Wordstock Feature - Portland Mercury

A few weeks ago, Art Director Suji Allen at The Portland Mercury asked if I'd like to do a feature piece for the upcoming Wordstock Festival. The article would need about 10 author portraits with some extra character to them. After a few drafts, I decided on a style that I thought would work well, and some notes on what I'd like to do for each author and proposed it. Suji and the Arts Editor were really into it and had some great additional suggestions. I started with the Charles Yu illo and they were still really into it so I continued with the rest. Heather greatly contributed to these with simple, bold and loose coloring. They liked the look so much, they decided to run one (Zachary Schomburg) on the cover! I always enjoy doing work for the Mercury and it was nice to have a much larger than usual contribution to this issue. Below are the 10 author illustrations. 

You can view and read the Portland Mercury article online here. 

Find out more about Wordstock here.

 Isaac Marion

Diana Abu-Jaber

 Steve Almond

 Jennifer Egan

 Anne Enright

 Lauren Oliver

 Michael Ondaatje

 Zachary Schomburg (also used as cover art)

 Daniel Woodrell

Charles Yu

Here are a few photos of the printed paper. It's a great, balanced layout put together by the Merc:

Recent Work Update

Things have been busy lately. Here is an update of some projects I've worked on recently or that have recently been published:

Frosh Student Guide 2011 Cover // Offbeat // Art Director: Elsa Hahne

This is one of my favorite pieces this year. I loved drawing the giant gumbo dish. It was great working with Elsa on this, she pushed the crab bits larger and larger and I was happy to go along with it. I played with some layer options to get a nice glow to certain areas of the color. I worked with Elsa on the text color and placement to ensure this would work as a good, eye-catching cover.

Beer on the Bayou // Offbeat // Art Director: Elsa Hahne

Another fun piece for Offbeat about one of my favorite subjects, beer! You can read the full article here. This has a lot of good information on the growing craft beer scene in Louisiana. My wife, Heather has begun coloring some of my work and she did an excellent job balancing the hues and adding just the right amount of pop to the right areas of this one.

Queasy Rider // Portland Mercury // Art Director: Suji Allen

Full article here. This one ran in black and white in the paper, but color online. Heather did the color for this one too.

Just Crazy Enough to Die // Portland Mercury // Art Director: Suji Allen

Another quick weekend illustration for the Mercury. Here is the full article online. Suji knew exactly what she was looking for, so this one came together pretty easily.

X-MEN Variant // Comix Gone Rogue // Publisher: Edwin Vazquez

This is a great project I was invited to submit to. Basically, some comic companies released blank covered comic books with just the masthead (presumably for industry signatures or sketches). Edwin distributed these to a variety of great artists (not necessarily mainstream comic artists) to fill in the cover as they see fit. Fun stuff! NSFW - Other variant submissions and more info can be seen here. 

Man Signs Dog - Offbeat New Orleans

Here is an editorial illustration I made for an article in Offbeat (New Orleans). You can read the article here. I've done a few pieces for them recently and they are great to work with. Every illo has been music related, which is one of the top subjects I enjoy illustrating.
I did a handfull of sketches for this one. One had an iconic Hendrix pose and another one used his fro to show it was him. I'm glad the A.D. went with this one.
I used a slightly different process with this one and worked from a tight, detailed, pencil drawing instead of my usual brush inks. I wanted to put a lot of detail and textures into the music equipment and I felt the brush line would muddy it up too much. I made some adjustments to the line in Photoshop and colored with a pretty simple, balanced palette. Then added in some doodly marks for extra flare. The end result has a lot of busy lines and direction, but the focal point on the dog and signature is clear.

Philadelphia Weekly Cover

I illustrated the cover to this week's Philadelphia Weekly!

Here is a larger version of the final without the masthead and text:

Below are a few of the initial sketches I sent to the Art Director. There were a few more edits, tweaks and tighter sketches on the octopus layout (#2). I like how it came together in the end. 

Portland Mercury Editorial Illustrations

Here are a few recent editorial illustrations I did for the Portland Mercury. There is a section on their website that has all the images I've done for them, kinda neat: http://www.portlandmercury.com/gyrobase/ImageArchives?by=2431044&section=22100 . Also the Art Director over there, Scrappers, recently did an interview on Escape from Illustration Island, IT'S GREAT STUFF!: http://escapefromillustrationisland.com/2011/03/02/efii-podcast-episode-73-art-director-justin-scrappers-morrison/

Bikes, Brews, Banks, Oh My! - Portland Mercury

Here are a few spot illustrations I did for the current issue of The Portland Mercury. I like the black and white versions a little more than the color versions.


READ THE FULL ARTICLE WITH COLOR IMAGES ONLINE HERE.

Metal for Veterans

 

This is a poster I put together for a group of metal bands playing a benefit show in Boise, ID next weekend. My brother is in the band RipshaW and their album is now available. Give a listen here.

On the process of making this: The skull image was sketched out in pencil using reference from GoMedia. I inked it with a Sumi brush, using a very wet brush for a slightly sloppy flowing effect. Then some dry brush for some details and texture and then some layers of grays for more texture and tone. Then I used a flag image and messed with the layer options in Photoshop until it looked 'right'.

I thought the dogtags would be a nice way to display the band names. I started with low res versions of the band names and a dogtag image from Google images. In Photoshop I created a brushed steel pattern with the dogtag outline and then used some layer options on the band names to give them a 'stamped' look. Once I had the skull and dogtag elements, I brought them into Illustrator and added the requested logos and text. The font was free from dafont.com. Spent some time nudging and tweaking and that's about it.

Kicking Our Own Ass - Portland Mercury

Here's an illustration for the latest Portland Mercury. Full article here. I did this character a few months ago, and they had an update on the story that the character worked for - so there ya go!

Checkered Past - Willamette Week

New Illustration in this week's Willamette Week. You can read the story here.

Fixing the Future - Portland Mercury

Here's another one I did for the Portland Mercury regarding Oregon's current brokeness. I had a bit of extra time on this one, which was nice. I took some reference shots for the 'pose' and had a little more time to think about the composition. You can read the full article here: http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/fixing-the-future/Content?oid=2574437

State of Disaster - Willamette Week

Here is the first of two editorial illustrations I did last week on the subject of Oregon being broke. I love drawing water, so this one came easy. Read the article online here: http://wweek.com/editorial/3630/14097/

Shoot the Horses - The Portland Mercury

Here's an illustration I did for the Portland Mercury. They loved the illustration, but decided not to run the article in the end. The Merc posted it on their blog though: http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/BlogtownPDX/archives/2010/05/13/best-illustration-we-never-got-to-run

One in Two Million - Willamette Week

Here is a news feature illustration that I did for this week's Willamette Week. It's about a weird case of double road rage. Check it out online here.
This was a same day turnaround job, so I didn't have much time to play with the concept. But I like how it came together, and I think it illustrates the story well.

Justice Delayed for Willamette Week

Here is a new black and white editorial illustration that appears in this week's Willamette Week. I pitched this as a sketch along with a few other sketches to the Art Director after reading the article. The AD liked this one the best and I agreed that it worked the best with the story. The inks were done with sumi ink and brush. I played with putting some gray into it, but it was working best as a stark black and white final.

Willamette Week - The China Syndrome

Here is a new illustration I did for this week's Willamette Week. This is the first time I worked with WW, and I'm happy with how it went. Hopefully, I'll work with them again soon. Read the article here: http://wweek.com/editorial/3616/13726/

Portland Mercury - Curiouser and Curiouser

Here is an illustration I did for this week's Portland Mercury. It was a simple one, but I'm happy with how it turned out: http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/curiouser-and-curiouser/Content?oid=2264200

Loan Shark Hunting

Here is a new illustration for the Portland Mercury. I'm really happy with how this one turned out, and it started with an awesome concept from the AD.

I tried something a little new with this one, I inked it on watercolor paper. Usually I just ink on sketch or bristol paper. It's kinda hard to tell the difference when it's all finished, textured and colored.. but the ink on the paper looked really cool. So yeah, paper does make a difference.

Read the full article here.

Portland Mercury - Houses Not Handcuffs

Here is a new black and white illustration I did for this week's Portland Mercury. I did the line work with a nib and speedball ink, then filled in the rest of the blacks and did a wash with a sumi brush and sumi ink.

Full article here...

CRC in the Crosshairs

I did this editorial illustration for an article in the most recent Portland Mercury. This was a combination of pencil, ink wash and digital manipulation and color.

You can see the illustration in context and read the full article by clicking here.

RipshaW - Haunted Hollow

I did this illustration for the metal band RipshaW. Listen to them on their Myspace page here: http://www.myspace.com/ripshaw ...ROCK!

I used a new Sumi brush I got a Japanese bookstore. It's been a while since I used a Sumi brush/Sumi ink, so it was a fun change of pace. It worked well for this piece, I was able to easily get the kind of lines I was going for.