The power of SCIENCE

Here's a series of illustrations for St. Edward's University Magazine about scientific advances and breakthroughs from St. Edward's alumni:






My sketches!
Spread 1: Eating salmon may help prevent alzheimer's!



Spread 2: Nasa is testing out a more fuel efficient engine lubricant on a fleet of carpet-industry trucks! (way to get in there, carpet industry!) AND seismic detectors exist and cellphones exist--why not combine them to create an early warning system?


Spread 3: The CDC's Global Disease Detection Program is like the SWAT team of infectious disease threats! (I only wish they had giant robot syringes and a bank of disease screens, though) ALSO patient medical history will soon be available to doctors on iPads, because doctors like to be cool too. (and efficient!) PLUS: Solar powered dairy farms=cheaper milk! Solar powered cows not included.


These illustrations may be some of my new favorite editorial pieces! Science is always pretty fun to learn about, and my designer Natalie and my art director Rick were both very excited and open to my ideas. A big thank-you to them, they were great to work with! Plus, I think I drew the best ear I've ever drawn on that opening spread with the salmon. (the secret: find good reference)

The Leech Lord

It's been a while since I've done an ASOIAF piece (and I have other longer blog posts to write!)...buuuut A Dance With Dragons has been filling my free time with tales of Westeros and the Free Cities and I can't let Sam have all the fun with his ASOIAF portraits!


Roose Bolton only sporadically shows up in the books, but I think he is one of the most physically described side characters. His most cited feature is his disturbingly pale eyes, like chips of dirty ice. Though past 40, his pallid skin is absent of any lines, wrinkles or distinguishing marks. His face isn't handsome but not quite plain either, and his physique is neither fat, nor thin, nor muscular.

The Boltons are a shadier branch of the Stark bannermen, and Roose is a deceptively soft spoken and calculating lord. The Bolton house sigil, a bloody flayed man upon a pink field, hints at the twisted ancestry he shares his surname with. Roose's mannerly but callous nature is often overshadowed by the brutal acts of violence his bastard son Ramsay is allowed to commit. Lord Bolton is known for frequently leeching himself and touts it as the secret to long life, but it's said that his constant leechings have drained him of both color and emotion.

So whaddaya think, should I just go ahead and replace all future illustrations of happy, pleasant ladies with disturbing men?

For anyone interested in more ASOIAF art, I was recently a part of a ASOIAF art zine-- "Blood Magic". You can browse the list of artists or order a zine for yourself here.
I have also been informed there are still some posters of mine available over at 1200 Posters. Nab one yourself, or check out the new poster up for sale.

Bad Teacher

Thanks so much for all the kind responses for my 1200 poster!! In contrast to that epic project, here's a recent quickie-- I have an illustration out in this week's New Yorker! I had a weekend to make an illustration based on Cameron Diaz's new movie "Bad Teacher". Jordan Awan, my art director, just wanted it to be a fun image showcasing Cameron & Justin Timberlake.
My sketches:

And final!

Justin's likeness gave me a little difficulty (he's just like a generally good-looking guy!) but overall it was quick and painless and fun and summery! I've been working on a lot of assignments with long deadlines, and sometimes it feels nice to just bust an image out in a few days. I do think it was pretty neat that I was drawing a sexy woman spraying herself with a hose for the New Yorker, of all magazines. Thanks for the opportunity, Jordan!

1200 Posters!

Meet my new favorite drawing!
A while back I was contacted about contributing to 1200 posters--a project about community that features a new artist & poster each month, using quotes from Margaret Wheatley's "Turning to One Another".
I haven't had a chance to do a poster in a loooong time, and Robyn Ng & Greg Kozatek, my art directors, were pretty open to whatever idea I wanted to draw. (woohoo!)
The poster is limited to an edition of 100, only $25 each, and you can read more/buy/check out the other posters here! In my artist statement there I talk a little about the importance of the illustration community (which includes you guys!) & some of the ideas behind my poster.

If you are interested in hearing me ramble more about process, read on!

The quote I was given:
"Invite everyone who cares to work on what's possible"
This put me in mind of intrepid adventurers, and since the theme was so open I ended up deciding to try and combine a lot of the stuff I love into one image:
*Secret, hidden places
*Trees, plants, moss
*mAgIc/fAnTaSy
*Adventure!
*Ruins
*Cats
*Old-timey explorers
*Birds, why not

My brain-funnel turned these things into an idea for a floating island/garden. Anytime I think of floating islands I think of Laputa (which is fine with me since Miyazaki is a god) but I figured that since the comparison would likely be drawn I definitely wanted to make this MY island with my spin on it.
The corresponding sketches:

Also, in a fit of worry that my floating island didn't fit the theme well enough & people wouldn't want to buy a poster of a sky rock, I did some sketches for a pretty girl poster too:

BUT Robyn & Greg liked the island and suggested that the type be integrated more and that the island look more like a nest that a bunch of people (and birds!) have built. So, we came to these options:

The sketch that was decided on takes some elements from each-- type in the background fields, thatching around some areas of the island, and some more homey touches like a clothesline, windows, etc.

From there I tried to work out a color sketch, which is probably one of the most important stages for me. Because I don't render out a lot of things in my work, I feel like I have to get the colors JUST RIGHT or else the image won't stand up. Also, since I work entirely digitally, once I get the color sketch right the rest of the work for me is just refining/polishing/redrawing straight in the color sketch until final.

This poster taught me that green is a heckuva difficult color to use well, and there's a reason why I don't often use it! Just a real pain. At least it feels damn good when you finally figure out a usable solution. Here's the general progression of the color that took me several embarrassing days to puzzle out:

no way

barf!

Finally!

I got pretty frustrated along the way and ended up looking at examples of other people using green well, then I extrapolated for my own purposes. I use reference for my drawings all the time, it makes sense to use color reference too.

As difficult as it was figuring out how to put a green island on top of green fields in the background, I was really happy to be drawing those background fields. They remind me of my family, some of whom used to be or still are farmers in Illinois. Another something I love in a poster full of things I love!

Anyway, here's a shot of the piece when it was aaalmost done. You can see there's some areas yet to be completed-- upper right, floating rocks, roots, text, etc. With this piece I did a lot of skipping around to ensure everything was worked up around the same speed:

The final is up at the top. Here's some closeups:




WHEW. While working on this, I realized that I need to work on drawing interesting characters, I don't feel as inspired drawing people anymore. Maybe it's like when every 7 years your body's cells totally renew and your tastebuds change? I've switched over to only wanting to draw backgrounds. Weird.
Thanks for reading, pals!!

Doughboys and Doughnut girls!

Happy National Doughnut Day, everyone!

I was catching up on my doughnut facts while I ate my free dunkin donut, and discovered the Doughboys and Doughnut Girls (also called "Doughnut Lassies") of WWI!
The Salvation Army sent their 'lassies' over to serve doughnuts and coffee to the homesick soldiers in the trenches (later called doughboys for their fondness of aforementioned treats). I couldn't resist doing a quick little doodle between all my REAL work. Enjoy your doughnuts!

Connections, The Sea, and Fate

I recently completed the July/August cover for Cicada magazine, and I'm really excited to show you. John Sandford, my art director, was my first-ever art director when I worked for him at Carus Publishing in Chicago as an intern/in-house illustrator during the summer between my sophomore and junior years of college. John also happens to be an extra-talented illustrator in his own right (check out his work here!), and understands that giving an illustrator creative freedom will often yield the best results. I love doing assignments for John. There were no rules with this job-- he only told me some of the general themes of the magazine for that month: Connections, The Sea, and Fate.

I wanted to try something different. I wanted to do something epic and fantastical. I wanted to take the style of my "just for fun" Game of Thrones illustrations and turn it into something that worked for jobs. I love editorial, but I would also love to illustrate more in other fields too (hey book publishers!), and I know that I can rise to the challenge.
My sketch. After looking at a lot of nature photos from old National Geographics (from this tumblr), I got really into the idea of a ruined seaside civilization. The cover image needed to wrap around and the back cover illustration had to be relatively free of distraction so text excerpts/callouts from the book could be placed on top of the image.

I thought of the girl as a traveler/descendant come to pay her respects and meet the last remnants of the civilization. Or possibly she is the last remnant. It sounds a little bleak, but I like the idea of intrepid youths carrying on ancient traditions, and I thought it fits with the themes of the magazine issue nicely. The final:

Final with cover text & address label area:

One thing I learned-- rocks are kinda hard. Kinda easy, but kinda hard. One day I will do some rock studies.
Thanks for looking! I hope to do some more illustrations like this in the future!

Parent=Parent

Hello friends!
I've been balancing a lot of longterm projects over here (hence the lack of updates for the moment), but I do have some exciting things to share now!
This weekend my long-labored Amtrak kid's activity book debuted on National Train Day, May 7th! I haven't actually gotten my hands on the physical copy yet, but I will be doing a blog post talking about all that very soon!
Also on May 7th, my cover for the Boson Globe weekend magazine came out! Big thanks to my art director Ryan Huddle for making it all come together.

The big theme for the cover was "Equal Parenting", as recently pioneered by Amy and Marc Vachon. And when I say "equal parenting" I mean TOTALLY EQUAL. Each parent gets a share of ALL the chores, for equal amounts of time (albeit on different days) and each parent spends the same amount of time at work and taking care of the kids, etc. Visually "equal parenting" gives you a pretty set concept to work with, so my sketches were in fairly similar veins, but different stylistically.

They chose the less-graphic sketch but requested that the background just be one color and that both the parents look like they're going to work.
I didn't feel totally satisfied with it until I added a lighting element. I've been really digging atmospheric lighting lately.

And the final after Ryan laid the text out (unfortunately compressed by blogger):

I had a good time with this one, and wish I had that scarf the mom is wearing. And the dad's lambchops!