You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January, 2009.
My most recent childrens book just got an Awe-thumb review on the Bookie Woogie web site. Bookie Woogie is unique in that kids do the reviewing. They also do drawings inspired by the books they review. Are these drawings cool or what!?
Yara-Ma-Yha-Who? No it’s not an obscure Dr. Seuess character. It’s a creature from Australian folklore. It is also my new print and drawing in the “Beast” show at Giant Robot in San Francisco.
The Yara-Ma-Yha-Who is a blood sucking beast that makes it’s home in the tops of fig trees. This nasty little red guy swoops down on unsuspecting children to suck their blood with it’s suction cup tipped fingers and toes. The creature then swallows it’s prey whole, takes a short nap, and regurgitates the child alive and unharmed but several
inches shorter. A child caught repeatedly will eventually become a Yara-Ma-Yha-Who. My guess is that this is a cautionary tale told to kids to keep them in line.
The art show marks the release of the “Beasts II” book published by Fantagraphics. Artists from both books one and two were asked to created new works of art based on their monsters. My pieces are a new print and a drawing. For the print I hand crafted an archival paper frame and storage sleeve. This way the print can still be hung on the wall until the collector gets around to framing the print. I’ll probably continue making these custom paper frame and storage sleeves with upcoming prints.
The other piece is a drawing in watercolor, ink, and pencil on paper. The artwork should be post on Giant Robots SF website sometime this week.
I forgot to scan the piece before I framed it, so this photo was taken at the opening of the show.
The print in the show has sold but you can still get a print here.
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The fine folks over at Letterpresssed have just released my contribution to their trading card series. They turned out great! This was a first for me. I have never done any letter press prints of my artwork. The work they do is outstanding. They have an entire line of artist series cards and prints by some of the best artists around. Defineately check them out. This little guy comes free with an order of $35 or comes in a pack of 5 for $5.
I’m Back! So what has been happening over the past few months? Well, work and monsters sums it up. Over the past few months I’ve been hard at work on multiple illustration projects. I’ve finished a few of them so I’ll have some time to start regularly posting again.
Here are some images for all you curious folks.
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This is the cover from a monster sticker book for Mudpuppy. They are the same publisher that will be releasing my 100 piece monster puzzle. This project was so much fun. It encompassed two of my favorite things. Monsters, and stickers. I was given complete freedom with the design of the monsters. I really tried to push the limit on the weirdo-ness for the age range. I gave the hand lettering a bold Flora-esq color treatment. I really like how the text on his album covers stand out. Hopefully kids will be bugging their parents for this sticker set. There are 40 different monster stickers and little miscellaneous mini stickers. It will be out the same time as the puzzle in fall 2009.
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What is this bag of rotting flesh and bones going to used for? Believe it or not it is one of 30 illustrations for a cook book. Yes, a cook book! It is called Ghoulish Goodies, and will be published by Storey publishing in fall 2009. There are six chapters of creepy recipies and ghoulish ideas for monster themed parties for both kids and adults. I created 6 full page illustrations for each of the chapter openers and 30 spots illustration to be sprinkled around the rest of the book. Here is another of the full page pieces.
With this project I tried a few new things. I wanted to use more simplified shapes and think more about design rather than micro detailing. I was trying to go for something between completly 2-d flat and 3-d rendered. It still has all that great texture I love to use.
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Hear a gurggling in your pipes? Well maybe this guy is wreaking havoc on you plumbing.
This full page piece will be running in Common Ground magazine. The article is titled Hidden Dangers, and deals with the corroding infrastructure beneath some of our major cities. The art director wanted some sort of monster who lived in the sewers. A crazy mutated alligator-snapping turtle beast is what I came up with. I kind of like the blue blood veins running along it’s underbelly. Kind of cool the have a really hard protective carapace on its back but then a vulnerable semi-transparent plastronless belly. Again in this illustration I was thinking more about design and simplified shapes. I’m liking the results. It is making the work more spontaneous which is always good for me as I tend to get lost in minute detailing.
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Every once in a while I get asked to do concept art for animated tv show pitches. This group of characters was done for a Toronto based production company.
These types of jobs can get pretty frustrating when trying to accommodate everyone’s ideas of what the characters should look like. Ultimately you end up creating some awful amalgamation of bad ideas. This project was not like that at all. They gave me complete freedom to come up with characters for the show. There were really no changes from the first sketches to the final characters. It is so nice to have these types of clients. Clients that trust you to come up with something really cool. It comes down to hiring the right illustrator for the job. If you like someones work and it’s the style and tone fits the job you cant go wrong.
There is a portion of some of the stuff I’ve been working on. I’ll be posting some of the other non monster related art in the next few days.
