popidiocy

Love Gone Wrong

2012-01-30T14:29:00.000-08:00

I was asked by my old friend Santa De Haven to take part in a show she was curating for Artspace with the theme of Love Gone Wrong. She has paired 10 short stories by local writers with images by 10 local illustrators. I very rarely do work for galleries and I rarely get assignments where I'm asked to illustrate short fiction. Once upon a time having illustrators provide images for fiction pieces was fairly common place, not so much anymore, so I was more than happy to be a part of this.

I was given a Story titled The Wedding Horse by Angela Apte. After reading the story I immediately jotted down a couple of quick very rough thumbnails just to get an idea of what my approach would be.

Nothing too realized, just some visual short hand to get me going. Then I collected what references I thought I'd need and worked up a tighter drawing.

Once I felt like the piece was coming along I tightened it up further still.

It's generally at this stage where I would then begin inking the drawing but since this wasn't for a client I decided to try something a little different. I wanted to keep the rough unfinished feeling of the pencils so I played around with Levels-Adjust and then worked back into the drawing in Photoshop.

In order to create the sense of atmosphere I was after I took some graphite dust from my pencil sharpener and an old brush and applied the dust to a sheet of paper and again played around with Levels-Adjust until I was satisfied with the overall texture.

I then assembled the texture and the drawing and began the coloring. My intent was to keep the coloring simple and mostly confined to the line work. In this piece I was much more interested in the quality of the pencil work and not so much the quality of the painting.

Detail 1.

Detail 2.

Final.

Santa told me that the writers will be reading their stories at the gallery Sat. Feb. 11th. I'm not sure of the time but if you're interested contact the gallery.

Happy Dysfunctional Holidays!

2011-12-16T07:35:00.000-08:00

I received a call from Pete Hausler of The Wall Street Journal end of the day last Thursday, he needed 5 color spot illo.s by lunch the following Tuesday. The article was dealing with typical dysfuntional family situations that repeat themselves every holiday season. He wanted to know if I was interested? The short answer was Yes. He wanted the sketches done and approved by end of day Friday. Being that the turn around time was so short I submitted one sketch per situation, 4 of which were approved by the days end. The 5th sketch was approved Monday morning which gave me the weekend to work on the approved spots. Pete had seen a job I had done for Tyler Darden when he was at Virginia Living Magazine at my online portfolio and wanted these handled in a similar fashion.

Virginia Living

He thought the more graphic, chunky approach to the color would be a good fit for this article.

The 5 typical situations were, in no particular order;

Your son comes home from his first semester at college looking like an alien exhibiting a new and surprising fashion sense.

Mom and Dad fighting over the correct way to cook the gravy and pretty much everything else.

The Aunt who doesn't realize when she's had one glass of wine too many.

The negotiation of which set of parents you'll be spending the special day with.

And the calm and civil discussions that will take place between you r siblings as to who will get what heirlooms once the folks have left this mortal coil.

Happy Holidays Everyone.

Unpublished Illo. Dept.

2011-12-05T11:53:00.000-08:00

This illo. was done for a national newspaper and the story ended up being canceled due to the fact that one of the paper's major competitors did a story almost identical to this one a day or two before this was to see print. It's not the first time something like this has happened so it wasn't to surprising but still it was a bit of a let down.

The story had something to do with hospitals attempting to improve the customer-patient experience and improving it to the equivalent of a 5 star hotel. I got the call from the A.D. on a Friday afternoon and the finish needed to be done by 12:00 the following Monday. I didn't get the chance to read the manuscript because the writer hadn't finished it at that point. The A.D. knew what the gist of the story was so he discussed with me what he and the other editors thought would be an appropriate solution. I quickly did the sketch per our conversation, scanned it and email it to him. He promptly got back to me with an OK and I was good to go.

I worked on the illo. over the course of the weekend, did the the finishing touches Monday morning and sent it off. The A. D. seemed very happy with the end results and said that the publishing date had been bumped to the following week. I contacted him early the next week to check and see which day it'd see print and that's when I received the news of the story being killed. Oh well.

Pop Up Holiday Shop

2011-12-02T09:06:00.000-08:00

popidiot will be selling t-shirts, post cards, stickers, etc. at the Pop Up Holiday boutique at Artisan Alley, 323 W. Broad St. tonight from 6:00 to 10:00ish. There will be lots of other artists and crafters selling their unique handmade local wares. The pop Up Shop will be open Sat. & Sun. as well and then every Fri. thur Sun. up til Xmas. If you're out for First Fri. Artwalk stop in and get an early jump on your xmas shopping.

http://www.facebook.com/events/118632931584058/

SPENT

2011-10-14T11:32:00.000-07:00

Here's something I've been working on the last week or so for myself. It's an image I've been thinking about and working on sporadically for a while now.

Because this was for no one else other than myself I decided to load up the image with a lot of visual information, introducing elements that may appear to be only tangentially related to the main elements. I should mention that it was initially inspired by a piece by Ed Rushca.

I've always been attracted to this images graphic simplicity having said that I wasn't at all interested in slavishly replicating it. This may seem odd being that the piece I've done is anything but simple, even the version where I did simplify it, there's still much more going on. I really just wanted to use it a spring board for the piece I ultimately ended up with.

Once I thought I was finished with it I showed it to a couple of friends who also happen to be an illustrator and animator. They both had very helpful if somewhat annoying suggestions.
At first I was a bit put off by them because I thought I was done with this piece and ready to move on. But once I got a bit of distance I could see what they meant and I had to address them.

One of my friends felt strongly that the rocket babies and the tentacle coming out of the bucket in the bakgound were unnecessary and only distracted from what he thought was the central idea of the drawing.

Photoshop is a blessing and a curse because it makes it fairly easy to make these types of changes and what can happen as a consequence of that is you can arrive at a point where you're not sure yourself if the piece is even finished. I suppose the upside of this is you can inadvertently end up with two similar yet very different pieces.

New Work @ Pibby's Bicycle & Skate Friday Oct. 7th.

2011-10-05T13:55:00.000-07:00

This Friday I'll be in a joint show with my good friend Bob Scott at Pibby's where we'll showing some of our recent illustration work and Bob will also have some of his brand new collages on hand. Below are some samples of you can expect to find at the show;

Bob Scott 2011 - Madonna of Hazzard

Kelly Alder 2011 - Dr. HedgeFund

Bob Scott 2011 - Shepard's Copy-rite

New Work For Agent 207

2011-09-21T13:32:00.000-07:00

I Recently completed this illustration for a gentleman here in RVA for his fledgling film production company. He asked me to create a retro Buck Rogers - Flash Gordon character in conjunction with a logo. He thought it would look good if the character were holding a camera of some kind. I thought that combining the camera with aspects of a retro space gun would be fun and would tie the camera more readily to the character. In the initial talks with the client we touched on potential elements that he would like to have incorporated into the illustration, if possible. Things like high collars, capes, reels of film, fins, gloves, boots, lighting bolts and the aforementioned camera and laser. Being a kid who grew up on all things pulp this seemed like a potentially fun job.

The initial sketch.

Every job takes it's own path and you never know how many sketches it'll take to arrive at a point where both you and the client will be satisfied. This was one of those jobs where one sketch was all it took. In my experience this is a rather rare occurrence. I have had jobs where I've done 10 to 15 sketches only to have the client decide that perhaps I wasn't the right choice for the job. These things happen.

The inked drawing.

Once the client approved the sketch I then had it printed out onto some good quality illustration board in non-repro blue and inked it in with a brush. The reason for the non repro print out is that I then scan the line work into the computer as black and white art and that allows you to adjust the levels of the file and most of the dirt from the under drawing will fall away. The logo was all drawn in the computer except for the bit of film that is trailing off of the reel.

Inked drawing with subtle adjustments.

The reason for the second posting of what looks like the same drawing as previous one is I made a few minor but important changes to the drawing. After I had finshed with the inking my wife took a look at it and asked me why he didn't have a waist and why his forearm was so long. It's always good to have a fresh pair of eyes take a look at what you've been working on. I knew something wasn't working but I couldn't put my finger on it. Luckily it's very easy to address these issues in the computer.

Finished illustration.

After the drawing is finished then it's just a matter of laying in the colors which is all done in photoshop. But even after I thought I was done with the drawing one of my sons took a look at it and the first thing he asked me was why didn't he have a second arm? At first I tried to justify why he didn't have one but ultimately I realized it was just because I was too lazy to put it in. The more I looked at it the more it bothered me so I added a silouhette of his other arm.

2nd Animation for the RoomStore

2011-06-01T05:23:00.000-07:00

Here's the second animated spot I worked on with Mark Lambert of the Park Group for the RoomStore.

In this spot the we were going for more of a Jetsons feel. By that I mean a more stylized approach to the design of the characters,

environments,

and a more graphic application of the colors.

This was another fun and challenging job to be involved in and everyone at Park has been great to work with.

Upcoming Show in D.C.

2011-05-27T12:42:00.000-07:00

I'm going to have work in a show up in D.C. Jeffery Everett of El Jefe Design invited myself, fellow Richmonder and all round great guy Bob Scott,

to be in a show with him and Sean Hennessey .

which is opening this Friday June 3rd at Bella Cafe and Bar. If you happen to be in the neighborhood stop in, check out the work, enjoy the generous bar, karaoke and who knows what else.

Animation for the RoomStore...

2011-05-26T14:07:00.000-07:00

I recently had the pleasure of working with Mark Lambert from The Park Group on a couple of commercials for the RoomStore. Mark has a very impressive resume. He's worked on such films as Narnia; the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - Polar Express - Hollowman - Stuart Little - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, just to name a few.

Now on first blush you might think yeah, big deal, a commercial for a furniture store. And yes I understand but this was the first time in something like 25 years since I've had the opportunity to work in animation.

The last time was back in the early eighties when I worked on an animated music video for The Alan Parson's Project for a song called Don't Answer Me. The studio that it was done through was Broadcast Arts, at the time they were located in D.C.

Shortly after the completion of the video the studio moved to NYC and made the first season of Pee Wee's Playhouse. While working on the music video I had the supreme pleasure of working with Michael W. Kaluta, a comic book and fantasy artist of the highest caliber and huge hero of mine.

So yes, I was excited to be working in animation again however limited the animation had to be due to time and budget constraints. Luckily I was working with someone who's knowledge of the history and different techniques of animation is very deep. Mark wanted to create a visual sensibility that was somewhat along the lines of early Warner Brother's cartoons and being a big fan those old cartoons I was more than happy to oblige. Having said that we're well aware of the fact that the animation is very limited but again we did what we could given the time and budget restraints.

I'm very happy with the end result and had a blast working with Mark and everyone else at
The Park Group.

Obama's College Days

2011-03-02T15:06:00.000-08:00

This was done for a book that will be coming out either this fall or next spring. I can't really say too much about it at this point other than the book isn't entirely about Obama. My understanding is there will only be one chapter that focuses on him. Oddly enough they had me do 2 illustrations for the chapter. One that deals with him as a child and this one that depicts him during his college years. What the client was after was a rather literal depiction of Obama living a rather austere, ascetic lifestyle, focusing intently on his studies.

Sketch 1

In speaking with the writer he wanted to include as many of the books and historical figures as possible that contributed to forming Obama's views. He also wanted to have Obama's father somehow represented, a neglected distressed basketball hoop out of his window to represent him leaving behind his childhood and something to represent his Grandparents. The list was a bit unrealistic in it's length and had to be shortened considerably. As a consequence I wasn't very hopeful for a successful outcome for this piece. With everything that I had to shoe horn into this, it seemed to me there was no way this was going to be anything other than a clunky, awkward illustration.

Sketch 2

Surprisingly enough we didn't have to go through too many revisions and compositionaly things worked out better than I expected.

Finished inks

Completed illustration

Chicken Run @ The Virginia Historical Society

2011-02-23T07:35:00.000-08:00

This is the last of the 4 stories we did for the Virginia Historical Society's new exhibit, "An American Turning point:The Civil War in Virginia". This story has a decidely lighter and slightly humorous tone. One of the things I really enjoyed about this job was the variety of tone each story contained. One deals mostly with interpersonal conflicts, one with espionage, one with the brutality of war and this one shows a moment that could be seen as funny although it does involve the theft of some of "Grandma's poultry".

rough pencils, page 2

Initially Bruce and I discussed approaching the story with a very obvious cartoon sensibility, along the lines of the old Warner Bros., M.G.M. and Hanna Barbera cartoons. We especially applied this to the soldiers running with their feet not touching the ground and the use of big animated sound effects. At one point I mentioned how I couldn't believe the museum was letting us handle this in such an exaggerated fashion. To which Bruce replied something along the lines of "we'll see, it hasn't been approved just yet."

tight pencils, page 2

As you can see in the revised pencils we did have to reign things in a little. This was for the Virginia Historical Society after all. Having said that they did allow us to keep the soldiers running through the fence with the planks exploding in a completely impossible manner.

finishes, last panel, page 2

On this story I once again had the pleasure of working with Noah Hornstein. He assisted me with the initial application of the colors. He also was kind enough to point out a few glaring mistakes in the drawings and I'm grateful to him for keeping me from embarrassing myself, thanks Noah.

finish, panel one, page one

Here is the story in it's finished form, enjoy.

Vortex @ The Virginia Historical Society

2011-02-17T08:23:00.000-08:00

This was the one story of the four that was more typical in it's approach to the subject of war. While the previous 2 stories dealt more with the social displacement and strategies employed during a conflict, this one deals more directly with the frank brutality of the war itself.

Once again, Lorna Yarberry assisted me with the colors on this story and as usual she did a great job. I was a little concerned as to how she would respond to the panel with the amputated limbs on the front porch. Much to my surprise and relief she wasn't the least bit put off by it. In fact I think she enjoyed

working on that panel the most.

While working on this job it brought to mind a line of comics I read as a kid called Classics Illustrated. They were a line of comics that dealt more with literary classics and unfortunately because of this they were quite a bit more buttoned down. They had more of an academic stiffness to them and as a kid I was reading comics more for their entertainment value and the inexpensive escape from reality they offered so yeah, I wasn't a big fan of the their line.

Here' the story "Vortex" enjoy;

Spies Like Us @ The Virginia Historical Society

2011-02-14T11:47:00.000-08:00

Detail 1.

Here's the second of four stories we did in comic book form for the new exhibit, "An American Turning Point, The Civil War In Virginia" at the Virginia Historical Society. It's titled "Spie Like Us"

Detail 2.

I'm hesitant to put it in the category of the "graphic novel" although that was the terminology used in the initial discussions, because the stories simply are not long enough to qualify as such. I guess "graphic novel" sounds more respectable than "comic book" just as once upon a time "popular music" sounded more legit than "rock and roll". If these stories were a 100 pages or longer, I would not have a problem with that designation but since they're not I'm calling them comics.

Detail 3.

The individual at The Virginia Historical Society primarily responsible for the stories is Andy Talkov. He was great to work with and he seemed to have more than just a surface familiarity with the graphic novel form or in this case, comic book form which proved to be a big plus.

Detail 4.

I also want to mention my assistant on this story, I worked with Noah Hornstein. He is a soon to be graduate from VCU's Communication Design Program. He assisted me with the laying in of the flat colors and a much needed objective eye in some areas of the comic.

Detail 5.

Here is the story in full comic book form;

Thanks for taking a look.

New comics work for the Virginia Historical Society

2011-02-10T08:19:00.000-08:00

I spent most of this past fall working on another job with Bruce and Dixie Horntstein of Pyramid Studios. This was another museum job, this time for the Virginia Historical Society. It was for an exhibition commemorating the 150 year anniversary of the American Civil War. Even though our contribution was relatively small in relation to the overall size of the exhibit, it seemed quite large to me as I was working on it.

Our portion of the exhibit was designed to draw kids into the museum and hopefully spark their interest in the history of Virginia and the country. We were tasked with creating an 8 page, full color, interactive comic book. It consists of 4 stories, each one 2 pages in length. Each story is told from a different individuals perspective, both politically and geographically. They were designed so that by the end of the first page of each story the reader would be presented with a choice as to what would they do were they in that situation. At the bottom of the page there is a touch sensitive navigation bar where the reader would then be instructed to turn to the next page or return to the main menu.

Granted it's difficult to flesh out character, plot and story in the space of 2 pages but that was one of the challenges we were faced with.

Once again I had the luxury of working with asisstants who I'd like to give a shout out to. Lorna Yarberry laid in the the flat colors and then some on the "Invasion of Privacy" and "Vortex" stories. Noah Hornstein, Bruce and Dixie's son, did the same on "Spies Like Us" and "Chicken Run".

Here's the first story, "Invasion of Privacy", enjoy.

Game Time

2011-02-03T13:08:00.000-08:00

Here are 3 more illustrations form the Louisiana Childrens Discovery Center. These were from the map that concentrated on New Orleans. We have the most obvious examples of what represents this area, the Super Bowl and the Saints recent championship win, street musicians and the Mardi Gras. Again my assistant, Lorna Yarberry was a great collaborator on these 3 illo.s.

Detail of the Superdome and the Saints Superbowl win.

Detail New Orleans street jazz musicians.

Detail of Madri Gras float.

Gone Fishin"

2011-01-27T11:08:00.000-08:00

This is from a job I did last summer with Bruce and Dixie Hornstein of Pyramid Studios for the Louisiana Childrens Discovery Center. They were tasked with creating a simulated balloon ride.
Being that the exhibit is geared towards kids 4 to 10 they wanted the illustrations to have a childrens book feel.

It was a rather large job that took the better part of the summer to complete. It involved drawing 3 large topographical maps, each one from a higher distance than the previous one. Each map had a different area that it focused on. The first being the immediate neighborhood around the museum itself.

Detail of Hammond area map.

The second was the larger surrounding metropolitan area and the last was the swamp-bayou-bay area. Being that they wanted the overall sensibility to have a kids book feel it gave me a bit of leeway when doing the maps. Having said that, the map of the Hammond neighborhood still required a lot of heavy lifting. In the process I became very familiar with google maps.

I was lucky enough to have an assistant on this job which is a very rare thing for me. Luckily Bruce and Dixie were aware of the amount of work involved and time allowed to execute it and allocated some of the budget for this. Originally my assistant, Lorna Yarberry was just going to lay in the flat colors but she asked if she could take a crack at applying some textures and modeling which knowing the time constraints we were working under I was more than happy to let her give it a shot. Lorna ended up doing a fantastic job, we worked very well together, her contributions ended up making this a much more mangable job.

Detail of swamp area map.

While flying over one of these areas a window or view finder would pop up.

It was designed to have an industrial, steam punk sensibility. I'm not really sure why it had a steam punk vibe but it provided a nice break from the maps. On the left hand side of each view finder are 3 icon buttons, clicking on one would take you to a scene from that particular map. For instance the view finder that opens with the swamp has an icon of a Shrimp boat, a pelican and a tree. Clicking on one of the icons takes you to it's respective scene.

Detail of Shrimp Boat.

Detail of Pelicans.

Detail of the Swamp.

Drat! Foiled Again

2011-01-14T08:24:00.000-08:00

This is the 5th. and final illo. form the Dr. Hedge Fund assignment. As most of you probably already know, crime doesn't pay. In this case the good Dr. is finding that out the hard way.

Meanwhile back at Dr. Hedge Funds...

2011-01-12T18:45:00.000-08:00

Here's a larger version of one of the spots from the Dr. Hedge Fund story. Omega Woman is on her way to the rescue of Equilibrium Man and Regulator boy.

Here's Omega Woman just before taking off to rescue the boys. Again being that they were after an obvious and fun sense of kitsch I was more than happy to do my best in giving it to them.

Here are the sketches for Omega Woman's costume change. In the 1st sketch I thought the cropping of her head within the star burst panel would be clever but once I got a bit of distance from it I realized it just looked clumsy and awkward. Also in the second sketch Omega Woman has undergone a slight breast reduction at the request of the client. In my attempt to convey the super hero kitsch of the time period I thought the portrayal of the super herion as a strong well endowed woman seemed perfectly in keeping with the mood. The client, not so much.

Here she is in the process of saving the boys bacon. In the sketches below you can see how much I had to rein in Omega Woman's voluptuousness. I was originally going for a Wally Wood, Mad Magazine type of gal, thinking that would be perfect for what we were doing. But the clients thought, and they were probably right, that this could be seen as being offensive to some. So we made her look a little more modern and athletic, sports bra and all.

The Return of Dr. Hedge Fund!

2011-01-12T08:54:00.000-08:00

This was a job I did last fall for Communication Design, a design firm here in RVA that has been doing award winning design work for national and international clients for the past 25 years. This was the 2nd time I worked with them on Dr. Hedge Fund for CFA magazine which is a magazine for the financial industry. I know, it sounds deadly boring but I have to say they've been surprisingly fun to work with. For this particular job they wanted to give the material a 1960's - 1970's kitschy Marvel comics sensibility. That happens, for better or worse, to be a sensibility that I'm all too familiar with. So when Bil Cullen called to ask me if I was available to for a second go round with the good Dr. I was more than happy to oblige.

Like the last time I had the pleasure of working on Dr. Hedge Fund, the scope of the job was rather large. They needed a full page illo or in this case a splash page and 5 spots. It's always fun when as an illustrator you get to work on a job that's this involved.

Here are a couple of the sketches for the splash page. The first one being the roughest and the 2nd a bit tighter with a the basic placement of the word balloons and captions. In the final they would adjusted even further.

Here's the finished illo minus the type placement. To see it in it's proper context follow this link it will take you to the Z mag, essentially a digital version of the magazine where you can see the entire job. Also if you look at the bottom left hand corner of the splash page in the digital version, there's an explosive text/caption box, it's a link to the previous Dr. Hedge Fund story with all of the corresponding illos.

In this case I wanted to give it a more retro feel so I played with the halftone effects and in some areas of the illo made it look like the registration is out of whack which was an all too frequent occurrence in the comics of the 60s and 70s.

It's been a long time...

2011-01-06T12:02:00.000-08:00

... since I've posted, no need to bore anyone with the reasons. I've done quite a bit of new work and it's about time I put some of it up. This one was done for Richmond Magazine. Something about some ex-punk rocker now a middle aged house wife trying to work up the motivation and energy to clean her house. So she does what any self respecting ex-punk rock chick would do, she put's on the Pretenders and commences to clean.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

Below I have a break down of my process on this particular job in it's most basic form. There are quite a few steps I'm leaving out. In this post I'm going to cover the initial sketches, the second, tighter sketch. Then on to the inked line work and the final finished image.

1st. go round of sketches. They liked the 2nd one but asked me to make her less Grandma and more middle age Mom. So I did...

2nd. Sketch. Here's the revised slightly more youthful middle aged ex-punk rock Mom with a slight tilt to the illo. to give it a stronger sense of motion and energy.

Inked Line Work.

Finished Illustration. Get out of the way Mom's got some cleaning to do.

Retail Traffic...

2009-02-24T11:03:00.000-08:00

These were done a little over a year ago for a trade pub. called Retail Traffic, with A.D. Sean Barrow, this was before everything went spiraling down the commode. However even though the opening illo. was injected with as much positivity as we could muster, the spots seemed to hint at an uncertain future.

The old guy with the oxygen tank was for the Gap and how they may have spread themselves too thin, expanded into too many markets and seriously diluted their brand. So much so that they were in need of some life support. The idea was to spoof their old television and prints ads.

The one with the giant robot was about Walmart and how smaller independant business' and local communities were doing their best to keep Walmart out of their towns.

Internet Super Villans

2009-02-24T08:24:00.000-08:00

These character designs were done for what was going to be a very fun job for SmithGifford, an advertising and branding shop out of Falls Church Va. The client was Apptix a company that offers internet services. The A.D. on this job was Kevin Richards, when he called me for this job he said he needed some designs somewhat in the Marvel Comics style of super villains that would represent different problems we all deal with every day on the internet, in this case spam and virus's. He wanted to develop two of the characters to show the client in conjunction with the rest of the campaign. We did, the client liked it but they did end up changing them from villains to heroes, probably a good idea. Unfortunately by the time SmithGifford was given the go ahead on the campaign I was knee deep in what turned into a 3 month long assignment for another client so I had to sadly decline the job. It would have been a gas, maybe next time.

Gift Cards Exposed...

2009-02-24T07:39:00.000-08:00

This piece was done for Keith Whitney at USAA.COM magazine. It's a financial services trade publication and this article dealt with, obviously, gift cards and how they may not be giving the consumer everything they claim. What? Say it ain't so.

In the final Keith married the illustration with a photo of a guy holding the tabloid in his hands reading it with a look of consternation on his face. Unfortunately I don't have a file of his finish so this will have to do.

Global Warming...

2009-02-20T05:12:00.000-08:00

This piece was done for for a local "alternative" tabloid called Brick back when Pete Humes was the Editor. I'm not sure how it qualifies as being alternative though, I believe it's supported by Media General, which puts out the local Richmond Times Dispatch and apparently 24 other daily newspapers. In fact They're a media conglomerate with interests in broadcasting and interactive media and who knows what else. My guess is like everyone else these days they're experiencing financial difficulties. One look at the paper and you'd think so. It unfortunately has little to offer in the way of real substance, it's full of trivial unnecessary information and lots of photo's of young people partying. I thought that's what Facebook and Myspace were for.

I don't mean to criticize the people who put the paper out week after week, I'm sure they're under staffed, underfunded and work very hard to meet their deadlines. I know that when Pete was putting out the paper he was lacking any meaningful support from Media General. It seems to me that this "alternative" paper is just a cynical ploy on the owners part to collect ad revenue. Unfortunately they don't seem to understand a basic rule of the marketplace, if you're going to ask people for something, in this case the advertisers, you need to give them something in return and that would be a paper worth picking up. If Media General really wants succeed at this they need to take a long range view of what they. want the paper to be and then give the staff the financial backing to achieve that goal.

After all is said and done though there's no escaping the insidiousness of a corporate conglomerate pretending that they have a sincere interest in putting out an "alternative" paper. I think people are smarter than that.

I Think I see a Yeti

2009-02-09T07:55:00.000-08:00

This is another job that was done with Tyler Darden of Virginia Living Magazine about a year ago. I thought perhaps I'd post it before spring gets here. It was for a feature on extreme winter sports. I'm not sure how curling and ice fishing fit into this category but it wasn't my job to ask. Maybe because it's extremely cold ? All's I know is I was given the opportunity to draw a Yeti, who wouldn't jump at that? Tyler suggested developing a narrative of sorts which I did, however tenuous it may be. Anyways I always enjoy working with Tyler, he makes every job fun and challenging.

Italian Film and Food Festival 2009

2009-01-28T07:50:00.000-08:00

We were excited to be given the opportunity to do the poster a second year in a row for The Italian Film and Food Festival. This year I worked with Spencer Hansen of Team8press on it. Like our poster for popidiot we collaborated again. I came up with the initial concept and executed the drawing and Spencer designed the type and did the coloring and as always, we printed it together in Team8eight's top secert underground location.

The festival is this saturday, Jan,. 6th. There will be 4 films, the first starting at 11:00 am at Plant Zero, you can find all the information you need at The Richmond Moving Image Coop.

A big thanks again to Ed for providing us with such fun work.

Society of Illustrators 51

2009-01-26T19:46:00.000-08:00

I was very excited to hear that the cover I did for our T-shirt company popidiot's catalogue was accepted into The Society of Illustrator's annual 51. It's the 2nd time in the last 3 years that I've been lucky enough to get a piece in. I find it a little odd that both times it has been for something I've done for popidiot. Gee, I guess I should try and get some more work from them. And a big thank you to SI, we think you have wonderful taste.

More Comics!

2009-01-26T18:34:00.000-08:00

This was a comic that I worked on with Tyler Darden, art director extraordinaire at Virginia Living Magazine and Don Harrison, local writer, journalist, blogger and all round funny guy.

Yes we did this a few years ago, 3 to be exact. Wow, it's been that long? Time flies. So the time's just right for this post. It was done for the June 2006 issue to coincide with the 400th year anniversary of the founding of Jamestown. Our intention was to showcase the side of the story that had until then had been shoved under the bed, pushed to the back of the closet, hidden under the rug. We tried to imbue it with the sensibility of the very early Mad Magazine, the

Harvey Kurtzman - Will Elder Mad Magazine. It's doubtful we attained our goal but we had a lot of fun trying.

Areva Opening Video

2009-01-25T13:44:00.000-08:00

This is a job I did last year with Bruce Hornstein of Pyramid Studios. It was done for Areva, a European company that builds and maintains nuclear reactors. My understanding of the function of the job itself was that it was more or less a pep rally for the company, something they do every 2 years, and this was part of the opening module. Pyramid has been doing this for them for awhile now. When Bruce approached me about this he said he wanted to create an animated graphic novel feeling for it. Granted the animation is limited but given the budget and time constraints I think it ended up having a very rich atmospheric feel to it.

Comic work with M.w. Kaluta...

2009-01-20T17:27:00.000-08:00

Since I haven't posted any work in way too long and the post that I made just prior to this one could be perceived as maybe a little less than positive, depending on your political perspective, I thought it might be fun to revisit some work I did some 25 years ago or so. This is my only mainstream comic book work done with the generous support and recommendation of Michael Kaluta. I had been a huge fan of Michael's work long before this opportunity came along. During the early to mid-seventies Michael's work along with Bernie Wrightson and Barry Smith started to appear in mainstream comics. Being young and not knowing how or why the industry worked the way it did, when I discovered their work, it was like a creative breath of fresh air. It was unlike anything else being done at that time that I was aware of.

Many years later while attending art school at VCU I was lucky to meet Michael through a mutual friend, Phil Trumbo, and become a friend of Michael's in the process. This lead to me getting a job on Michael's recommendation being his assistant on an early MTV music video for the band "The Allan Parsons Project". I'm not sure that anyone of us who worked on that video think back on it as a high water mark in our careers but for a young kid just out of art school working side by side with one of his idols, it was an incredible experience. I'm not sure how long after that job finished Michael offered me the opportunity to work with him again as his inker for this Superman comic, maybe a year or so, but needless to say I jumped at the chance. Did my inks do his pencils justice? No. But I still look back on it fondly as the exciting experience that it was.

Now george, Behave...

2009-01-20T15:51:00.000-08:00

Even though I haven't posted anything in way too long, this post isn't going to be about illustration, it's about the sense of relief and joy I'm feeling that we finally did something right by not letting yet another election be hijacked by a bunch of self interested short sighted money grubbing entitled pirates.

It looks like the one thing the bush years have given us is a complete repudiation of his administration and everything it stood for. So I'm going to say something I never thought I would or could, thank you george bush. Because without you subjecting the American People to an unthinkably painful eight years, I'm not sure we would have had the courage to put someone like Barack Obama into office.

After watching you, george, over the last couple of weeks doing interview after interview pathetically grasping for anything to hang your legacy on that hasn't been tainted by your actions of the last eight years. It seems that the one thing you may actually be able to lay claim to, however inadvertent, is helping to put Barack into office. Let's just hope that Barack and his administration are up to the task of shoveling all the shit you and yours left behind.

Halloween...

2008-10-20T07:57:00.000-07:00

Since Halloween is right around the corner I thought I'd post a piece I did for Tyler at Virginia Living Magazine a few years ago. The article was written by Don Harrison, it was on Tidewater late nite TV horror host Dr. Madblood. I didn't grow up in the area so I wasn't familiar with him but back in Michigan where I did grow up we had Sir Graves Ghastly, so I was somewhat familiar with what Dr. Madblood was all about. As a kid loving all things monster/sci-fi, I would try to watch Sir Graves every Sat. afternoon if I could. So when Tyler asked me if I'd like to illustrate this I was very excited to do so.

Mamma'Zu Comic's & Activities...

2008-10-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

About a year ago Ed from Mamma'Zu approached me about doing a post card for his restaurant. During the course of conversation it evolved into a comic book, not unlike what I used to get when I was a little kid, while waiting to be seated Bob's Big Boy. Looking back it's easy to see how cheap and badly produced it was but I was a kid who loved all things comics. Not only did it have comics it also had puzzles, mazes, connect the dots and sometimes a section you could color in yourself. Our aim was to do something like that but attempt to marry it with the irreverent sensibility of the early Harvey Kurtzman, Will elder and company Mad Magazine.

Ed turned out to be a dream client with a dream job, needless to say I had a blast with this one.

Enjoy.

Mamma'zu Comic's & Activities Interior

2008-10-15T08:50:00.000-07:00

2008-10-15T08:37:00.000-07:00

Tomorrows Markets - Communication Design

2008-10-15T07:46:00.000-07:00

This was a job done for a shop here in town called Communication Design. It was done for one of their clients, CFA, a financial magazine out of Charlottesville Va. The subject matter had the potential to be quite dry, the speed at which business is done today as a result of communication technologies. but thanks to the steady yet encouraging hand of AD Bil Cullen, we were able to arrive at a solution that addressed the content in a way that was both appropriate and fun.

Virginia Living Magazine

2008-10-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

This I believe is the first job I had the pleasure of working on with Tyler Darden at Virginia Living magazine. It was initially meant to be a spot but luckily for me Tyler was happy enough with the end results that he ran it as a 3/4 page. Which I probably don't need to tell you but it always makes an illustrator happy when you print their image bigger then they expected.

I've been lucky enough to work with Tyler on a number of jobs since and everyone has been a great experience. This is probably due somewhat to the fact that Tyler is an illustrator and painter himself and none too shabby I might add. I think this obviously gives him some insight and empathy into the process of creating an image and he works accordingly with his illustrators.

This is not to say that if an AD isn't an illustrator or painter that it somehow lessens the experience but in Tyler's case he may be more sensitive to the process than your average bear.

Speaking of silk screening...

2008-10-01T12:00:00.000-07:00

This poster was done for Ed Vasaio of Mamma'Zu fame. Mamma'Zu is one of the, if not the best, Italian or any kind of restaurant for that matter, on the eastern seaboard. My wife and I have had the pleasure to work with Ed on some projects, one of them being the poster for the Italian Film and Food festival that Ed put's on with Mike Jones and James Parrish of the Richmond Moving Image Co-op, better known as RMIC. It's a fund raiser for the RMIC and they've been doing it going on 6 years now. It's a great film festival where you can view obscure and not so obscure Italian films all while enjoying the world famous food from Mamma'Zu.

The poster was printed by Ian Sampson at the world head quarters of Team8press. I'm not sure what Ian's affiliation is with Team8 anymore. It's my understanding that he and his girl friend, Mandy, have moved to Philly to pursue grad school. He did an amazing job on our poster and we wish him the best in his academic pursuits.

popidiot Silk screen poster made with Team8press

2008-10-01T11:48:00.000-07:00

Line work...

Finished poster.

This silk screen poster was made in close collaboration with Spencer Hansen of Team8press. It's a 7 color monster that was pulled in team8's super secret headquarters, otherwise known as Spencer's basement. to get the inside scoop check out Team8's blog, you'll be glad you did. There is ton's more art to see there by other great RVA artists.

Richmond Guide Fall 2008 - Walking the... Iron Dog

2008-09-26T06:59:00.000-07:00

Sketch...

Finished Inks...

Finish.

In this one Frank was again indispensable with his suggestion of the Iron Dog in RVA's justly famous Hollywood Cemetery. Even though I was very familiar with the cemetery itself, not so much with the Iron Dog. This being the fall issue of the guide and Halloween being around the corner, it seemed appropriate to have a cemetery in one of the illo.s. Once we decided on the Iron Dog as the main focus the rest of the idea seemed self evident and spelled itself out for us. Someone would have to walk the dog and...

Richmond Guide Fall 2008 - Hetty Cary... a night out

2008-09-25T09:25:00.000-07:00

It was Frank the A. D. for Richmond Guide who suggested Ms. Hetty Cary for one of the illo.s. To be honest I was completely unfamiliar with her. She designed the original Stars and Bars, the confederate flag. At first I was at a complete loss as to how I could depict her with her infamous design. I realized that it was a potentially explosive symbol and I had to be careful so as to avoid unintentionally offending anyone. I believe it was Frank who suggested putting it up on a gallery wall and somehow alter it so it would look like a piece of contemporary art. Which I thought was a good idea but then it occurred to me that it might be fun to take it a step further and have it be a DIY art piece being worn by a gallery goer with Ms. Cary looking on somewhat longingly and a little bewildered at the young punk. In recontextualizing the flag like this it was my hope that it would lessen the power that this symbol from the old south still yields.

Richmond Guide Fall 2008 - Maggie Walker Bling

2008-09-25T08:52:00.000-07:00

Initial Sketch...

Tightened sketch...

Inks...

Finish.

In researching this piece I was struck how in all of the photos that I came across of Maggie Walker she comes across as very serious and business like. Which makes a certain sort of sense, she was a very successful business woman as well as a teacher and a banker. In fact she was the first woman to charter a bank in the United States. So yeah I guess she was serious. Viewing her in this light I thought it might be fun to take her out shopping for some lively perhaps even ostentatious shades. I wanted to be careful so that I handled this with the proper amount of respect but have some fun with her persona at the same time. Whether or not I achieved this balance will be up to each individual viewer to decide.

Richmond Guide Fall 2008 - Robert E. Lee... The Duke Of Hazard

2008-09-25T04:53:00.000-07:00

Initial sketch...

Tight pencils...

Inks...

Finish.

If you're familiar with RVA you'll know about Monument Ave. It's one of the main boulevards that runs through the fan neighborhood in the heart of Virginia Commonwealth University. At almost every intersection you'll find a monument devoted to a different civil war hero. Since the idea for this issue was to place some of RVA's historical figures into a contemporary context Frank and I thought it might be funny to have General Robert E. Lee driving the General Lee from the 1970's show The Dukes of Hazard. on his monument.

Richmond Guide Fall 2008 - Mr. Bojangles... MadSkilz

2008-09-24T06:31:00.000-07:00

Initial sketch..
Tightened pencils...
Inked drawing

Finished piece.

I believe that this one was done for the Performing Arts section of the guide. I've always wanted to do a drawing featuring of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson ever since I first heard the the song way back in the late 60's, early 70's. Corny? Yes, but in my defense I was only around 12 years old when I first heard it. And like much of pop music of that time, due primarily to radio stations playing an intentionally limited playlist, the song was burned into my memory, for better or worse. Not that radio has improved much in the last 30 years but that's a post for another time and perhaps another blog. Anyway Frank and I thought it might be fun to put him in a night club scratching records... with what he was best known for... wait for it... his feet.

Richmond Guide Fall 2008 - Sushi Poe

2008-09-23T07:11:00.000-07:00

Initial sketch...

Revised sketch...

Finish.

This was done for Richmond Guide. I know it sounds terribly dull and it could be but luckily because of it's A.D. Frank Engler and publisher John-Lawrence Smith, it's not. John-Lawrence also publishes Virginia Living magazine which is art directed by Tyler Darden. It's an absolutely beautiful magazine and I've had the the privilege and pleasure to work with Tyler a few times as well. I'll be posting some of the jobs I've done with Tyler in the near future.

Richmond Guide is what it sounds like a small magazine for out of towners to get an idea of where to go and what to see while in RVA. It also has articles about Richmond spread through out each issue. It's usually divided into 6 to 8 categories such as Dining, Galleries, Explore,Events,etc. and the illustrator does an illustration for each.

The guide comes out on a seasonal basis, Fall, Winter,etc. and the the illo.s reflect this. In the past I've worked with Frank to create characters that would carry through the series to create a narrative of sorts. This time we decided to discard a narrative thur-line and take historical personalities from Virginia's past and put them in a contemporary environment, hopefully creating a gag of some kind in the process. The first one involved Edgar Allen Poe eating sushi at RVA's own Sticky Rice.

Bottom Feeders Mortgage Meltdown- Forbes

2007-12-20T12:38:00.000-08:00

OK, I'm really going to start maintaining my blog. Yeah, I know, big deal. Does the world need another illustration blog? No. But I'm not going to let that stop me any longer and besides I'll be throwing in things that won't have much to do with illustration, hopefully that will spice things up, we'll see.

This illustration was done for Charles Brucaliere @ Forbes magazine last December. Yes, that's how long it's been since I first thought I was going to start this blog.

So far it has been my first and only time working with Charles. It turned out to be a very pleasant and painless experience, which from my 25 years or so in this field isn't always the case. Charles called late on a friday afternoon with the job and he needed the finish by lunch the following monday. I have to admit I did initially hesitate but being that I hadn't worked for Forbes in a very long time, I did take the job. Charles made it very easy on me being that he and the editors had already decided on a concept. Now this isn't always the ideal circumstance under which to work but given the time constraints, I was fine with it, that coupled with the concept being a strong one I charged ahead and provided Charles with a sketch first thing Saturday morning which he promptly gave the go ahead on.

I sent him the finish on time mid-day Monday and everything was good. Would I have liked more time to trick out the illustration with photoshop? Probably. I could have given it more atmosphere with some diffused lighting effects and other visual bells and whistles but there just wasn't the time. Sometimes it's best not to have too much time to fuss over a job.

Bottom Feeder Final

2007-12-20T12:32:00.000-08:00

And here's the finish, thanks for taking a look.