Ye Olde Fickle Niblet Design & Illustration Blog

Brand New Website!

2011-02-15T19:27:00.000-08:00

I am proud to announce that jayrodesign.com has been redesigned and is now live. I have reorganized the site and revised the portfolio section. There is also a nice splash page slideshow of most current work. I am also anticipating having a SHOP section where you can buy prints and other ephemera. The first print up for grabs will be my Bill Murray/Peter Venkman piece for dribbble. Stay tuned for details on that, and check out the site if you haven't seen it already.

Featured on Moberfung, FFFFound, and Livedoor

2011-01-26T06:37:00.000-08:00

Think Twice Before you Tweet was featured on Moberfung Blog, a Swiss blog about design, etc., FFFFound, and a Japanese art blog called Livedoor. I have no idea what the Japanese site says, hopefully it's positive, but I love how it looks!

It's always interesting to see how things move around the internets and where they end up. I was always amused when designs I did for The Powerpuff Girls domestic style guides ended up in Thailand, or other countries on the other side of the globe. This is WAY more instant.

Thanks for the feature, guys!

The Deadly Pair iPhone Wallpaper

2011-01-21T14:07:00.000-08:00

The To Resolve Project got me "inspired" to dig some things out of the vault and offer up some more to everyone. This first one was an art piece I did for a gallery show in 2005 called The Deadly Pair. I am also going to rework this into an iPad wallpaper, so stay tuned. You can download the fullsize image by clicking below. The only requirement is that you'll have to A) let me know what other pieces you may want and B) show me the images in use. Please keep it clean and enjoy!

Think Twice Before You Tweet: iPhone 3G & 3GS Version

2011-01-12T21:04:00.001-08:00

For those who haven't made it to iPhone 4 yet, here you go! Click to download the full size version.

From the Vault

2011-01-06T11:15:00.000-08:00

I've been busy gathering my files to update my online portfolio, and migrate everything over to a new website. I found some fun things I had forgotten about. Here's one of them: an experiment with glazing and a rubber brayer. Circa 2005.

Think Twice Before You Tweet picked up by Laughing Squid

2011-01-05T05:23:00.000-08:00

Wow, I'm totally honored! Of all the amazing submissions they could have chosen to feature for the To Resolve project, Laughing Squid picked Think Twice Before You Tweet as their post image: LINK. Thanks, guys!

Alimentary School Pals on PBA30 Atlanta

2011-01-04T07:53:00.000-08:00

Our local PBS Station did a THIS IS ATLANTA featurette on Alcove Gallery where I show my paintings and where I've been involved in various art shows. The Lunchbox Show was featured and my Alimentary School Pals lunchbox had a nice couple of seconds on-screen starting at 1:07. Delicious!

Watch the full featurette here: LINK

TO RESOLVE Project

2011-01-03T12:55:00.000-08:00

Talented Art Director/Designer Chris Streger threw out a challenge to design an iphone wallpaper based on your personal resolution for the new year in hopes that the constant reminder it provides will force you to stick to it. It's a brilliant idea. Check out some of the other incredible submissions.

Since I'm new to the whole Twitter-verse, this was my contribution. I already broke it today by accidentally misspelling someone's name. (apologies to @bcouchman) Ha!

Click below to download the full-size wallpaper for iPhone 4. Prior iPhone version coming soon!

Operation: Applbaum Poster

2010-12-17T12:12:00.000-08:00

I was recently contacted by a good friend of ours to help with a unique project for the CMO of THE SHACK™ (aka Radio Shack), Lee Applbaum. She needed assistance in creating a holiday gift for him, and due to the unique challenge it posed and free reign I had, I jumped at the chance. My solution was to design a bespoke personal logo, a modern crest of sorts. I am told he is an art/design lover, an avid runner and now cyclist as a result of his relationship with Lance Armstrong, Livestrong, and the Team Radio Shack cycling team. I thought an athletic inspired, rock star approach would help keep him in good company with Lance and the team.

My recon crew says that the poster was a big hit, and he will be proudly displaying it. It's always incredibly gratifying both creatively and personally to know I was part of a successful execution, and there's a happy client in the process. It's a win-win for everyone...

The final posters were hand-printed with the incredible help of the fine folks at Danger Press in Atlanta, without whom it would not be a reality. I can't thank Ed and Spencer enough for their guidance and printing wisdom, Stephanie Smith of the Atlanta Printmaker's Studio who had an additional assist, and Kally and Radio Shack for their trust and the opportunity to do something really cool!

Claus Kids is now live

2010-12-13T18:35:00.000-08:00

The Claus Kids site that we have been working on is now live and ready for playing! Click here to go to the site.

Christmas Belles selling worldwide!

2010-12-06T11:45:00.000-08:00

According to the Robots and Cupcakes blog:

"Christmas Belles is doing amazing right out of the gate!
This is our favorite part: We've sold apps in the U.S., Russia, Italy, Canada, Brazil, France, China, United Arab Emirates, Luxemburg, South Korea, Singapore, Ecuador, Germany, Norway, Argentina, United Kingdom, Mexico, Indonesia and the Netherlands!!! And that's only in it's first two days. Very cool!"

Can't wait to be able to share stats!

The Christmas Belles iPad app

2010-12-03T05:44:00.000-08:00

Just in time for Christmas, the musical iPad app that I worked on is finally available in the iTunes store! I'm really excited about it, this will be a great app for kids and those wanting to get into the Christmas spirit around the holiday!

The app is one of a few legs of the Claus Kids project, and it focuses on a set of musical characters called the Belles. Users can play 3 different classic Christmas melodies via a keyboard or the animated Belles. There is also a record feature and up to 3 sessions can be stored.

The app was splendidly developed by Robots and Cupcakes, the characters were designed/produced by Kurtz Art Studio and animated by Toonalooney Studios, and Rick Hinkle of Audiocam Music (and Pacman Fever fame!) did all the custom music. I designed and produced all the interfaces and icon design, the look and feel, and layout. I also did the scenic backgrounds behind the intro screens and the credits page. It was a really fun project to be a part of and everyone was terrific to work with. Hopefully this is the first of many more apps.

I'd love to know what everyone thinks, please send me an email to let me know.

Enjoy!

Bill Murray Appreciation Day

2010-11-19T06:37:00.000-08:00

In honor of Frank Chimero's newly-declared Bill Murray Appreciation Day on dribbble, I created this quickie illustration of Dr. Venkman encountering the ectoplasm for the first time. Makes me want to break out the Ghostbusters DVD and rewatch!

Follow the link, there are some fantastic entries.

Salvation Army Tees

2010-10-28T20:13:00.000-07:00

I had the good fortune of being introduced to a new client through a friend and fellow Art Director/Designer, Susie Fell Ehlen of Fell Ehlen Creative. These are some tee designs I worked on for said new client – Grizzard Communications – who focuses primarily on promotion for non-profits. I was really stoked to get the assignment. I went in to share my portfolio of work and I'm really glad that they trusted me after seeing the bumper stickers we made for the show My Gym Partner's a Monkey: "MY KID MARKED HIS TERRITORY AT CHARLES DARWIN MIDDLE SCHOOL" and "MY KID FLINGS POO AT CHARLES DARWIN..."

When these are locked and loaded, I will post the final printed shirts. These are just comps in all their hand-rendered vector Chrome glory. Special thanks to Douglas Broward and Aaron Holz for the opportunity and to Susie for the intro!

The final shirts for the proposal:

These are some design variations that didn't make the cut:

Claus Kids Backgrounds, Logo, Games, & Design

2010-10-27T06:34:00.000-07:00

Things here have been pretty busy lately and I am incredibly thankful for all the projects that have been flowing in since starting Jayro Design / Illustration.

One of which will be a great holiday treat for kids. It's a project I'm working on for Kurtz Art Studio (you may know them for the Goldfish cracker fish characters) called Claus Kids. It centers around some new characters and a new adventure story in the North Pole at Christmas. There will be a book, a website with animated movies, games and interactive features and an iPad app available this holiday season. It's been a small passionate team working together to get everything done, and I think it will be a great experience for kids when it's completed. As things are launched, I will post links.

This is the first time I've worked directly with John Kurtz, but also with my long-time friend and fellow Ringling graduate, Jon Henshaw of Toonalooney Studios. Jon is providing all the Flash animation of the characters for the site and is doing an incredible job.

It's rare to find projects where you're not just the "________ guy" (fill in the blank of said job duty). Since this has been such a small operation, I've been really lucky to be involved in providing pretty much all the background illustrations for the animation, designing the UI's and intro screens for the web games and iPad apps, designing the logo, and other things that pop up. It's been really nice to have an opportunity like this, and John and everyone at Kurtz Art Studio has been great to work with.

I will keep you posted as things progress, but for now here are a few tidbits. These are backgrounds for a few of the locations within the story. All done in Illustrator CS5.

Cartoon Network Alumni Logos

2010-09-15T14:37:00.001-07:00

Here are a few contenders for the newly formed Cartoon Network Alumni group on LinkedIn. Oh Cartoon Network, how you've evolved!

Obviously all trademarks belong to Cartoon Network (this is not officially endorsed by the network), and the fine people in their legal department would want you to know this: CARTOON NETWORK, the logo, and all related characters and elements TM & © 2010 Cartoon Network.

If the PPG version is chosen, perhaps I may do some more interpretations of the logos of their classic shows.

I'll let you know how it goes!

Adobe CS5 2 Day Teaching Course

2010-09-13T13:58:00.000-07:00

So a lot has happened since my last post. That's not incredibly unusual since I'm typically not a frequent poster, however my situation has recently changed and so will the frequency of the blog (for the better!).

My job at Cartoon Network and I broke up at the end of July, so we're seeing other people now. I've started my own design and illustration studio, and I've got a few live jobs in the hopper. ( I'm available for new projects, too, if you know of any! ) One is a logo/branding project, the other is a big illustration project for an upcoming children's story for Christmas. The illustrator that is working on the book needs help bringing things to life via web and other applications. Both are fun and challenging projects, so I will be busy for awhile chewing on them.

I also had the good fortune to teach a 2-day introduction class to Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and In Design CS5 at a training center called MicroTek last week. They had a very comfortable facility with amazingly friendly staff right off a major highway in Atlanta. The intensive, hands-on class was geared specifically for an in-house team of non-designers. In addition to the software, we reviewed the foundations of print & web, and a little bit about typography to get them more familiar with the universe all these programs operate within.

I threw a lot at them, and they were teriffic students. They all kept up, asked some great questions and did a great job at the class exercises. I really enjoyed the experience, and I am hoping to pursue more teaching opportunities in both design/illustration and CS5 software.

As soon as I'm able to post new work, and project updates I will. It should be very shortly.

Stay tuned!

Brushes With Pogo stylus

2010-06-01T07:36:00.000-07:00

This was done with the Brushes App on the iPhone with the Pogo Stylus pen.

Featured in Creative Loafing!

2010-04-28T20:21:00.000-07:00

This week's Creative Loafing had a nice article about the lunchbox show. I am very excited to have a mention in one of the lead paragraphs!

Link here: CREATIVE LOAFING ARTICLE

Lunchbox Show at Alcove Gallery: The show

2010-04-21T19:56:00.000-07:00

The show was a great success, and the variety of content was pretty incredible. Most people opted to paint directly on the lunchbox, but there were a few amazing sculptures (a lunchbox gone mad [above], a urinal, and a giant robot), and some modifications (pal Kevin Rej's insanely detailed pen & ink Movie Monster lunchbox had a light installed to backlight the front panel).

When my family and I stopped by to check out the show, we were greeted by girls in plaid skirts hanging from a ring dangling from the ceiling, and a really great turnout. Unfortunately we didn't stay long. Our dinner beforehand took a really long time and our 3-year-old was spent by the time we arrived. I wasn't able to get very many pictures, but there are images up here on Alcove's website: LINK. Georgia Public Broadcasting was there filming, so I will update a post with links and hopefully video if it becomes available.

I do have to give a HUGE THANKS and major plug to James Thorpe from Graphic Communications in Lawrenceville, GA who generously and unexpectedly donated the printing of my piece. In addition to the great customer service, they did a fantastic job with the printing. You can find out more about Graphic Communications here: LINK.

For you citizens of Atlanta, the show runs until May 9th.

Lunchbox Show @ Alcove Gallery

2010-04-07T11:23:00.001-07:00

I just finished up a custom lunchbox design for a gallery show at Alcove Gallery in Atlanta. The show is this Saturday from 7PM-12AM. Link for more information HERE. Every artist customized their own, and my understanding is that there are over 70 different lunchboxes in the show. If you are in the Atlanta area, you should check it out. I will post some pictures from the opening in a subsequent post.

Some technical deets: I did the piece digitally and had it output with UV resistant inks on adhesive and hand-mounted it to the lunchbox with a decal squeegee.

AIGA Screenprinting Workshop: Ink & Drink #2

2010-01-30T20:12:00.000-08:00

It's been a long while, but thanks to an AIGA Screenprinting workshop at the Atlanta Printmakers Society on Friday, I got to do some limited edition screen prints on paper. It felt great to get back into that and get my hands dirty – literally. The piece was drawn in Photoshop with the Wacom tablet and supplemented with a pattern from Illustrator. I'm really happy with the result. Many thanks to Shari Margolin for co-organizing it and Matthew Crouch for donating paper samples so I had something to print on!

Poster Catchup

2009-11-25T08:30:00.000-08:00

Some more posters I did for fun. I dug the Rabbit boxing one out of the vault recently, it was probably from 2001 or 2002. The Please Enjoy was done over the summer.

Afroskull Album!

2009-11-12T18:55:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy several months on the creative front. Probably one of my best creations/collaborations to date was with my wife - we welcomed our second daughter into the world on October 6th. Leading right up into that was finishing up the album artwork for some good friends of mine in the band Afroskull. To Obscurity and Beyond is their 2nd release – it's a mind blowing followup to their debut album, Monster for the Masses. You can purchase the new one and hear tracks here: LINK. Just find a comfortable cushion to sit on and make sure to wrap your head in duct tape so you don't lose your grey matter. Check them out if this doesn't scare you: New Orleans Funk + Black Sabbath + Frank Zappa + a giant horn section.

More Brushes

2009-08-06T19:45:00.000-07:00

More experimentation with Brushes. Getting the hang of it now, although it's interesting how different it looks on the iphone/ipod touch. It seems to be crisper and have more definition in the "brushiness"detail on the smaller screen. It seems more watercolor-like when I bring it into Blogger and see it larger. I do have to say that I am enjoying the program a lot, and it's great for when I want to be creative and don't want to disturb the wife while she's trying to sleep. If it's nothing more than for doodles, it's a good way to capture studies, ideas, experiments, etc.

There's a great flickr site of other people who have mastered Brushes: http://www.flickr.com/groups/brushes/pool/

Brushes

2009-08-05T19:42:00.000-07:00

So it's not much and it's just a quick doodle, but this is my first
foray into Brushes for the iPhone and iPod touch. It takes a few
minutes to get used to but once you get the hang of it the interface
is surprisingly intuitive. The hardest part is not having nimble wispy
fingers. Surprising potential here especially with the ability to have
transparent color. I am really looking forward to exploring this app
more!

Email test post

2009-07-02T12:56:00.000-07:00

So I'm late to the party in a few respects. First - I knew that I was able to email content to Blogger and have it post immediately on the blog, but didn't really have a good reason to. Second - I just inherited a first generation iPhone from my sister. So I'm finally catching up with the rest of the pack on all the things that the iPhone can do. So here is the collision of two potential forces. I can take a semi-ok photo of whatever with the iPhone and post that image up on the blog immediately. I suppose this could also be true of using Brushes, or other painting/drawing apps for the iPhone. Not bad... Now actually DOING that is a different story, but at least the potential exists! Ah, the 21st century....

From the Vault

2009-03-13T20:46:00.000-07:00

I found some "oldies" cleaning out my flat files. It's always interesting to see work from awhile ago to see how much you've changed and also how much you've stayed the same creatively. Or what things still remain constant interest-wise...

The painting is probably from 2002 or 2003, and the Robot madness is from 2001. I did a series of screen prints called The Curious Predilection of Robots - this was an "outtake" test print.

Head Studies

2008-11-20T17:47:00.000-08:00

These were some explorations of both style and execution for a project I'm working on. It was nice to play around with some illustration for a change at work - something I don't usually get to do. It was a nice change of pace...

New website!

2008-08-24T19:20:00.000-07:00

So I haven't officially launched it yet, and I'm not finished with it by any means (have LOTS to organize/tweak), but I thought I would float it out there and solicit feedback in-progress. I signed up for Apple's Mobile Me this weekend (thanks, H!) and put together a portfolio site using iWeb. I'm still new to the whole site-dev thing but I did successfully arrive in the 21st century by purchasing some domain names and I now have at least something up and running, even if it's popsicle-stick and glue style...

I am curious to know if the interface is intuitive and seems aesthetically pleasing (I thought minimal would be a good approach to let the work speak for itself) or if it just looks slapdash. Obviously Apple makes it easy to grab and go and it's incredibly convenient for me, but I'd love to know others' opinions looking at it fresh.

The site is solely for portfolio and resume, so don't expect any fancy flash games or scantily clad vixens. Sorry. Hopefully once I get this thing figured out I will put together a separate illustration site.

Thanks in advance for your feedback! Hope you're all having a great summer.

Site: www.jayrodesign.com

UPDATE: So apparently I'm not as savvy as I thought. Not surprising... I guess the site doesn't work on browsers other than Safari. I will look into it and see how to address that. Sorry!

UPDATE UPDATE: After speaking with Apple support, it appears that Firefox 3 will support it, so it was an upgrade issue. All should work fine if you have the latest versions of your browsers.

Triangles, Circles & Squares

2008-06-03T19:10:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile, I know... It's hard keeping up with a 1-and-a-half year old. My wife is out of town, and my daughter is asleep so it was a good time to play around with some art...

When my daughter was born, my wife had asked me to do a piece for her room. For a myriad of reasons I've been putting this off, but I finally made it to the intersection of inspiration, free time and upgraded RAM.

This piece is based on a song from one of her toys that repetitively beckons you to find shapes everywhere you look. Based on the profuse number of times I've heard it, I'm pretty sure that the lyrics are engraved on the inside of my skull. Lovingly, of course.

I'll probably noodle with it some more for composition, but I'm generally happy with it. Look at the larger version - some of the detail closes up when it's a thumbnail.

Visit Townsville Progress

2008-02-27T15:00:00.001-08:00

Working the image, playing with fonts, adding some lighting and texture. Getting there...

Visit Townsville

2008-02-22T12:40:00.000-08:00

Here is really the first in a series of planned Cartoon Network show destinations. We're really just having fun with this, but here are some progress shots. I like the white version with the negative space, but there's something about the tan with white highlight too I can't let go of. Not sure which is working better... Thoughts? This is a combo of Illustrator and Photoshop.

Fly CN Airways

2008-02-13T14:35:00.000-08:00

This is a concept that one of our designers, Owen Eliasen is developing. He concepted a great program of products and graphics based on character versions of vintage airlines that we're investigating producing. This is an imagined airport poster to go along with that program. All Photoshop and some Illustrator typography. I created some custom sponge brushes from some images I found on the internet which worked out well for the background. FINALLY a new piece, thankyouverymuch. :)

Ham Hands

2008-02-04T04:35:00.000-08:00

This was a piece done last year, (yes I know...) but one that I just unearthed recently. Not all the support files are included, so some logos are missing on the flyer. I believe that this was progressive design if I recall correctly, so I think Owen Eliasen added the hands in the word bubble and Petrika Janssen added the asterisk/starfish.

This is all Illustrator with custom brushes.

The Hainted Woods of Georgia

2008-01-21T13:54:00.000-08:00

They say the woods here are hainted....

Quick digital Study in Photobooth & Photoshop

2008-01-18T07:56:00.000-08:00

Wow - so time flies. The holidays and the new year came and went. We unfortunately hit and killed a deer that jumped out in front of our car just after Thanksgiving, and our daughter turned 1 at the end of 2007. There's been a lot going on since my last post, and obviously the blog has gotten the short end of the proverbial stick. My most sincere apologies to the Niblets.

So with that said, here's the inaugural post of 2008. After installing Mac OSX Leopard, I've discovered a fun program called Photobooth. It's a program that you can use with your iSight camera to take pictures of yourself or others a la the old photobooths at arcades, etc. There are a myriad of effects that you can add over the photo including different distortion filters. It's really a simple concept, and as you can see from the examples, the results can be hysterical and proves to be a good activity to do with your friends and family.

I started with a picture from Photobooth, took it into Photoshop, placed a red color overlay layer on it as an "underpainting," then started painting digitally on a separate layer. When I was done, I cropped it to a different proportion since the original photo was in the 4:3 ratio horizontally. I wanted this to have a more vertical portrait cropping. It was pretty quick, it only took me about 45 minutes from start to finish.

Featured on Standard Deluxe Site

2007-12-02T09:40:00.002-08:00

The invitations I designed for our wedding in 2004, and a few tee shirts I designed are featured on the Standard Deluxe website. Check it out! Link here: Standard Deluxe.

2008 Cartoon Network Calendar Page Sneak Peek

2007-11-02T14:39:00.000-07:00

This is from the annual CN calendar that our design group puts out. Our group developed this self-initiated/self-directed project back in 2000 I think and we've been doing one every year since. Unfortunately this never sees consumers, so only a select few outside Cartoon Network actually get them. The upshot, though is that we're our own client so we get to take liberties we normally wouldn't be afforded on other projects. We each get a month and get to interpret it more or less how we want. This is my contribution for June, it's for the upcoming show Secret Saturdays by Jay Stephens (of Tutenstein, Oddville & Jetcat, Chick and Dee, and Land of Nod fame). This was concepted by me and Clint Carruth our Sr. Writer, pencilled by Juan Ortiz, inked by Mark Prudeaux, and colored, typeset, layout and P'shop effects by me. I'm really thrilled with how it came out, Juan and Mark did a fantastic job. They made it incredibly easy, thanks guys!

Digital Monoprint #2 Eureka?

2007-10-26T13:36:00.000-07:00

HUGE Thanks to Jon for sending some Monoprint Photoshop brush textures he found. This actually is a tremendous help towards getting a more realistic texture. I created this bg with the brushes, copied it into the gnome file and then used the Difference filter at an opacity of 60%. The result is kinda spooky... Then I tweaked the contrast/brightness of the original image and added some more highlights back in.

I'm trying to shoehorn it after the fact here, so I think if I were to start over with the new bg, more fun things would happen. I'll keep messing around and post the results.

Thanks, Jon!

In progress Digital Monoprint 2

2007-10-25T19:40:00.000-07:00

Another whack at the digital monoprint, albeit less successful. I tried adding some textures on top, but it really messed with the contrast and midtones, so I opted to keep it as it was. I'm considering this still in process, so I'll keep refining and adding to it.

Real Monoprint

2007-10-19T06:46:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in my last post, here's the real McCoy. It wouldn't all fit on the scanner bed, but you get the idea. Since the ink is oil based, there's a bit of viscosity so neat things can happen and it can hold the textures of objects. You can also ink over top of your original wipeouts and add more colors. I think this was a 3 color experiment. This was probably circa 2000-2002.

Digital Monoprint

2007-10-18T20:31:00.001-07:00

Awhile back I visited a monoprint class that Mr. Mofongo was attending at the former Atlanta College of Art. The teacher was gracious enough to let me do a plate and try it out. Look for that in the next post. Fast forward to last year: I had the idea to try the same technique of extracting an image out of a solid dark color with varying photoshop brushes and the eraser tool. I finally had the time to sit down and try it out. I think it turned out ok for a first attempt. The undo feature is a great tool here to test out different tones and mark making, but unfortunately this method doesn't allow for the spontaneous effects and things that are inherent in pulling ink off a plexiglass plate. Still, it's a pretty neat effect and I'm sure lots can be simulated with the right brushes and texture overlays. Definitely something to keep trying and experimenting with...

Sketchbook Harvest #2

2007-10-15T19:03:00.000-07:00

This was done with Watercolor & Gouache on natural kraft paper.

Real Brushwork Flash

2007-10-14T19:59:00.000-07:00

I've pretty much tapped my harddrive for goodies, however I did find some old sketchbooks looking for the Star Wars drawings in the previous post. I found some good stuff so I'll continue to post the harvest. This was a drawing of the Flash done with a real brush pen and some black watercolor on natural paper. It may not come through the scan, but the really rich matte black of the watercolor is pretty cool in person on the kraft paper.

Give Me Liberty or Give Me Star Wars

2007-10-14T19:54:00.000-07:00

These were the drawings Mr. Mofongo referenced in the comments, these were done on the Liberty paint system when we both worked at Headline News to kill time. This was from one of our "draw-offs" circa 1998 or 1999. The Chewie is funnier than I remember.

Fark.

2007-10-06T20:23:00.000-07:00

Funny things come out when you're tired and just doing stream of consciousness/reactive illustration. I just started drawing and here's what came out. I have no idea what it means, however I did eat a lot of bean dip this evening.

More AI CS3....

Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahck! More textured vector brushes

2007-10-05T19:46:00.000-07:00

Not sure where this came from, but there it is. Jaykirk.

Voodoo That You Do

2007-10-05T06:40:00.000-07:00

More hard drive excavation revealed this little ditty from 2002. My recollection was that I had just purchased a Wacom Graphire tablet and I was testing out the brush pressure sensitivity in Illustrator. It's a decent color sketch, might be something good to build upon as one of those new pieces I've been rambling about.

A New Piece! Digital Inkwork in Illustrator CS3

2007-10-03T20:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, okay... It's not much, but it is new so it counts. Lately I've been looking at Sam Hiti, Steve Rude and David Rubin and really digging their inkwork. I did a sharpie doodle one day a few weeks ago, and I just redrew and inked it in the computer. Building off the earlier post of using custom brushes, the libraries in AI CS3 are really extensive and I was able to find some great textured brushes. I especially like the undo feature; had I done this traditionally I would have had to do it several times. I'll probably tweak it over the next few days, but that's the beauty of vector.

A Deadly Pair

2007-10-02T18:32:00.000-07:00

One of my newer pieces, I believe this was from 2005 also. I made some giclee prints out of this which are for sale at Alcove Gallery in Atlanta.

Grampy 8-bit & Getting Re-Acquainted with Jack

2007-10-02T18:20:00.000-07:00

More finds from the past. I guess this is a mature gentleman mastering his Demon Attack skills on the 2600 (maybe me in 10 years?), and a project I did for an Atlanta talent resource company called Creative Know Who. I designed the characters and web animation for their site. CKW's tagline is "We Know Jack and pretty much everyone else." Here Jack is our proverbial Kevin Bacon... The exclamation point in the middle is CKW's logo. This was a great project, I had total creative freedom for which I'm eternally grateful.

More fun with Gradient Mesh

2007-10-01T19:29:00.000-07:00

So I guess I'm digging in the vaults in an effort to postpone the inevitability that I'll have to actually do some NEW work. But it's been fun looking through old work and unearthing things I had forgotten about. This one was dated 2005, so it's a bit more recent. I was playing around with stylizing the characters and making them semi-dimensional. I'm really happy with the Camp Lazlo bugler.

Cartoon Network Invaded

2007-10-01T15:36:00.000-07:00

Some of you may have seen this already, but I felt it was worth showing since it was a trade piece and not everyone gets to see trade materials. This was a promotional poster for a stunt we did in May where 5 shows came together for 1 big story arc. I concepted and art directed the illustration, and gave some render-love to the logo that was originally designed by Duke Aber. The talented Stephanie Gladden-Miller, Darren Hunt and photoshop wizard Brian McGee illustrated the final. This was part of a whole kit that our PR department sent out to promote the event.

Punched in the Head Logo

2007-09-29T19:09:00.000-07:00

Some friends of mine who have a production company in NY needed a logo, so we set out to give them a nice edgy brand. They do alot of work for MTV: Punched in the Head Productions. My friend Joe built out the site and we worked together on the end credit animation. It was a lot of fun... If I can figure out how to post video, I'll put it up.

I just looked back through the logo concepts, there were some good choices there... I love the brain getting pummeled...The Ralph Steadman-esque one wasn't bad either. This is just a selection of the many I presented. I really appreciate the opportunity to work on the project. Thanks Craig, Amelia and Joe!

Funny Self Portrait Circa 2002

2007-09-28T09:16:00.000-07:00

When I definitely had more time on my hands! I was experimenting with custom brushes in Illustrator trying to replicate the Warhol/Fotheringham linework in vector. This was somewhere in the Illustrator 9/Illustrator 10 Era before all those artistic brushes were really common libraries. It was fun nonetheless.

Trees, Brains & Gradient Mesh

2007-09-28T09:03:00.001-07:00

The whole brain/trees thing has been a running theme for a few years now. I guess I didn't realize the true distance between my pieces. These paintings were from a show in 2005. The Rooster piece was a test from 2002 I'm guessing when Adobe Illustrator started integrating the Gradient Mesh tool, or when I decided I needed to fool with it. Can't believe it's been that long... man.

Inaugural Post

2007-09-26T20:16:00.001-07:00

So it's official, this first post will bring up to date some of my most recent works. Hopefully this will kickstart a trend and get me off my fat rear and into doing more regular art. Enjoy!

We start with a digital hand-drawn piece for a Tiki show at Alcove Gallery in Atlanta, a hand screen printed piece for Alcove, and paintings in the Cartoon Madness 2 show at Alcove.

Bear with me as I figure out the internets.