Carrie for Entertainment Weekly

Here are sketches and the finished illustration I did for Entertainment Weekly's Sex and the City issue (out tomorrow). I did four, but this is the lede illustration. Here's John Hendrix's contribution to the mag.

The sketches started out as depicting a SATC writer, but eventually they requested that it be Carrie herself.

AD William Hooks.

Risk

Here's an illustration for Planadviser magazine, AD SooJin Buzelli.

The concept is "great risk for great gain". I prefer the last sketch, but we agreed it might be a bit obtuse. I'll have to finish it on my own (or find an assignment for it).

Skim Originals

There is a mini-show of original Skim art at The Beguiling in Toronto. There are sketches, pencils, inked pages, and even stuff from the pre-Skim Skim (Part 1 of the story existed as a stand-alone comic book; all art was redone for the new version).

Info, including address, here. Thank-you to Chris and Peter for asking and organizing!

Reference Folders

(which hold reference photos for current projects on my desktop)

ESPN Fantasy Sports

Here's a recent project done for ESPN's 10th Anniversary Issue. The concept: "Fantasy Sports are Fun"! The editors actually came up with the idea of the pinata party, which was initially a bit daunting. How exactly does one draw a group of kids grabbing at 10 specified athletes flying out of a pinata? But actually, I think the challenge did me good.







There's something that makes me think the image actually looks better in the layout than by itself. I'm not sure why. Maybe the "JACKPOT" extends the line of the girl's arm or something. Anyway. You'll notice the asian girl got a bit of a haircut and became a boy for the magazine version! I suppose girls aren't that into fantasy sports, but I do like the black of her hair in the original. AD Siung Tija.

Boob Tomatoes

Yes, boob tomatoes. How else to describe them? Plus a few rejected sketches. For Esquire, AD Erin Jang.

Between the Sexes

(Elliott Erwitt / Magnum Photos)

A Slate slideshow on the theme of "the differences and similarities between the sexes."

Photography really fascinates me, although I'm not a great photographer myself. I love Slate's Magnum daily photo feature... I check it every day. The albums are themed: thinkers, telephones, Poe-inspired, etc. When something strikes me, I squirrel it away in my big reference folder. I go there for help: for colour, faces, composition, objects, animals, and concepts (what a great concept in the photo above–look closely).

Children's Books

Here are some spreads from this month's Cookie Magazine. The theme was classic children's books. Fifteen illustrations in total! It was cool to work with the art director, Alex Grossman, to do something more thematic and integrated.






And a few close-ups of the main illustrations.

Nepalese Farmer

Here is a job, start to finish, for the Asian edition of TIME Magazine (AD May Wong). The piece was a book review for a novel about impoverished Nepalese farmers in the mid-twentieth century. The book was a simple story and spoke to the plain truths about poverty: the poor are powerless, and the poor are destined to get poorer.

Here are the sketches (after a few hours of scouring the internet for reference on Nepal). I saw a great photo of a man carrying a seemingly impossible load of hay, and it seemed like the perfect metaphor for the burden of the poor. Case in point: research is NOT about just "getting the details right". It can spark creative ideas unto their own. Which is why research-gathering, not thumbnails, is step #1.




I started on two versions of the final. I wasn't sure how I wanted to finish it. I have a minor obsession with a book by Vittorio Giardino that I have, so I think that (and Tin Tin) is why the Clear Line style comes up every now and again. I didn't end up taking it to final though.

Final!

Detail.

W.B. Yeats

This piece was awarded a Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators this year, which pleases me immensely. The sketches aren't too horrific so I thought I'd share them.

The article, for Esquire, was explained to be me as "about how poetry can get you girls". If you're interested in that theory, you can read the article here.

Art direction by Darhil Crooks.

Japanese Masks and Robots

Research Sketches for a current project.

Here are the sketches for a piece that appears in this weekend's New York Times Magazine. The article is about a man on trial for killing feral cats who were preying upon endangered birds.





This is the final full-sized drawing (after the editorial changes), over which I inked the final illustration. As you can see, it serves as more as a rough guide and isn't exactly set in stone.



Final image. It's a full page; it's nice when stuff is actually big enough for people to appreciate the details. I've also posted the accompanying spot. Art Direction by Leo Jung.

Walrus Cover sketch process

Here are process sketches for the recent Walrus cover I did (on stands now). There were multiple rounds and variations – much more than I would usually do – but I can appreciate such thoroughness when it comes to covers. The theme was "late summer". These sketches are pretty much indicative of the level of finish I try to achieve.









In the end, they decided to go with a variation on this dragonfly sketch:


Further refined (specifically trying to suggest movement):


Finished Product. Art Director: Antonio De Luca.