http://www.drawger.com/kyle/ Sun, 17 Oct 2010 23:00:37 EDT FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://drawger.com/_images/drawger_leo_logo.gif http://www.drawger.com/kyle http://www.drawger.com/kyle/index.php?section=articles&article_id=11497


]]> Mon, 18 Oct 2010 03:00:37 EDT http://www.drawger.com/kyle/index.php?section=articles&article_id=11491 Before I leave, I thought I would post some projects from the past couple of weeks. These are quite varied: two theatre posters, pages from my upcoming comic 'Catana', some national magazine work, an illustration for an alt weekly, and a poster for my daughter's room.  That's what I love about our profession- one day you are drawing some wedding bells set against a fall sky, the next you are drawing a hyper-violent murder in progress. It's something different every week and well, isn't that fun? We are lucky people- one could hardly describe a day at the studio as 'the grind.' I usually work on anywhere from three to ten projects in a week. It's always different. People find me in different ways and they come from different places. Many people found me through Drawger this past year. Though I won't be posting here anymore, I hope those of you who like what I do will find me in some new and old spots, such as my website, Twitter, Facebook, Illoz...  Now on to the drawings. I'll post something a bit more personal by the end of the weekend.















Last but not least is the drawing above, which is a poster I made for my daughter's room. She loves these animals, I love her name- pretty easy solution (yes, we named her after the Harry Potter character). I used to draw for me. Then I met my wife and I started drawing for her, as well - little love notes and such. Then my wife started her own non-profit adventure and I started REALLY drawing for my wife - my drawings had to support us. It was an exciting change and it probably made me more aggressive in finding my voice as an illustrator, knowing that there was added pressure to make a good income. And then we had a little girl. Now I draw for her almost entirely. The way I look at it, every drawing I do will ensure that she has a good education, eats healthful foods, and gets to do fun things like travel and see the world. But wait- our son is due next week, too! So, I really better stop writing and get back to drawing. Thanks for reading my posts and please stay in touch- Kyle



]]> Sat, 16 Oct 2010 00:56:41 EDT http://www.drawger.com/kyle/index.php?section=articles&article_id=11454 I thought I wanted to be an animator. I thought this for years when I was a kid. I got really into drawing flipbooks, studying facial expressions and body language, and all of that stuff. I stopped playing with animation once I got to high school. Then, I just focused on drawing super heros and fantasy stuff and making my own comics.  In college, during my last year, I discovered Adobe Premiere. It was installed on one of the art lab computers. In my spare time, I started learning how to use the software and I thought, once again, 'I want to be an animator!" It is seductive, really- the ability to bring your drawings to life and tell stories with sound, music, etc. and this software made it all happen in one place. So, I made a little cartoon.  And do you know what I learned? Animation takes forever. And, it's kind of boring once you get past the initial excitement of starting an animation project. But, I finished the little movie anyway in about three days, working all night after classes when the lab was open and pretty quiet. It's fun to look back at it. Sure, the drawings are rushed and nothing special, but I really tried to have fun and just be silly. I made the sounds with a tiny mac mic (remember those plastic things that sat on top of the old monitors?). I drew everything frame by frame in Photoshop. It was just an experiment, but I thought this would be a nice place to share it. Sometimes, I still write down ideas for short animated films. I even start working on them briefly but then remember how tedious that process is. I have major respect for the animators who really do it right and do their jobs with such care. It's tough stuff, for sure.



This is unrelated, but here is a job below that I did for Jordan at The New Yorker this week for Matthew Bourne's 'Swan Lake.' I'm going to do a special post about Max Bode and Jordan Awan some time in the future and talk about how they assign work and why I think they are important people. Anyway, this was, as always, a fun drawing for me to work on, simply because I got to just think of a figure and draw it. What could be better?





]]> Tue, 12 Oct 2010 13:05:08 EDT http://www.drawger.com/kyle/index.php?section=articles&article_id=11428 This is my latest LA Times Sports cover. The brief from the art director: " USC’s football team: so far this season in three games, they’ve gone for a two-point conversion seven times, making it just twice. And even when they line up for a traditional kick, they do all kinds of wacky things with alignment and last-minute shifts. It has been described as a three-ring circus." I love drawing the figure and this was a chance to put together a fun composition with multiple figures, so I was very happy.















Continuing with the sports theme, I was really thrilled to draw a tiny series of spots that illustrate the famous bicycle crash from Pee Wee's Big Adventure, one of my favorite movies of all time. Bicycling commissioned this and referenced the illustrations I did for them last year that were drawn in my Daily Figure style. Those original spots were awarded a place in the SPD Spots show this year, so I hope I get a few more jobs in this vein in 2010. As I've said a million times before, I really love drawing this way.





]]> Thu, 07 Oct 2010 14:54:43 EDT http://www.drawger.com/kyle/index.php?section=articles&article_id=11340 The University of North Carolina School of the Arts will be doing an all school production of Oklahoma! that will stay true to the original 1943 musical in almost every way, including choreography by Agnes De Mille, and stage designs based on the original artwork. I worked with the esteemed John Mauceri, chancellor of the school and the musical director for the show, as well as Steve Bumgarner and Ann Urban from Capture Public Relations. Though I can't name or did not meet all of them, there were other important members of the production who had input during the process of creating the poster. We began talking about the poster in June and getting from that first meeting to the final art was a long process, though it went very smoothly for a project that involved a lot of cooks in the kitchen. The final file is separated into three parts, as well (people, landscape and sky, titles) so that it can be used in lots of different formats to advertise the show. This is the largest Photoshop file I have ever worked on. It was 2.75 gigs at one point and my computer choked every time I tried to save the file - it took about 15 minutes to save. I don't want to work on anything this big for a while. Still, I do look forward to seeing the art blown up to six feet wide on the side of a building.















]]> Fri, 24 Sep 2010 15:54:56 EDT http://www.drawger.com/kyle/index.php?section=articles&article_id=11343 My good pal and an all-around fantastic guy, Sterling Hundley, is having a solo show of illustration work at The University of the Arts in Philly. If you can make it out there, I'm sure you will not be disappointed-  he's amazing! Personal note: Sterling is the reason I really made a go of it with illustration and I owe him a lot. He has been a great mentor over the years and I'm really proud to call him a friend. He kind of sucks at basketball, though. I dunked on him. Below: some of the work that will be on display at the show. Details: When: September 24th, 2010- November 22nd, 2010.  Artist's talk: October 14, 1:30 3 p.m. in CBS Auditorium, followed by a reception in the von Hess Illustration Gallery. Where: the Richard C. von Hess Illustration Gallery, University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 2333 South Broad Street, 7th floor What: Solo Exhibition of the illustrative work of Sterling Hundley for show and for sale. "Divergent" will feature over 30 works that have garnered numerous National and International awards from clients as varied as Rolling Stone to Virginia Living Magazine. Please submit purchase inquiries to: sterling@sterlinghundley.com More work here















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