Illostop

Aung San Suu Kyi

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Brundage) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:43:00 +0000

Here's a quick portrait I did for my rep of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Bit of a new approach for me, but it was fun to jump into.

Speaking of new approaches, Night Shade Books's AD, Dave Palumbo, asked me to do a handful of comic strip interiors a while back. I had my qualms about taking the gig since I've never really worked that way. I love Dave and the work itself was so bizarre, I went for it.

The only copy I have with finished lettering. And probably my favorite.

Oddly enough, this isn't the first time I've worked outside my comfort zone for sci-fi/fantasy work. A while back, I pinch hit for an interior artist for Tor. This time doing a couple ink drawings for chapter heads. Irene Gallo had seen some ink drawings in my sketchbook and must have figured I could handle it.

Work from a sketchbook. Who knew?

Thanks for reading!

PS. It should be noted that the comic strip interiors were for a book Sam Wolfe Connelly did the cover for. It's gorgeous and his first book cover. He's the star of that show.
It should also be noted that Dave Palumbo is a badass painter as well as Night Shade's art director.

Year of the Dragon 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Raish) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:09:00 +0000

Happy 2012! Here is my take on a Japanese new year's card (nengajo, 年賀状). Traditionally they feature the Asian zodiac animal of that year, 2012 is the year of the Dragon. Basically the bottom says Happy New Year and the top says 2011 and the final box below that is the character for dragon.

have i learned nothing? i am a fool and spent 4 hours working on that first color sketch and didn't explore the other compositions i had thumbnailed out. after thinking maybe i hadn't explored enough i fleshed out this 2nd color sketch. I spent like 7 hrs total on these 2 sketches. I forgot to mention that the dragon is probably the one card i was least excited to illustrate because it is so cliche and has been done by so many people and is kind of a symbol of bad taste and bros that love awesome dragons and yin yangs and nunchucks and have posters of scarface on their wall. We've all seen millions of images and tatoos of asian dragons twisting and looking awesome so i wanted to do a crop of a river dragon zooming along his river in a straight line instead of in the sky all twisty and turny. I wanted the feeling of if someone were to look out the window of the boat they would catch a split second of a huge dragon eye ball and scales zoom past the window basically at water level height. In japan dragons usually live in bodies of water like the ocean or rivers. i thought this was cool and interesting. Like that Miyazaki movie spirited away, that dragon was the spirit of some river in Japan. A huge dragon zooms by a japanese party boat, the kind i frequently saw on the sumida river in Tokyo. He is looking ahead (maybe to the new year?) and doesn't look like he is going to harm the boat at all. In fact they are the guardians of rivers and stuff. Dragons are also associated with spring in japan. What i wanted to achieve was to make it look like he is flying fast-ish, really close to the surface of the water. The shadow had to be created perfectly and the water movement had to be perfect too. I hate doing water movement and suck at it so badly, i can never get it right. The problem is that there was no proper reference for this kind of water movement. I know i've seen it before in some anime or movie where a missle is cruising 2 inces above the water or something. I even watched the scenes in a few Harry Potter movies where they fly close to the water but the special effects team always copped out and didn't show the water being effected by these wizards flying super close to the water. I even enlisted in the help of my fellow illustration collective to find reference but couldn't find any.

the shadow was super hard to get right and i never got it right. i even used google sketch up and taped together paper and a lamp.

had to cut this paper cuz I couldn't find the same weird size i found in china to match the other previous paintings.

gesso borrowed from Angel. you'll get it back some day.

background

i'll spare you the tedium of painting all the cherry blossom petals and transferring the drawing to the painting, so here it is after all that and inked in.

Here the colors are all blocked in and then i had to fly to NYC to accept an award at the Society of illustrators. hopefully i will paint all 12 asian zodiac animal cards through the coming years. So far this yearly card has been the 1 time a year i get to paint something and not use photoshop. I had this half painted and then due to some extenuating circumstances was unable to finish the painting in time so i had to clean up my sketch and use this all digital version. The momentum is gone, will i ever finish the painting? I have to i guess.

Spider Magazine - Gorilla Blues - Jason Raish

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Raish) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:39:00 +0000

A while ago I did 3 illustrations for Spider Magazine (which has illustration on almost every page). The story is titled "Gorilla Blues" by Trinka Enell and it's about a big blue gorilla who loses his way to Florida one snowy night and is helped by a little girl.

getting this perspective right was so hard and it's still not right.

I was in 3x3 magazine's Illustration Directory 2011

The Breast Labyrinth

noreply@blogger.com (Victo Ngai) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:32:00 +0000

Here is a piece I did for the Cincinnati Magazine about the new and improving technologies in breast imaging and cancer detection.

"I love radiology because it¹s like an investigation: the patient presents

with certain symptoms, and imaging is a big piece of the puzzle." writes the author Mary Mahoney, MD.

Big thanks to AD Megan Scherer for this fun and challenging assignment!

Last post of 2011, First illo of 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Victo Ngai) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:32:00 +0000

This piece for the New York Times book review will be in tomorrow aka New Year's day 's paper! Not a bad way to start the year, eh?

The review is for "How it all began" by Penelope Lively. (Read online here) A retired schoolteacher, Charlotte Rainsford, has been mugged on a London street. Her hip has been broken and her bag stolen by someone who, Penelope Lively briskly informs us in her 20th work of fiction, will disappear from the rest of Charlotte’s story. This casual nastiness sends Charlotte to her daughter’s house while she recuperates, thus disrupting many of the characters’ routines — to trace the relationships among an assortment of relatives, employers, students and illicit lovers.

Big thanks to AD Nicholas Blechman!

2011 has been a great year, thanks to all of you! Happy New Year!

NYTimes illo-Apps to Keep Children Happy

noreply@blogger.com (Victo Ngai) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:35:00 +0000

This illo is for the NYTimes practical travel page, it's online now and will be in print onX'mas day! The story is about the top picked apps for iphone/ ipad to keep children entertained during long holiday travels.

I have never thought I would draw angry birds or elmo for a job, this is a milestone of my career. Big thanks to AD Corinne Myller, always a pleasure to work with.

Happy Holidays everyone and safe trips if you are travelling! I can't believe 2011 is almost over...

The Waking Prince

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Brundage) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:47:00 +0000

The project I've been showing snippets of here and there is now finished and available for purchase on iTunes ebook store. "The Waking Prince" was a 6(-ish) month effort and I personally think the book looks gorgeous. Here is a small sampling of some of my personal favorite images...

To see more, including some in full color, you can buy the ebook here.

And a big sloppy thanks to Zoe Soane at The Story Elves for keeping me in food and rent for the better part of a year. This project was a blast.
-S

Ding Dong Kim Jung Il is dead

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Raish) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 04:10:00 +0000

North Korean state media announced that Kim Jung Il has died today. Here is a portrait of north korean dictator Kim Jung Il that i did a few years ago. I've always found North Korea interesting and had a chance to go as close as most people will ever get to North Korea earlier this year.

the DMZ, demilitarized zone between north and south korea. I went on a tour with some US Embassy folk.

It was creepy to see the North Korean soldiers so close and checking us out with Binoculars.

We rode down one of the 3 tunnels that the North Koreans dug into South Korea. we got stuck halfway and had to crawl down the rest of the way. Were the North Korean's storming down the tunnel to get us? got a little creepy.

Talon of Umberlee

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Jacobson) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 22:18:00 +0000

Recently I created a cover/ad materials for D&D's organized play release called Lair Assault: Talon of Umberlee. Unlike any other project I have worked on, I was tasked with creating an image that would be used not only for the print materials, but also for any other needed advertisement for the release. This meant, all the element in the image needed to be movable so that marketing could place items where they needed for various banners and things of that like. So, I had to paint everything on separate layers. I have never done anything like this before so I was some what at a loss on how to even approach it. I normally paint flat in Photoshop and Corel. I decided I would do an overall sketch of all the elements together as a composed image and then break them down and paint them out separately. It certainly took a lot of time but it was really fun. I worked with AD Kate Irwin on this one. Always a pleasure.

Here is the result:

This is a breakdown of how it all went and how each layer was placed in. It was really a challenge keeping everything in order and in the right place.

...and here is the final booklet.

Exposing myself, Vol.2

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Brundage) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:14:00 +0000

My Photobooth library was getting overcrowded, so obviously it is time to share some reference shots. The majority were spent on a project I still can't fully share, but there are some sneak peaks here, as well as many photos of bed head and neglected shaving.

One project, The Silence of Eggs, had it's own personal collection of weird. Nailing just the right variation of psychotic focus took a bit of work.

Note use of tools on rare occasions when my face is not elastic enough.

And, by the way, I own these pants.

A modern kung fu fairy tale

noreply@blogger.com (Victo Ngai) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:17:00 +0000

These illos are for this month's Utne Reader magazine. The title of the story is " The Master and Mike DiMeglio". It's a true story about the Chinese White-Crane kung fu legacy and the master-apprentice relationship between Dr. Yang and his favorite pupil Mike DiMeglio, who betrayed the master and got kicked out of the training.

It was a very fun project as I could fully unleash my Chinese-ness and incorporateSumie in the pieces. The project also got me a little nostalgic that I went so far to dug out this sumie painting I did back in high school. I remember being pretty proud of it but now it's almost embarrassing...still cool to see how my work has evolved though!

Big thanks to AD Stephanie Glaros.

Glitches for Tor.com

noreply@blogger.com (Goñi Montes) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:59:00 +0000

This project starts with me busting my knee while climbing, scaring the hair off of my friend Renee, her first time belaying me. Irene called me for a project during thanksgiving week, and truth be told, I wasn't going anywhere for a while (as Chris so kindly pointed out); So why not work on an illo for a wicked story? Plus I would never say no to Irene. If I really detail how much I like working with her, I'd have a restraining order in my hands. I'm busy handling Ted's while we're on that matter.

This time around, the story is called Glitches, written by Marissa Meyer. It is a prequel to her book, Cinder.

Thumbnails flowed easily this time around. They normally do with stories from Tor. Like I've mentioned before, Irene takes the cookie on matching stories with illustrators. This translates beneficially for the artist. Sometimes the mood of the story matches perfectly with the artist's work, sometimes it's the characters, or the setting. Whatever it may be, with her projects, there's always something evident for one to latch onto. After a single read, I had collected plenty of concepts to work with, the main theme being a juxtaposition of inorganic over organic.

Number 2 being the choice, I sent Irene a somewhat cleaned/incomplete inked drawing. I'll explain why...

Here's what I showed Irene...

Here's what the complete one looked like...

Irene is a seasoned art director. Far be it from me to doubt her skills at understanding what I had drawn. My reason behind it is always that I hate to leave my art directors treading on too much faith. They're already putting a lot of trust in me by handing me a project, best not to push it. This time, it was easier to say "looks a bit empty now, but the background will be filled out" than "I'll make some sense of this mess, please trust me".

While on this stage we also went over some tweaks on Cinder's mouth. When working with linework, any tiny detail makes a giant difference. Irene pointed out that the lines describing her philtrum and upper lip gave her the appearance of a more mature woman. In the end, we decided to remove them altogether since we were aiming to make her look like the young teenager that the character is.

After a couple of color schemes, we chose the green dress. By the time I was done with this illo, my knee was back to normal (ish), so I'm back to finding new ways to destroy my body against a wall.

The Hengeyokai and other Characters

noreply@blogger.com (Tyler Jacobson) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Recently, I was asked to design/update, some creatures for D&D called Hengeyokai. The particular ones I worked on took the form of a Badger and Hare. I also did some small illustrations showcasing these characters in October's issue of Dragon Magazine (404).

This brings me to some other characters I have worked on for D&D over the past year or so. Jon Schindehette has put me to the task of creating a number of heroes the latest D&D Character Option books. You have probably seen some of these guys popping up in the D&D products and if you are illustrating for D&D then you have probably received them as reference. So I thought I would share them all. Here are a few from the Feywild as well as some Elemental Characters.

Many more to come at a later date....

Corporate Dealmakers

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Brundage) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 18:36:00 +0000

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.

Thanks for reading!
-S

Client sketches and cafe sketches - Jason Raish

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Raish) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 23:20:00 +0000

cover for the Washington Post Sunday Outlook section about Obama, the loner president and how doesn't try to befriend people in Washington, make allies and play politics like you're supposed to to get re-elected.

spot for the Washington Post Sunday Outlook section about Obama, the loner president and how doesn't try to befriend people in Washington, make allies and play politics like you're supposed to to get re-elected.

maybe i'll start posting (some) of my sketches up. i think its interesting to see illustrator's sketches against the final. and you can see how horrible most of mine are.

spot for Golf magazine's rule's guy column. this one is about a ball that bounces out of the cup.

The first time i've pulled out my sketchbook in ages. sketching at "Look Mum No Hands" a bike-centric cafe on old street in London. I was sketching these 2 girls in front of me and thought they didn't know but they said they totally knew i was sketching them after they asked to see it when i was leaving. halfway down the block one of the girls came running and asked if they could have it. So i hung out with them a couple times so far and made new friends in London town.

my flatmate at the Vintage Emporium cafe on Bacon street off of Brick Lane in London. A super cool place and my flatmate knows the owner and its right down the street from our flat.

first time i pulled out the watercolors and sketchbook in a long time. This was on another day at some french cafe on Broadway market in London. I've been on a decent cafe sketch run the last few weeks compared to my once a year average. It's sad, when I was a student it was every other day and now its been reduced to a few times a year :(

Be prepared!

noreply@blogger.com (Victo Ngai) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 22:38:00 +0000

Here is another fun project for AD SooJin. It's a great honor to be part of the amazing PLANSPONSOR November issue with super star artist lineup: Jillian Tamaki, Meg Hunt, JooHee Yoon, Jing Wei, Jonathan Barlett, Charles Immer, A Richard Allen, Greg Mably, Katherine Streeter, Kyle T. Webster...

The article is about "getting prepared for the future" and here is my take-

(Really glad SooJin let the perky butts run...)

Mylar experiments

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Altmann) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 22:11:00 +0000

I just finished another mylar piece in between jobs. Some of these mylar pieces are a bit older but I don't think I've posted them on this blog yet.

These are really just for my own personal experimentation and to hopefully evolve more as an artist. The process is quite chaotic -if you could even call it a process. I try not to expect or anticipate any result and just rely on intuition when I work on these. Obviously , you don't need mylar to do this, but the surface is quite forgiving and allows for some serious abuse.

I don't really consider these paintings or drawings or sketches....they kind of live in some weird space in-between which I like.

Thanks for checking these out -S.

Ghost Hedgehog for Tor

noreply@blogger.com (Goñi Montes) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 19:59:00 +0000

I feel Irene has mastered the art of matching stories with illustrators. Every time I get a project from her, I get all giddy. Nina Kiriki Hoffman's Ghost Hedgehog is a really cool story of a boy who serves as temporary ride for souls in search of closure. Her visuals are quirky and inventive, and her characters are nicely developed. It provided me plenty to play with. I would've been happy to finish any one of these thumbs, which may not be the case of every project :S

Sketch level was a bit of a challenge. Drawing 11ish year old girls is a pain. You just kinda get used to drawing fully grown adults, awkward teenagers, or cute young kids, mostly toddlers. But 11-12 year old girls are somewhat of a gray area. I just couldn't get the expressions and proportions right. There was a lot of research and A TON of girls before the ones that reached finals. These are the least embarrassing two.

And this is the drawing that went to final. By the way, the reason why the boy was not a hassle, my nephew is 11 years old.

I went through a bunch of color schemes with this one. Here's the four that I showed Irene. It's a good thing the first two were a no go. That kid looks like he's miserably walking back from a birthday party his mom made him attend since "it would've been very rude not to". Green was the first one I really liked, but then I tried some reds as well since the story has lots of them (you haven't read it yet?!).

A few emails back and forth, and Irene and I went for green.

MLB: All-Star Game Program

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Whetzel) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:55:00 +0000

Howdy! So I know this post is a little late, but here is a synopsis of a piece I did for July's MLB All-Star Game. I was super-excited to do this assignment after creating the images for 2010's World Series program. This article was a "who's who" of pitchers and their stats, and the AD wanted to work in a manner that was metaphoric of all of the league's pitchers. After some discussion, we decided to use the pitching hand to represent all of the athletes.

Sketches:

The AD deiced to go with option #1 (also my favorite), and a request was made for "revolutionary-style" colors. I was put in charge of also working the text into the image for a cohesive look and feel.

I added some stars in there since they're all stars in my eyes. Get it? "All stars?!?" I crack myself up.

Thanks for reading!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Illostop members actually exist in reality! (continued)

noreply@blogger.com (Goñi Montes) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:10:00 +0000

Our interactions are not limited (as evidenced by an abundance of questionable tweets), but we don't get to see each other very often. Other than the folks that live in New York, some of us only attend one or two NY events a year, making these little encounters all the more exciting.

I've met, known, and been a fan of these guys for quite a while, but this was, I think, the first time I get to really hang out with them. They're awesome, and pretty tolerant, considering I had just come in from some infamous Workbook carnival craziness.

So these are Sam, Victo, and Raul on this first pic.

Chris, Scott and I on this second one. Victo says she apologizes for the blurry pic. In her defense, the cardinals had just beaten the Texas Rangers and she could barely contain her excitement.

By the way, here's also a couple of sketches that Raul and I worked on. You can tell the guy can really life draw. You can also tell which ones belong to Raul and which ones belong to me.

Intimidating as it was, I attempted to repay him with a sketch as well, only to realize I should leave this to him and stick to my guns. He draw one of the best portraits I've ever seen of me!

Illustration Now! 4, I'm in there!

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Raish) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:08:00 +0000

I'm in Illustration Now! 4 published by Taschen that just came out this year. It's a collection of top illustrators from around the globe, so i don't know how I got in there. I've see the first 3 incarnations of this book and it's cool to be included in this one and have two spreads.

Left: art for Saatchi and Saatchi (NY). Middle: Hartford Courant Ella Fitzgerald. Right: Yahoo! Singapore

Left: Personal piece inspired by a "Wish-Tree" that I saw in Shanghai. Middle: Tiger Beer. Right: Yahoo! Singapore.

FF vs RE

noreply@blogger.com (Victo Ngai) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 03:26:00 +0000

This illo is still warm!! I just finished it yesterday and it's going to be in tomorrow's New York Times paper (Sunday Nov 6). You can read the article here online. This is my first color illustration for the CRAZY PACE letter page and it's a very fun (and no sleep) challenge.

The topic is about the tension and debates between fossil fuel and renewal energies.

I gave up going to Conan O'Brien 's for this...but it's worth it, right?

Big thanks to AD Alexandra and Aviva! Always a pleasure to work with.

Run moneyhorse run!

noreply@blogger.com (Victo Ngai) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 18:48:00 +0000

This is a recent piece for the New York Times travel section, it's online now and was published in the past Sunday (Oct 30) paper.

I had tons of fun with this piece but the story isn't necessarily a good news for most people including myself. Major airlines continue to cut flights this holiday season while the number of passengers increase. So traveling will be quite hectic -expensive tickets, packed planes and long lines will be expected.

Many airlines also launched some new policies- basically if you pay more, you can skip the security check line, check in more languages, board the plane before others and even enjoy more legroom....Unless you are one of those who can afford the moneyhorse, this kinda sucks.

Great thanks to AD Corinne and the editors at the Times for letting me run wild with such a practical story.

Cover for Diplomat magazine

noreply@blogger.com (Victo Ngai) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 18:46:00 +0000

This is a cover I did for the latest UK Diplomat mag Ukraine issue cover.

It's quite an interesting story how I get under the radar of AD Jeannie Saba. I participated in the Pick Me Up show in London earlier this year and Jeannie's boyfriend bought one of my prints for her as a gift. She really liked it and decided to hire me to do a cover! I guess one can never predict how fate unfolds.

The theme of the cover is Ukraine's growth and her blooming agriculture. I want to celebrate Ukraine's fertile black soil which provides for and nourishes everything in the country. To me, growth is energetic and festive, then the idea of integrating the famous Ukrainian ballet came to mind: why not humanize the black soil into ballerinasdancing around the blooming sunflower? I chose sunflower to symbolize Ukraine as it's a very popular flower in the country and it's the flower that always grow upward facing the sun. The large anther of the flower also allows me to be playful and sneak in a few unique Ukrainian architecture there!

The cover went through a few different stages, you can see the evolution here.

I went with the red palette at first because I like its explosive energy.

Jeannie suggested that it would be nice to use Ukraine's national flag colors instead.

Fun Times at Workbook Carnival

noreply@blogger.com (Goñi Montes) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 18:35:00 +0000

Let's just start by saying, Bob Pastore can throw one hell of an awesome party. Here's the gist of it: carnival theme, burlesque performers, jugglers, drag queens, life-drawing artists, and pigs in a blanket! Along with friends Dongyun Lee, Chris WhetzeI, Chase Stone, Michal Dziekan, among others, I was lucky enough to be one of those life-drawing artists. On the other side, I was about to go life draw in front of a crowd, so yeah, I was pretty anxious. I had also flown in from Georgia and had only been able to bring a very limited array of materials (TSA's wondrous work), so I was THAT guy. Bob rescued my act and fetched materials for me! Can you believe how awesome this guy is? Anywho, a few drinks in and and nerves forgotten, those sketches started flowing.

Here's a neat video that Michal took of me sketching. By the way, the folks saying those really nice things about me (not sure if I deserve such words) are Michal himself and Delia Evan. Needless to say, I'm flattered.

Check out the blogpost from Workbook itself. The pics are amazing!