Fragment Press ...

I forgot to post this stuff, but after the MoCCA convention in New York, my indy comic book Fragment that I put out a couple years ago got some press ...

The Comic/Gaming/Manga/Technology podcasters GeekNights reviewed by comic on their show. You can take a listen here: GeekNights

Also, the comic weblog Neilalien listed Fragment as one of five comics to check out from the show. You can take a look at his post here: Neilalien

Also, I've got some big news coming up in the next week, so be sure to check back soon! Exciting!

Cheers -J

Some Recent Work ...

I apologize for the gaps between posts - things have been busy ... plus, I need to wait until the illustrations are published before I can post them.

I've been doing a lot of work for Dallas CEO (or D CEO), which has been pretty fun. The art director lets me do some interesting stuff that wouldn't necessarily get approved by other magazines.

Case in point is the illo above. It accompanied an article on how CEO's need to defend themselves against politicians who had been essentially badmouthing big business. With one of my sketches, I went with a "slings & arrows" idea, and that's the one he approved. It was a lot of fun to draw!

I also recently did a large (half-page) portrait of Simon Fuller for Billboard Magazine. At the time, he was about to be presented an award for his achievements, so Billboard did a feature on him. The magazine was also full of ads taken out by various studios, recording agencies and individuals congratulating Fuller. Also a pretty cool job.

I'll try to post again sooner rather than later :D

Cheers -J

Canadian Family

I recently did a batch of illustrations for Canadian Family. The article was on "amazing moms", so they wanted to show a bunch of superhero moms. The image above is the final for the full-page illo.

These are the sketches I sent the art director for the full-page. The had pretty much worked out the ideas for all five of the images, and for this one, they wanted three super-moms rising up together. For the one, I wanted to get a bit more dynamic and superheroic, rather than simply rising up - and that's the one they ended up choosing.

These are the finals for the four quarter-page illustrations. I thought they turned out pretty well. As I mentioned before, most of the ideas were determined beforehand, so I just had to figure out how to translate it into an illustration. The sandwiches one was mine, though :)


These were the sketches for the quarter-pages. Rather than do multiple compositions for the ideas they'd already worked out, I just gave them a bunch to choose from, including my own ideas, and allowed them to choose the four they liked best.

A pretty good job overall. I really enjoyed the full-page, particularly, as it was really fun coming up with the poses, and creating the characters

American Illustration

I was just recently notified that an illustration of mine has been chosen by American Illustration for their web gallery. Although it isn't as prestigious as being selected for their annual print publication, less than 3% of about 7500 submitted images are selected for the web gallery.

Being recognized by American Illustration has been a goal of mine for a while, so I'm pretty happy about it! The image that was chosen was an illustration I did back in November for Business Week, for an article on workplace safety.
-J

Giant Patriot ...

Just did this pic for the Miami Herald, for their Superbowl coverage, which came out today. The story was, of course, the New England Patriots going into the game undefeated againts the New York Giants, who surprised everybody by making it to the Superbowl in the first place ... and not really an even match.

It was a bit of effort getting the sketches where the editors wanted them, but in the end it turned out really well.

Strange Business...

I thought I'd post an illo I did last week for The Stranger in Seattle.

It was a pretty straightforward job - they wanted a portrait of M.I.A. with no background, so that they could wrap some text around it.

I was pretty happy with the way things turned out, both with regards to the drawing and the colour. I'm starting to use a bit more feathering in my linework, and I think it's adding some depth to my drawing.

Catching the Wave...

Just did a job for the Miami Herald. It's for the cover of their "Business Monday" insert section. Here's the illo:

I thought it came out really well. I was trying some new things inking-wise with this one, specifically with regards to the water, and I was pretty happy with the results.

Here it is in context:

It's a bit crowded, and they appear to have saturated the colours a bit, but it still came out pretty well. There was a miscommunication in their office about the deadline, so given the timeframe, it could have been much worse.

The article is about how Florida has had to re-invent its economy several times, finding new ways to keep people going there. The wave is possibly about to crush the surfer (economy about to collapse), but also possibility of surfer riding it out (catching the new wave). Some of the other sketches were more conceptual, but this one had the most visual energy, and the art director thought it would look good executed in my style.

I'm working on some other stuff too, but I have to wait until it's published before posting. In the meantime, I hope this is interesting :D -J

More Business Week ...

Business Week hired me again for this week's issue (out today) for a 1/4 page in the News section. Here's the illo:


The story was about the problem with large-scale, organized theft in retail stores like Wal-Mart, Target, etc. Here are the sketches I sent the art director:



I liked the first one because it's more iconic, but I understand that the second one is more clear about the organized crime aspect. I thought the illo turned out pretty well, especially considering that I only had one day for sketches, and one day for the final :)
Cheers -J

Business Week

I recently finished a job for next week's issue of Business Week Magazine. The job was for two quarter-page editorial pieces for the BTW section. The image above is the final for an article on the rate of workplace injuries, and the one below is for an article on a company that is incorporating Facebook into the way it does business:


It was actually a bit of a trek to get to this stage, as there were a number of revisions with the roughs. I thought I'd put up the sketches for my original ideas, for comparison with the finals:For the safety one, the article is stating that incidences of injury are lower, but that the data may not be accurate. So I want to show a hint of past injury. They decided they wanted to go a bit more straightforward.
For the Facebook one, I originally wanted to go a bit more conceptual, emphasizing the "growth" and "building" factors of networking with Facebook. Again, they wanted to go a bit more literal.

Anyway, I think the finals turned out pretty well, and overall I had a great time doing the job :)

Cheers -J

New Comics

As I mentioned earlier, I'm working a 12-page comic with writer Ian Daffern. I thought I'd post one of the pages I've been working on.
This page turned out pretty well, I thought. Once the story is closer to being done, I'll be posting a preview of the fully inked and lettered story on my website, along with pencilled pages.

Hope you like this taste :D -J

Penciled Pages

I finished those pages I was working on a few days ago, so here they are. I think they turned out pretty good.Now that I'm working on my own comic again, I'll post some of those pages when they're a bit more finished.
Cheers -J

It's been a while...

So, in retrospect, I definately neglected this blog after my last post. I've been working on things, but never felt any of it was something I wanted to post. The next thing I know, it's been three months.

I'm working on a 12-page comic right now with a writer friend of mine, Ian Daffern. I'll be posting some of that work soon. In the meantime, I'm also throwing together a quick two-page piece for an on-the-fly submission opportunity.

I thought I'd put up my linears for the 2-pager. It gives some insight into how I do my comic work, plus I think they're looking pretty good so far.

I draw these at half-size, so about 7.5"x5". It's small enough that it's easy for me to trace, redraw, cut and paste things. Also, my lightbox is small, so it's easier to handle on there. It's easier to get composition and the core elements of the drawings worked out smaller as well (especially perspective), and prevents me from getting distracted by details.

Once they're at this stage, I blow them up to actual size (roughly 15.75"x9.75"), tape them to the back of the page I'm going to draw the actual pencils on, then use a lightbox to work up the drawings to final.

I'll post the pencilled pages when I finish them. It should be by this weekend, as the window for the submission is small.
Cheers -J

Tennis, anyone?

I just finished up the cover for Seattle Weekly:

The cover story is about a Seattle high school tennis coach, but the illo didn't have to directly reference the story.

The art director thought he would want the coach in there, but when he saw the roughs, he liked the one with just the girl.
I think it turned out pretty well. -J

Who wouldn't want more Bjork?

Here is the final for the Seattle Weekly piece. It may get printed in black & white, but the art director said he wanted to push for colour.

I think it turned out pretty well, though you can see the texture of the paper better in higher res/larger versions. -J

Bjork

I'm working on an illustration of Bjork for Seattle Weekly. Here are the sketches I did for the art director:
I wanted to make sure to get a likeness, even at the sketch stage, and it was a bit tricky. Basically, Bjork looks different in virtually every photo of her. I think I was able to figure out the distinctive bits.

The art director picked the middle sketch, with the wispy hair. I'll post the final when it's finished. -J

More Drawings ...

I've been working on a lot of stuff lately, but nothing that's really at a stage to put up on here. So, I thought I'd throw up a couple of nice warm-up drawings that I did recently.I was focusing on the hair in this one, trying to find a balance between the 2-colour stylization, keeping it natural-looking, and avoiding too many extraneous brush lines. I think it came out pretty good, but the inking is a little shaky overall.

More Sketchy Goodness...

I'm still trying to get a better handle on the whole "likeness" thing so that I can diversify my portfolio a bit. There was a photo of Dean Wareham in the new issue of Exclaim! that I thought was pretty interesting, so I thought I'd draw him for practice:

I think it turned out pretty well, though it is pretty straightforward. If I took it to finish and worked out the shadows and such, I think it would bump up the stylization a bit. Hopefully this makes up for the three week drought in posts :) -J

PS - The photo was by Michael Lavine.

Small Drawing, Small Post

I was warming up the other day, and I thought I nailed this head. I haven't posted for a while, so I thought I'd throw it up.

-J

License to Kill

Finally, I finished the Bond illustration. I'm trying to go back to muting my colours a bit more. I also played with the half-tones for a more delicate effect, rather than just a round highlight area, which I also think has been too punchy in my work lately.

-J

Sneak Peek

I broke my rule last week and didn't post. The reason is because I didn't have anything to post. I've been trying to get this piece done, and things keep coming up to push it off, so I'm still not done.

However, this week, rather than post nothing, I'm just going to post a piece of the work-in-progess. I'm going to have it done before next Thursday. There! I've said it on the Internet, so it has to be true!


-J