NONAME: project thumbnails

We'll start here.

 This is not the beginning though. This project has been in development for a while and with the help and encouragement of several people is finally getting into what can be called prototype stage or proof of concept. The idea is to produce content that is entertaining and has embedded sponsor content, all that in the form of a comic, a digital comic. The details are more for those involved, this post (and the ones to follow) is more about the process of the prototype. First step thumbnails, YEAH!

Like I mentioned, this is not the beginning, but this is where things start to really take shape.

The format, functionality and story all meet and meld for the first time in these thumbnails. I have begun to put the story the writer and I developed together with the function that is crucial to the idea of the project. You can see story notes, tech notes side by side with the art. Dialogue is not done, and word balloons and narrative boxes are indicated in red.  They may not all be used but they show where text can be placed and what for. The thumbnails are now in the hands of  the writer who will flesh out the dialogue and script. Then I can tighten up the art, adding details like facial expressions. The blank panels are "black boxed" we know what has to happen and that there may be text there but the images are yet to come. There are a few thumbnails that I have used more finished art from a previous test stage.

So, these are getting scripted. While that's happening I'll be working on a specific usability issue and how to make it look the way it has been envisioned and not too intrusive. Also I'll begin (and finish!) a style test. So we can see just what this will look like when it's all done and polished! I'll post about that next, in a couple of days. Also the Final Final look for the main character, and perhaps a peek at the circular development he took! Stay tuned!

Camper Van Beethoven Reissue Comic

Hey music lovers! Camper Van Beethoven is using the comic, "That Gum You Like, (Is Back In Style)" in the reissue of their album, New Roman Times. The comic was originally done for No Depression Magazine's review of the album's initial release, so it's a real treat to see it picked up for the reissue. In the comic I followed and developed the narrative of the songs. A dystopian view of a near/alternate-future American West, with UFOs! Turns out the band liked it and obviously remembered it. All these years later I get a call for the record company asking to use the art! I made a few small changes and sent the pages off to the designer. The final product has yet to arrive, but it's nice to know when an illustration is well received, and ,"Back in Style."

Potential of Us

This is a animated version of the short I did for Verizon Wireless earlier this year. In this video I used the type which was not used in the final  piece. Put this together in AfterEffects, but the final is planned to be a digital book with narration and different type added. In the meanwhile there is this to enjoy!

Two Projects

I do not have multiple personalities. But, I do have a wide range of illustration, and each project gets a completely different style and treatment. 

In one hand is the re-coloring of Sunglasses After Dark, the vampire mini series I did with Nancy Collins. It will be collected and republished by IDW…as soon as I get done with the colors. I have been coloring (and at times touching up or fixing) the art for a while now. The last issue/part is being done. Lots of moody, mature themed images. Very stylized and sharp. Not to mention it is a vampire story for growed-ass adults. The original series was published, probably, over 15 years ago by Verotic Comics. Now I get to color it since we do not have the colored art. It's kind of something to work with your younger self. I look at the line art and try to remember/understand what I was thinking or trying to do at the time.

In the other hand I completed 10 background illustrations (and character sketches, icon design/creative direction and pre production drawings) for Avistakids. This is a site devoted to helping kids understand how to be energy wise. 

The project was to refresh the site and characters while adding learning activities for kids. From the estimate phase on, we were under a rush deadline. In addition to the clients schedule, I was going on a much needed three week vacation to Bali! Avista wanted a somewhat cinematic approach, so we settled on a widescreen format. A really wide screen format, about 5 by 42 inches! It also needed to be fun and bright. There was a set color palette from the existing site and graphics. All of which I was to use as I did the new backgrounds and redesigned the characters, (Wattson, a Scooby-like dog, and Edison, 

his human companion). 

I went with a sketchy style that would be fun and look fun while allowing for speedier finish. Used a pencil brush that had some texture to it to keep the sketchy vibe. The client really wanted to veer away from too clean of a look, so, I created and added an organic texture to each piece. The backgrounds are layers so they can be animated in a parallax/multiplane fashion as you scroll through them. Which is really cool! This was a key point in the process, the functionality of the backgrounds. I got excited by the process and added more layers to show views through windows and doors that moved, TV and monitors with stuff going on, and objects in the room that could change and move. On one I even aded a rainbow that could be faded in! To strengthen the depth of field, objects were added as a foreground and blurred. Those objects also served as transitions between views when needed. Textures and effects were saved as layers so they would be consistent and easy to add, remove or modify. To lighten the mood and create some magic I added sun rays (or God rays!). I even went as far as creating these or separate layers and different positions so they could be animated as well. It got to be kind of fun to making all the parts. Not all of them are used in the first iteration of the site due to the timeframe the coders were working under.  To speed the work sketches and roughs were done in the same file and emailed via Adobe Emailer. It's a plug in that allows you to email directly out of Photoshop. What a time saver, I can send of views of the image as I'm working without any extra hassle of saving, stopping or quitting. The sketch could sometimes be cleaned up and used as finished line art. The same brushes used for Sunglasses After Dark were used to color the backgrounds. Once approved the psd file was uploaded to the agency FTP and downloaded by the coder. The art was then optimized for use. This iso something I wish I had done, since some detail was lost. I think I may have been able to save detail or redraw the art so as to minimize any loss. The results look good though! The goal of making them fun to go through was achieved and the client was happy. Just before I left on vacation, they ordered another background, the basement. That background includes a few Easter Eggs that may be in additional backgrounds! Two of them!

Village Voice Illustrations, It's New York time.

One of my first real gigs I got excited about was illustrating for the Village Voice. I was just little ol' me in Tacoma, doing section covers, spots and feature illustration for one of the hippest, toughest, newsweeklies in the country. I learned to work on New York time. It helped that I was fast and worked well in the morning. I did a lot of stuff, airbrush, line art, all really nice black and white. People moved on, design regimes came and went. I stopped illustrating for them but kept in contact. I like to think I got better and faster (and stronger, like the Six Million Dollar Man) Three weeks ago one of the Voice art directors contacted me. It was Thursday afternoon, they had a column (written by long time political reporter Tom Robbins) that needed an illustration. Sketch by Friday, finish by Monday, end of day… New York time. Well, yeah, I did it!
The first illo was of Mayor Bloomberg, "King Mike". The column was about term limits and a possible meeting with Rupert Murdoch. The Voice liked the way I handled the art on The Flitcraft Parable, and wanted the same look. I took the same file and added the new line work. We went with the image of "King Mike" in repose with a NY Post cover urging him to run.

Next illustration was of New York Congressman Nadler, a big, big fella. He was to look friendly, but imposing, not cartoonish or caricatured. There's not much about ACORN in the illustration but they are an important part of the article. We thought subtlety was best.
In contrast to the pre -email days of my first Voice work, these are all done digitally. Sketches and roughs are done in Sketchbook Pro and emailed directly from the app. A very cool feature! The roughs are imported to Painter and inked with brushes I created, then the line art is colored and texture added in Photoshop. Save the whole thing as a jpeg and it's small enough to email!
Man that's fun!


Back to Bloomberg. What took the longest in this image was designing a bag of chips! The design is based on Bloomberg campaign graphics. When I had added the color I thought it was all too much. My "In-House-Art-Director" suggested changing the bag color to white and shifting the type color. Then I knocked back all the other colors and things came into focus. The Illustration had a clear visual priority.
Working on the same Thursday-Monday Schedule (yet to work the weekend on these.) I still did two versions by Monday end of day… New York time.

The Badlands Covers

I have forgotten most of the story around the top illustration with the vultures, something about Nike. I do remember it being somewhat of a big deal with Willamette Week (or was that just me?). The art director, Katherine Topaz, threw all her trust in me for an illustration that would be both cover and a two page interior illustration. Later, this was the piece that High Country News saw and liked enough to have Kat get me to do a cover for them. One of the few times my work has been a reference for itself. Kind of fun though, sister illustrations.

With the cover for High Country News I again worked with with Katherine Topaz. She's one of my very favorite art directors and a swell designer. I was fortunate enough to work with her through-out most of her art directorial tenure at Willamette Week. Kat is a blast to work with, lots of fun and a risk taker willing to experiment. She also allows illustrators to have input into the overall design and end use of the illustration, taking advantage of the interplay between AD and Illustrator to great effect. This cover was a last attempt Hail Mary Pass for a tough, dry concept (tax revenue from oil drilling used for government services). The client had seen and liked the vulture cover I'd done for Willamette Week. After doing a butt load of thumbnails with way different concepts, in the end we went with something really close, to the vultures cover, that shared style and composition.