Tuesday, August 3, 2010

From sketch to final: 'Georgia Music Magazine' edition

Recently, I had the opportunity to work on an illustrated spread for the Georgia Music Hall of Fame's magazine. It was on a serious topic of drug addiction within the music scene and focused on a female who is incarcerated on drug charges. Her only escape are the brief moments where she gets to play her guitar.

Due to not having the final draft of the story, the art director didn't know if the illustration would be a single page or a full spread. In my three initial thumbnails, I did both versions.




The AD chose the idea of the woman playing the instrument and breaking through the dark clouds. The heavy, dark negative space of the clouds would allow plenty of room to knock out the header.


For the final, the AD thought the illustration would look better to flip it. Luckily the piece had no reason it couldn't be. This is a scanned spread from the magazine (so the colors may be a little off), but hopefully it'll catch the reader's eyes.

Thanks Lisa and Robert!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

From sketch to final: 'ORDER UP!' edition

Here's a recent job where I thought I'd show how I got from the early sketches to the final.

A little background info: the piece is for a weekly column I illustrate for the New Times called the 'Night Watch'. The column is generally on bars, dance clubs or events around the Ft.Lauderdale area and is cleverly written by Tara Nieuwesteeg.

This particular piece was a 1-day turnaround and featured an establishment where every menu item was based on a famous band or musician. I can't pass up a chance to draw portraits of classical rock stars so I thought having them work at the establishment would be a fun way to depict the scene.

I always start with a very loose pencil sketch just to hash out a composition. After I'm comfortable with it, I'll make sure the sketch fits the desired dimensions and continue working on the portraits.

As you can see from the inked piece below, I took out Morrison which will give me more room to splash text. I tried to pick recognizable singers through different decades and was left with Eddie Vedder (90s), Freddie Mercury (70s/80s), and Jimmy Hendrix (60s).
Below is the final illustration with some added touches! The piece was drawn with a quill pen and brush on illustration board. I used photoshop to add some of the background textures.

ROCK ON!

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

sketches to final

Wow...it's been a while since I posted sketches. I promise to do better in the future. and I'll start by offering my first 'process' post. This particular job was a quick turnaround cover for the Pasadena Weekly on the BCS national championship game. When talking sports illustrations (and college football in particular), Jack Davis and his battling mascots come to mind.

My initial loose thumbnails were based off the idea of Bevo, the Texas Mascot, battling the Alabama elephant (does he have a name??). My first three thumbnails have the Titans in different grappling poses both inside, outside and above the Rose Bowl.Joel, the art director, ultimately decided to go with the one showing the mascots dukin' it out inside the Stadium, and this was a great choice considering the game was to be played in the iconic Rose Bowl with it's immediately recognizable facade.

For the second and third round of sketches, I added details to the mascots and stadium, blocked out a space where the header would go and made sure the sketches fit the cover dimensions.

After a night of inking and photoshop, I emailed the final cover illustration to Joel!

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Greedy politicians, elephants, college bars and sexy pin-ups





Thanks Miche, Susan, and David for the fun topics.

Onto the next job and Happy inking!