Friends of Cable Springs

As a kid, I loved the movie Tombstone; it was a love I’d adopted from one of my brothers. I’ve always been interested in Westerns since then, but have never really explored my affection for the setting. › Continue reading

Eli & Amos’ Great Undersea Adventure

After teasing it in previous posts, here at last is my latest illustration: Eli & Amos’ Great Undersea Adventure! My schedule permitted only sporadic work on this (much like the previous Eli & Amos piece), and it’s a far more complex—some might say ambitious—illustration than its predecessor. It was great fun to work on though, and a great opportunity to learn.

I like changing my process up to avoid stagnation and allow for learning new techniques. The challenge here was finding an approach different from “Circumnavigate” that would net quicker, better results while retaining the same style as its predecessor. The sheer amount of detail in this made it take longer in total, but I’m quite happy with the end result.

In site news, after putting it off for entirely too long I’ve finally caved and installed the newest WordPress. Ordinary visitors might not notice much of a difference (aside from faster page loads), but it was definitely worth it: the tools on the publishing side are far richer than their already-rich precursors. I look forward to making future website updates.

Hero of Time

Along the way in making this, I got lost in the fun of creating a more realized illustration. The textures and palette choices made this stray from the initial “feeling” that inspired this, but I’m quite happy with the result of this artistic meandering.

You can find details, including a close-up image, after the jump.

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Eli & Amos Circumnavigate the Globe

At last, here’s the finished illustration of “Eli & Amos Circumnavigate the Globe” that I posted a tight sketch of back in February. It may appear that this single illustration has taken me ages, but in actuality I worked on it for just a few hours once or twice a month. Sometimes it’s nice to work on something in an unhurried fashion, don’t ya know. There may very well be future exploits for these two, so keep a weather eye open!

Snowman Handyman

I was contacted in mid-December by an outlet reseller of power tools. They commissioned me to create an illustration accompanying a holiday email they send out to the various tool companies they work with (in effect, an ecard). It was a good experience and I think I learned a bit more about how I like to work.

As an aside, comments have been turned on. With it being the start of a new year and all, it just seems appropriate to try something new. I’m not sure why it seems you can’t comment on older posts, but let us just make due with the idea that it’s a new year, with new posts sporting new features to match!

A Break In The Case

Here’s the finished Private Investigator illustration. After looking at some of Lou Romano’s work, I was inspired to take a more traditional-looking approach, using some dry brush painting. I forwent using a more muted palette from classic noir-style films as it just didn’t seem to fit the way I had handled the character; instead I opted for a more saturated look. Overall I’m pretty pleased with it – hope everyone out there enjoys it too!

Winter Blues Ad

The most recent advertisement finished for CCRA’s clinical study campaign. It’s a minor variation of the Depression advertisement. The toughest part was managing to fit all the text that was required; it was a good challenge though.

Aviator Postcard

At last, the aviator postcard piece I’d been working on is finished! You can find it either by clicking on the thumbnail to the right (obvious!) or it’s more permanent home on the Illustration page (slightly less obvious!). It would have been done sooner but I was having some trouble with the gradients when moving the file from Illustrator to Photoshop to finish it up with the texture work. Now I know how to avoid that particular problem though, so it’s all gravy. There will probably be more posts soon, since I’ve gotten some more work done lately, so keep your eyes trained to this space whenever you can afford to!