Detective of the Zodiac

Any Scorpios in the audience? Working on this horoscope assignment I discovered that Scorpio is "The Detective of the Zodiac, unraveling mysteries is your forte and passion". I suggest you all become film noir detectives, like this lovely lady! (what! role-reversal!)

This was my 3rd horoscope assignment for Vegas magazine. With the detective imagery in the article I thought of film noir immediately, but I had done vaguely medieval/magical illustrations for the other horoscopes and I wasn't sure if it'd be too much of a departure. For my sketches I did one medieval/magical seeress (with a scrying bowl for detective work) to fit in with the rest of the images, and also the film noir lady. I am happy we went with the film noir theme after all, I enjoyed working on this one a lot.
Have a happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'm going to STUFF MY FACE and I hope you all do too! Yay!

Status Update + Deco Los Angeles

First off, congrats to the SOI winners! Just found out that Sam got THREE pieces in, and Nick Illuzada (who is still a student at MICA) won silver in Uncommissioned. Yowza! Gotta stay on my toes!

Sam and I also received our copies of Spectrum 17 the other day--that Greg Manchess cover is the bomb and there are so many pieces in there that kill me. Awesome. Pick it up.

So I've been MIA for a while now and owe you guys an explanation! I've been sequestered in my apt. working on a kid's activity book for Amtrak, simultaneously battling some cold/flu thing for a while, and even snuck in a trip for my cousin's wedding!
When I was informed that I got the Amtrak job, I basically just dropped everything and had to get to work. To my great disappointment that meant that I also had to drop my Anthology Project comic. Sorry dudes, I hope to be able to complete a published comic SOMEDAY, and the work that's going into the Anthology Project is looking AWESOME. I'll be working on this book until early February, but I wish I could show you some sneak peeks! It's coming together. This is Amtrak's first kids book in about a decade, and they're going to be giving it away for free on the trains!

For now, I can show you some of the illustration backlog I have piling up from previous work. Like these pieces I did for LA Weekly's Best Of 2010 issue! Each of the sections in the newspaper had an opening image & spots that corresponded to a different decade in LA. Darrick Rainey assigned me the roaring 20's for the Food and Drink section, and I was PUMPED to do the illustrations for this.

If you haven't been able to tell from some of my past pieces, I LOVE art deco. It would be great to be able to do more illustrations with a 20's theme/style. Darrick remembered my Estelle LeBlanc poster and wanted me to do my illustrations in the same style.
Here's the sketches I sent:


We liked them both, but Darrick thought that the more streamlined style of the right sketch fit better, even though we both enjoyed the crowd scene. So I combined them into this:

Upon reflection, I think I should have just gone with the 2nd sketch of the girl dancing. It probably would have had more impact. I guess I just wanted to draw a crowd!

Here's the final. The colors are pretty modern instead of strictly 20's, but I figured upping the saturation would help it show up on newsprint.

Darrick also needed some B&W spots to scatter throughout the section, so I decided to make a little story out of them (dining, dancing, and PROHIBITION)

I was happy with how these pieces came out, but looking at it again I'm wondering if some texture might look nice (I was worried at the time that the texture might muddy on the newsprint). Hindsight is 20/20. On to the next.

The Mediator

In early 2010 I got the chance to do the March horoscope illustration in Vegas magazine for Aries, and after a long pause I've been doing a horoscope illustration each month for them...here's the first of the new batch, Libra!

The writing says:
"Holding the Scales of Justice, Libra weighs, divides and distributes the summer harvest. Libra embodies this time of equal day and night while seeking to find balance, integrity and fairness for all"

This was for Vegas Magazine's men's issue, so it made sense to make Libra a dude. In the original sketch he also had a scythe for the summer harvest, but the editors thought it looked a little phallic (eep!) and we changed it to an hourglass:

Aaaand the final!

Seeing it again, I think his head/face look a little doofy. It's always funny when you look back on your work and just itch to change something around... Ah well, on to the next!

P.S. Wow, we've gotten a great response on the Anthology Project kickstarter project! Thank you to all the donors!! Almost to the goal!

Anthology project!

Hey everyone! The Anthology Project (volume 2) has a Kickstarter page, and we need your help! The Anthology Project is an anthology of comics contributed by a whole bunch of great artists like Sam Bosma, Joy Ang, Edward Kwong, Sam Bradley, Emily Carroll and myself! (You can see the full list on the kickstarter page!) Also Ed Kwong's lovely cover artwork is on the banner above!

The book is being self-published, and we need your support to get it off the ground. With Kickstarter, you can pledge an amount (from $1 up) and then if we meet the monetary goal ($7000) by the deadline (December 1) your money goes to our cause and you can get a prize to sweeten the deal!
IF however, we do not raise $7000 by December 1, you aren't charged at all & you keep your money. Simple!

The kickstarter page says it best:
This is an opportunity for us (the AP crew), to build a relationship with you (lovers of all things art). It’s a way for everyone that loved Volume 1 to not only pre-order volume 2, but for you to help out in getting it off the ground in a very meaningful way!

Beyond that we’ll be offering other things like prints, buttons, original sketches, special editions and signed copies of the books depending on the size of the donation.

Please check out the Anthology Project's Kickstarter Page for more details!

And if you're curious, my comic is about this gentleman here:
He's up to something.
Thanks for your support!

Brains: can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

A while back I did a quick piece for the LA Times. Joey Santos (my always-great AD) came to me with a feature story on Alzheimers, and an illustration was needed for ways of reducing your risk of Alzheimers. The writer had attended a conference about Alzheimers and noted that it had been a bit disappointing-- there's no 100% proven way of preventing Alzheimers and a lot of research has yet to be done, unfortunately. There's a few things you can do that seem to be able to help reduce the risk, however:
Exercise, mental stimulation, and a Mediterranean diet.
I tried to reflect that in both my sketches:

This was a very fast turnaround, and I sent this progress piece to show Joey. He suggested the man should be aged more, and also preferred a pink brain instead of a yellow one. (I still kinda like yellow!)

The background in the final is a bunch of neuron synapses.

BRAINS! We should all thank ours.

BABIES. And pregnant ladies.

Things have been pretty darn busy over here, teaching started at MICA again (I'm teaching Intro to Illustration for freshmen this semester!)and I've had a lot of fun projects that have kept me frantically working away into the nights. (needless to say, that's contributed to some stress) NEVERTHELESS It's time for me to cowboy up and share some of the rest of this work backlog I'm accumulating, and try and keep up a regular blog schedule again.

Thus: pregnant ladies. A while back I did a feature and 2 spots for Pregnancy magazine about celebrity pregnancies and how they set a vastly unrealistic image for post-pregnancy weight loss. Having never been pregnant, it was interesting for me to hear about realistic and unrealistic expectations...it can take a year (or more) for new mothers to lose their pregnancy weight, but there's all these stories about celebrity moms getting back into their swimsuits in a couple months. You don't think about how these celebrities have nannies to watch over their kids and chefs to cook them healthy meals and fitness trainers to customize workouts for them, etc. etc.
The opening image is a generic celebrity mom looking slim and luxe and carefree.
Sketch (I used a spot in Rodeo Drive as ref for the background):

Final (My AD suggested the paparazzos!):

The spots are of a new mom trying to fit into her old jeans, and later accepting her body and just enjoying the time she's spending with her baby.
Sketches:

Finals:

Thanks for looking! & thanks to Robert at Pregnancy Magazine!

Skulls in the Woods

Yikes! I have a backlog of work to show, and summer working/munching/reading/relaxing has slowed me down! Time to get crackin'. Without further ado, here's the image I created for the Humboldt Roller Derby 2010 program cover and bout poster, all the way out in California!


They wanted me a full-body illustration of their lovely logo lady wearing the team colors (army green/gold/white):


Since they're the Redwood Rollers, I figured I'd give a nod to their forest sentinels with the twig & tree motif. I treated this more as a pinup than a scene, since it was to be used for the 2010 program cover & I thought it should be more symbolic. Drawing kick-ass ladies is always enjoyable, and with Roller Derby I feel like I have to hit a balancing point between toughness, sexiness, and originality that can be kind of tricky to find!