Sketches for 'Strange Romance'

Just wrapped up a great job for the SF weekly's dating issue featuring a cover, full page and 3 spot illustrations. Andrew, the AD, gave me freedom to have fun with the topic so I pushed the envelope as much as I could.

Above are my three initial sketches which were all very loose. I first toyed with the romance comic idea here depicting the gimp kissing the woman.

Once it was decided to run with the comic idea, I focuses more on the gimp depicting him in two settings. 'Gimp Love' was used just as placement until we could decide on a title for the comic. The overall layout using the SF logo, verticle 'featuring' bar and the comic title are coming together above.

Above, the AD and I have finalized the layout of the comic and it's characters. The title and thought bubbles of each person are still left open.


'Tales of Strange Romance' was chosen for the title of the comic along with final changes to the 'featuring' bar.



And here is 'Sad Gimp' in all his glory. Will he EVER find love?

2011 Rose Bowl Cover

For the 2nd year in a row, I was asked by Joel at the Pasadena Weekly to illustrate their 2011 Rose Bowl cover. It is truly one of my favorite jobs as it accompanies all my favorite things - action, energy, bright colors and college football!

Joel needed to have both mascots (the TCU Horned Frogs and the Wisconsin Badgers) large and central with roses somehow tied in. Last year, I had the mascots battling in the actual Rose Bowl stadium so this year, I depicted the moment just before impact as the two behemoths charge each other on top of a pristine hill of roses.

Above I started, with loose thumbnails just to understand the composition and what each mascot looked like!


As I decided on the two battling on the Rose hill, I took the sketches farther with each mascot more defined.



Above is the finished piece. Room is left above their heads for the header of the magazine while text will go over the bed of roses.

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!

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!

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!

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!

Sneak Peek of my 'for sale' section

Hopefully soon, I'll be launching my long overdue 'for sale' section on my website. I hope to have prints (signed and unsigned), posters, mugs, shirts, and original illustrations to browse.

Pictured are two shirts I originally designed for my wife and I for when we do karaoke (she mostly sings while I just laugh), but then I thought maybe there are other couples who like to sing bad 80s songs and need a rockin' t-shirt? Bueller? Anyone?

Beside the karaoke shirts, there will be a mix of old illustrations from my site and never seen before illustrations created for the merchandise. If all goes well, look for a launch in the next month.