End of Summer Round-up

Been running around a bit too much to stay on top of this blog like I should. But the summer is over, so here are some highlights from the last while...

-My work for A Brain Is For Eating was featured on Muddy Colors, thanks to my good friend Dan Dos Santos!

...which resulted in these two young boys forever scarred.

-I did a second Graveyard Book illustration based off of another thumbnail that I really liked. 

-This illustration for Wall Street Journal printed incredibly large and I'm stoked about that. 

-Your smartphone is already obsolete for Scientific American

-And I did this on the side of all the rest of those things as a sample of more finished work aimed at YA publishers. Had a blast figuring this one out.

 Thanks for reading!

-S

Graveyard Book, The IMC

 I attended this year's Illustration Master Class in Amherst, MA. It's a week long intensive, painting-based illustration workshop focusing mainly on narrative and adventure illustration. Many instructors are old friends, so it was a very fun week.

I also worked my ass off on this painting, inspired by Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. Because of the fancy camera work by Irene Gallo and James Gurney, it became my most documented painting. Irene got some progress shots and Gurney caught me starting the paints in a very cool video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9ZcVBo0S3o&feature=c4-overview&list=UUTIoOLzT1jbxAcPW99xn0zQ

 Hope you dig it!
-S

Corporate Dealmakers

Without fail, if I leave my studio for any extended period of time, I will get a commission that I can't turn down.

On this occasion, I went to Altoona, PA with some artist buddies to check out Illuxcon. I have a not-so-secret interest in fantasy art and this convention is the premiere showcase for original genre paintings.  While drooling over idealized yet heavily armored women and every variety of slimey monster, I received a call to do a cover for Larry Gendron at The Deal.  I went from the dude staring at paintings to the dude sitting in the corner sketching. So it goes.

Lacking a scanner I was forced to take pictures of my thumbnails my ipad, send them to my laptop and work them up in photoshop. Not exactly my ideal creative situation, but it worked.

The topic was the top 100 corporate dealmakers. When I first talked to Larry, he was trying to find reference for the top ten, so I could put them on the cover. Considering the idea of doing ten likenesses while basically scrawling on napkins left me very scared. Lucky me, editors couldn't nail down the names and faces, so instead I got to go a bit more abstract (thank Jebus).

The idea was to show these imposing corporate character as getting ready for, or running into, battle. We agreed that a color scheme based off "300" could be a nice touch. My apologies to loincloth enthusiasts for keeping the characters in suits.

running, standing tough, walking

 We settled on the standing and looking threatening option.

Pretty fun going really atmospheric, pulling out white suit highlights and really saturating the reds.

In other news, my long time ebook project wrapped up recently, so I should posting a lot more regularly. Thanks for reading!
-S