Graphite the Good Night

These pencil spots were created with a mixture of lightbox and photoshop; each piece was conceived and birthed in an hour.  I am a stickler for deadlines, and it's gratifying to pop these out at that rate.  I think my favorite is the womanticore in the middle because she's like a quadruple entendre.  At least.  

Don't Aggregate Me

Illustration for a myth concerning a pack of wolves, a boy in a dress, and the death of the world. 


Process-wise, this was done mostly with my mac and wacom; the lines and furry textures are pencil, and the snow is scanned ink, but everything's manipulated digitally.  My major inspirations at the moment are Ezra Jack Keats, and NC Wyeth, even though I haven't seen anything by either for months and months.

I would love to make picture books out of these.  Picture books for adults, do they have those? 

Brothers Unite, Streak Squid

So my most excellent brother has the sweetest job: he researches Vibrio Fischeri, a bacterium that colonizes the light organ of the hyper-cute Hawaiian Bobtail Squid.  His lab runs an impressive squid-breeding program that pumps out innumerable itty-bitty squidlets for research purposes.  I spent an afternoon helping him sample them out, and it's no easy task:

His lab also hosts a yearly Squid Pow-Wow where their colleagues come from afar to bask in the collective bioluminescence of their research.  And this year's pamphlet features the first collaboration between the Miyashiro brothers since like, forever.  Naturally, he turned a scientific gag into a comic strip and then commissioned me to dress it up as a painting. 

It's actually an evolutionary joke that rifts off the bacteria's life cycle: see, the adult squid pump out most of their bacteria every morning, then the bactera reproduce and colonize the light organs of brand new little squidlets.  And some day, the joke goes, the bacteria will be the host, expelling its colonies of squid every morning, the better to colonize little baby bacteria.  

If you're not laughing, yet, just relax and enjoy the painting.  It's very green, isn't it?

I really don't do much drawing with brushes on photoshop; the results always feel too mechanical.  Instead, I sample really, really huge brushes from dried swatches of india ink and then build up the penciled image with a succession of stamps.  It feels more like a monoprint than a painting, but those distinctions always felt a little foggy to me. 

One thing's clear, though: I love love love drawing squid!  How could I not?  They're so malleable.  My sketchbook is peppered with the little guys, along with an occasional chicken or chick, for variety's sake:

The Commish

These three illustrations were made for a client seeking to publish his children's story.  Peanut butter, little froggies and gigantic bears make such lovely combinations.  Those weird, watery textures were made using dura-lar, the coolest vellum-mylar hybrid out there.  The surface resists watercolor and diluted ink, so liquids just sit on top and evaporate away.  It's messy and weird and has a suprising amount of tooth for such a smooth drawing surface.  It's also way easier on the eyes than a lightbox . 

And this watercolored portrait was commissioned for a bridal shower, with the only available reference shot being a tiny little one-inch tall, head-on picture with her fiance.  On Facebook. 

Right. 

Give You Anything (Again)

 

I finished this poster right after New Year's, but the show was postponed; the Fire Marshal had deemed the original venue's sprinklers perfectly inadequate and brought his hydrant-headed gavel down hard.  The original design was all over the place, anyway, so I pretty much redrew the entire piece and separated everything properly in Photoshop and dulled down the furious lipstick red of the first piece (shudder).  I'm much happier with this recommission, and am looking forward to seeing it taped up all over this city in high gloss print.  

Oh, and the show!  Go see Party Girl already, they're the best Costello cover band out there, way better than Oliver's Army.  Honestly, if you've ever seen Andre five beers in singing Marvin Gaye, you'd be lining up outside Public House right now in your little sleeping bag and long undies. 

They Do Not Die So Things Become Difficult

I've been rereading the Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain, my favorite fantasy series from those long-lost days as a fourth grade something.  The above illustration is the only one to make it past the thumbnail stage successfully.  It's from the first installment, The Book of Three, which is a super fast and intriguing and intense read that ends with not one, but two deus ex machinas and is ultimately way, way less satisfying than its successor, The Black Cauldron*.  But the composition was so strange, I was compelled to finish it.  I've started drawing in my sketchbooks a lot more, aiming to straighten out people and animals and armor and hair and clothes and horses way before the thumbnail stage.  It's quite fun, trying out little variations as you go along.

Gwydion didn't surprise me too much, he's frequently likened to a lone wolf, with shaggy hair and trail-beaten getup.  He quickly becomes mentor to the young protagonist, a source of authority and solidarity in his upturned world, which is why it's a tad disturbing when he's cut down so quickly by the Cauldron Born. 

The Cauldron Born are a Celtic take on zombies, corpses that are resurrected in the Black Cochran.  They're tireless, fearless and immortal warriors who move silently and never speak.  The text describes them in something of a uniform, with bronze waistbands and studs on their breastplates, but I ended up pushing them in a different direction, emphasizing the differences in their appearances  before death.  Zombies with braids! 

I've been drawing characters from the second book, but since other projects have to take precedence, they're in limbo right now.  I'm shooting for another illustration by next month, but I might end up posting sketchbooks instead.  Thanks for looking!




*A super-dark young adult read that I hardily recommend.  A heavy, heavy read, at least 50, maybe 60 lbs.  By all means, check it out.  But do us all a favor and don't watch the horrendously pathetic Disney movie of the same name.  Don't even think about it.  Stop it. 

Invitations to the Nerd-a-Thon

Let me level with you right now: Library Clubs are the bee's knees.  Moreover, having posted these alongside one another, I can't help but visualize a crossover flier with a scarf wrapped around the Wii and little mismatched booties on the controllers.  Or with little old ladies with mittens accidentally throwing Wii handhelds through a CRT tv.  Knitt Days?  Days of Knitts. 

And yes, these are somewhat half-dated.  I have not posted for a while because mostly I've been busy with many swell projects and side-things and dead ends that don't make any kind of sense together, so I will have to be patient and post them separately lest anyone's retinas should wither in outrage. 

One Trick Python

This piece evolved over a couple weeks from no snake to mostly snake and though it's an illustration for a story I haven't yet written, or may never write, I'm sure there are already sixty-dozen heavily-documented mythological stories that could fit it perfectly.  And sketchbook-wise, I'm a firm believer that there's not a composition out there that couldn't benefit from a little ophidian action. 

I'm in winterland now without scanner access, so this will have to suffice as my holiday picture.  It's got green and red, right?  And ample snakeage!

Antiseptic Plus Lots of Soap

Been straddling the picture/word fence for a while, but I am, for the time being, firmly planted on the illustration side of things.  And more more more drawing means my pencil-wedged middle finger side-callous is growing more callousy; means I can now officially tear through band-aid boxes and reams of paper faster than a preschooler.  Waterproof tough strips are best.  

Illustration Friday Theme: 'Homage'

Below is my entry for this week's Illustration Friday:I've got mixed feelings about the priestess, but hey, we move on. Well, sometimes.


I might lose some sleep, but that's what sleep's for these days.

Bringin' da Neat Box Home

Watching a bit of tee-vee with the rents. The history channel's promoting an upcoming series called "Ice Road Trucking." Behold mass media as they scrub down global borders.

Obsession with libraries perpetuated today. Went to the other nearby county branch for a couple hours, racking up near darn close to the ninety-nine item checkout policy. Definitely a telling sign of some kind.

Spurred on by great children's illustrators like Chris Van Allsburg, James Stevenson, and others I can't remember at the moment, I got all wrapped up drawing last minute tonight. The characters above were all used so far in the so far along comic of six pages.

Catch Up Time

My computer done gone busted for a while, but it's back with some tech a-sis. Well, back as in backwards as a G3 can be. Here are some illustrious moments to ponder:




And now I'm going to go draw some more...and clear my hard knock drive.

And by clear I mean fill.


And there are some color comic pages coming...I started a totally different, all-comic story on the fly a while back, and I'll be posting it on a flicker-like site.

Courage, Seventeen!

Comics from one of my sketchbooks. I'll round out the story tomorrow.