Tyranosaurus rex formal portrait painting
14/December/2011 Filed in: Illustration
Spiceworks is an IT management software company, with
nearly 2 million users, and is based in Austin, Texas.
SpiceRex is their mascot. I was hired in 2010 to create
a cartoon illustration of his appearance. Since then
his popularity has grown and he is on all sorts of
swag. Then the Marketing Director decided it would be
fun to go further and have a portrait painting made of
him as if he were a modern entrepreneur. This 22x28
inch oil painting is for their boardroom where he will
be shown as the "CRO," the Chief Rawr! Officer. Funny!
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Amazon Kindle Cover Illustration
28/October/2011 Filed in: Illustration
I started working on this illustration a year ago.
(See: Not from around here, May 2010 below) For several
reasons, it went into hibernation for a while. The
drawing was initially created as one of several pencil,
spot illustrations in a book of short science fiction
stories. The author, Daniel Russ, and I discussed the
project often over the last year and eventually he
decided to publish the stories as individual short
stories on Amazon for 99c each. So my pencil drawing,
had to grow up and become a cover instead. Hooray.
I inked the drawing (aprox. 11x17) with a Faber-Castell brush pen, then scanned it, placed it in Adobe Illustrator. I then wen to work on it with the tracing tool to clean up the line quality and create a sharp, clean black and white line drawing. Once I had the black and white lines, I opened the illustration in Adobe Photoshop and added background effects, color, shading and light effects. And here it is. The published piece is 600x800 pix, but the finished art is 300 dpi and 12x17, so I have a lot of flexibility if we print it one day. Might make a fun poster. I’ll post a link when it’s up on Amazon.
I inked the drawing (aprox. 11x17) with a Faber-Castell brush pen, then scanned it, placed it in Adobe Illustrator. I then wen to work on it with the tracing tool to clean up the line quality and create a sharp, clean black and white line drawing. Once I had the black and white lines, I opened the illustration in Adobe Photoshop and added background effects, color, shading and light effects. And here it is. The published piece is 600x800 pix, but the finished art is 300 dpi and 12x17, so I have a lot of flexibility if we print it one day. Might make a fun poster. I’ll post a link when it’s up on Amazon.
Austin ADDY Award
14/February/2011
On Saturday night, February 12th, I won an ADDY Award
for a project I did for Katz’s Deli. I worked with
Daniel Russ to re-make the restaurants menu from a
regular deli menu, into a faux New York newspaper.
Daniel, who was a stand up comedian for many years, wrote several hilarious stories for the “paper” while I created graphics and fake ads for silly things like solar powered flashlights, a language program to teach people how to talk like Marc Katz the owner of the restaurant and local celebrity.
The stories and fake ads were sprinkled in among the actual menu sections to create a 8-page newspaper to both entertain customers and function as a menu. We produced three issues of the menu which were all well received by the customers.
Daniel, who was a stand up comedian for many years, wrote several hilarious stories for the “paper” while I created graphics and fake ads for silly things like solar powered flashlights, a language program to teach people how to talk like Marc Katz the owner of the restaurant and local celebrity.
The stories and fake ads were sprinkled in among the actual menu sections to create a 8-page newspaper to both entertain customers and function as a menu. We produced three issues of the menu which were all well received by the customers.
Not from around here
11/May/2010 Filed in: Illustration
This is one of several illustrations I’m working on for
a short-stroy Sci-Fi anthology a friend of mine has
written. You can read the story for this drawing
here. I’m working on the inked
version of the drawing next. I’ll post it when
it’s done.
Animated Steampunk story
16/April/2010 Filed in: Illustration
The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of
Jasper Morello.
This is a wonderful short film done in a very gothic, victorian, “silhouetted steampunk” by director Anthony Lucas. A well told story and absolutely captivating illustration style. Learn more about the film and it’s creator here: jaspermorello.com/gazette
This is a wonderful short film done in a very gothic, victorian, “silhouetted steampunk” by director Anthony Lucas. A well told story and absolutely captivating illustration style. Learn more about the film and it’s creator here: jaspermorello.com/gazette
Freelance: Not for the undisciplined
07/April/2010 Filed in: Freelance
A lot of people think that working for yourself is like
a vacation. Well, it could be, but then you wouldn’t be
working, would you?
During the past almost ten years that I have worked freelance, I have found that you have to take it seriously and run your operation like it’s a real business, not a hobby. To make it work long term you have to still do a lot of the things you’d do if you were working at someone else’s company. Like get dressed, be at work at a regular time (when normal people are working—if your clients are in Australia, then sure, work at night) don’t spend the day surfing the web, and most of all, meet your deadlines.
I found this video at FastCompany. If you are contemplating freelance, it has some good advice about how to approach the business or working for yourself.
During the past almost ten years that I have worked freelance, I have found that you have to take it seriously and run your operation like it’s a real business, not a hobby. To make it work long term you have to still do a lot of the things you’d do if you were working at someone else’s company. Like get dressed, be at work at a regular time (when normal people are working—if your clients are in Australia, then sure, work at night) don’t spend the day surfing the web, and most of all, meet your deadlines.
I found this video at FastCompany. If you are contemplating freelance, it has some good advice about how to approach the business or working for yourself.
E-Book design issues
18/May/2009 Filed in: Typography
I love this quote:
“Different typefaces are like like having different actors in play or different voices in an audio book,” Simonson says. “The variations in typeface influence the personality of the book. Sticking to one font is much like having the same actor play all the different parts.”
Read more at Wired.com
“Different typefaces are like like having different actors in play or different voices in an audio book,” Simonson says. “The variations in typeface influence the personality of the book. Sticking to one font is much like having the same actor play all the different parts.”
Read more at Wired.com