narrative. The project was based around crafting images for a folktale we wrote ourselves. Mine involved Louisiana and magic, naturally.

Now for Something a little more Graphic...

Here is an example of work I produced for my graphic stories class.  The idea behind the work was to produce a personal narrative wherein we described ourselves using a graphic metaphor, ala the film about Bob Dylan I'm Not There.  It was a fun assignment, and I chose to use an example of my life campaigning for John Kerry when I was a youngn'. 

Most of all though, it was fun to draw the astronaut suit and try out a retro-spreadsheet layout for the color design and story layout.

More to follow, including my final illustration project of the semester.

tata for now

P.S.: I want to give a shotout to my awesome teachers from this semester

be sure to check them out, I owe them tons

John Hendrix:   http://www.johnhendrix.com/

Tim Lane:    http://jackienoname.com/

Semester End- Work Coming Soon

In the meantime though, feel free to enjoy these sketch book samples!

Barack Obama

What a great election!

Here is the latest cover for the WUPR. 

I am continuing the experimentation of the digital coloring technique and combining it with my usual inking techniques. 

Lord of the Flies

Alrighty, good to be back on the blog. here is a project finished this morning for John's class. The idea was to create an ambiguous image based of a book title. I chose Lord of the Flies, and decided on a vigilante circa 1900-1910.

The digital color on this piece is something new for me, and it went over well, so I'm excited to keep trying it out for future assignments.  It's nice to see more line work in a final.

New WUPR Cover!

Hey everyone- I've received some requests for t-shirts- and apologize for not getting back to everyone sooner. sadly, I was never in charge of actual shirt distribution, and, even more sadly, I have been informed the shirts have run out. Actually, I was lucky to get one. It odes provide interesting opportunities for later though.

In other news, I just finished the Election Cover for WUPR. I am pretty glad about it, because its becoming easier for me to get things done in an expeditious manner. I tried to take some more risks with this piece by adding lots of figures and using the standard, red and blue color palette for elections. Hope you enjoy-

VP t-shirt madness!

UPDATE: I just found out my t-shirt design was used as a graphic in a NewsWeek online story! Sadly, there is no artist credit, but still, hurrah for semi-free publicity!

Wow, what a debate! I just finished up volunteering for the vp debate and received some good news- the t-shirt I helped design for the debate apparently is almost sold out! It was great seeing the caricatures on people's clothing yesterday and I'm very proud to have been part of this historic moment. Here is a copy of the design I did for the debate, so you can see what I'm talking about.

The Great Debate

Washington University in St. Louis will be hosting the upcoming VP debates this week, and in celebration and recognition I decided to once again paint the cover for the Political Review. I have used this as an opportunity to work on my visual metaphors and my finishing skills. The metaphor here refers to the two as prophets for McCain and Obama. I had much fun looking up Rubens paintings and sketching at SLAM for inspiration. With any luck, somebody might notice the cover and pick it up!

Back to School!

Well, it certainly has been awhile, hasn't it? Finally I have some time to update the blog. This is a project I just finished up for John's sketchbook class. It's a G.O.A.T. illo for the New Yorker. My film is 3:10 to Yuma. 

The exercise was a great excuse to work on composition and color choices. There are some things that need fixing, but overall i'm pretty happy with the piece. I suppose I'll see what you all have to say.

Bug Fixed

There we go.

DESIGN on DEMAND

Apologies for the lack of updates recently. With the new school year starting, Things have gotten quite busy. As an example, take a gander at these two fliers. Both are for my fraternity on campus, and both involved some serious time-crunching. 

The first is a joint project with Alan Sheu, which was produced over one very busy week right before classes started. I introduced alan to the Academy method and we set at making a unique visual identity for the poster. we settled upon the Victorian aesthetic after stumbling upon some great old broadsides in the American Heritages. I worked on the Illustrating while Alan handled the lettering. Coloring was done jointly. While there are still typographical issues to address, but considering this is what we were able to produce under a short deadline, I'm pretty happy with it. Great to able to mix illo and design. I must point out here that the colors have been warped by the blog. the blues should be red and greens yellow. I have no idea what happened.

 The second is a RUSH flier with a much faster turnover (about 20 hrs). The basic idea i was was trying to get across here is the our fraternity has vibrancy. I suppose we'll see if the message got across.

Horace Greeley

Here's a Painter sketch I've been working on for the last couple of days. Based on a pic of Greeley from an old American Heritage (awesome books have helped me alot). 

The process is fun, its been great trying to get the technique down. Still a ways to go, but fun to try more. hopefully some more refined work will be up soon.

Winehouse Illo

Here's a piece I finished before getting back to StL. 

Sketch madness

Just got back from comicon. Ergo, it took me awhile to get stuff together to work on.

However, I am finally working on the final Amy Winehouse pic. Decided to put up some sketches so people could see what I been up to. The top page is full of sketches from a demo at the academy. The bottom is based off pics from old American Heritages (found boxes full of em)!

ANIMALS IN SUITS

Here's the final from the Academy. I got to explore more of my obsession with animals in suits.

Now then, onward to the rest of summer, and a glorious school year (one would hope)!

Blue Women in the Sky!

Here is last week's piece: a conceptual portrait of the Indigo Girls. They were dropped by their record label, which is owned by Disney. Thus, I have kicked them off the monorail.

new WUPR cover

Wanted to try and show some process, so here is the color comp, followed by the final piece. Final should have handwritten text I'm working on right now. 

PYLE!

Hey all, 

here is the final project from Chris Payne's week here at the academy.

Hoping to rework it later on at home.

Cheers

Mayhaps another random Painter sketch?

Alrighty folks,

I'm gonna hope that i have time to put up some more real work soon, but in the meantime, here is a quick sketch of some mad general in painter out of my head from around two o'clock last night. Out of my head, and thus full of flaws, but I really wanna get in the habit of posting, so here you are. PLEASE feel free to comment on anything up here. I welcome and encourage friendly critique.

Hoping to post some more projects tis weekend.

Cheers

Figure Drawing fun

hey everyone

wanted to add some more pics form fiugre drawing here at the academy. Slowly but surely my stuff gets better. Hoping post more stuff soon.

Just for Kicks

About 3 weeks ago Jon Foster did a demo for us. After said demo, inspiration hit me, and I decided to try my hand using Painter IX to create an image. 

Here's the result, after about an hour off trying the program out. Seems like a fun way to do color studies. 

Who can guess who the model is?

Kewpie dolls to the winner. No actually kewpie dolls will be handed out.

How far we have come

HOW FAR WE HAVE TO GO

Here is my third piece form the academy. The concept, as presented from the great Gary Kelly, was to be assigned a color and produce  apiece that represents that color.

I received the color yellow. My early concepts involved the idea of cowardice, particularly involving the idea of a cowardly boxer (yellow belly). Gary helped me refine the idea to a more universal idea of a humanoid coward, backed into a corner. 

After trying to develop a figure using ink in the fashion of Gibson or Flagg, I ended up looking to Polish Posters on the last night for inspiration (a thank you to Sterling for this suggestion). 

Many of my Wash U friends will recognize the style here is reminiscent of my sketchbook. 

However, please notice the more refined nature of the line work! Things are much more orderly than usual (save for the legs, which are itching for a redo that I want to provide ASAP).

After finding a 50s war movie called ATTACK, the type fell into place. This area also shows me bending the rules a bit, providing potential for growth. 

after alot of time working on pose and composition, this pseudo polish poster sprang to life.

Cheers

Brother Francis of Utah

Hello All,

Here is the final for project two at the academy. The project revolved around depicting a character from a novel in a format that conveyed a specific emotion. My character is a monk from Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz. The overall mode is supposed to be that of anxiety or nervousness. I plan to touch it up later but overall am pleased with the final.

great to be drawing and painting.

And The Program Begins...

Greetings friends,

Well I have just completed the first week here in Sarasota and I can't describe how amazing the experience has been. We just finished our first project (I have some finishing touches to put on it, so it wont be up for a while) and are now onto portraits of fictional characters.

I figured I would put up some figure drawings I've done while here to show what I've been up to. The first is a five minute piece, and the second is fifteen minutes. I actually like the five minute one the most. Their teaching us this great technique which involves forming the figure out of a silhouette. I'm still getting the hang of it, but so far I'm enjoying the quicker results I get from it.

I've been blown away by the talent here. That and the immense knowledge of the faculty. I strongly encourage my fellow image makers to look up Mark English and Jon Foster. I have seen presentations by both and am amazed by their work (Mark is a living legend in illustration, and Jon is about the best illustrator to work in fantasy that I have ever seen). 

In other news, to my compatriots at the summer studio, I have not forgotten the Amy illustration, I've gone through two major revisions and will hopefully have something soon. Of course, seeing as how little free time I have that could be awhile.... but hopefully soon.

Getting Ready for the Summer

I have just finished up a project I have been working on for a while and will try to post some images from it soon. In the meantime, I am hard at work getting ready to go to Florida for the illustration academy. I am very excited and looking forward to it. 

In the meantime, I have been working on my Amy 

Winehouse illustration. Here's an image for it.

The Beginning...

Well I guess this will be my first entry. Michael Costelloe has indeed started something with much potential. Next stop admin status. After that I will try to post dome work I've already started for the summer.

Cheers