Sports Illustrated Kids November Illustrations

As the new year starts up I've begun the next round of illustrations for the Sports Illustrated Kids "What's The Call" article. I did some thumbnails for the new pieces this week and am just waiting back for the go ahead from my awesome art director so I can keep moving forward.

So, while waiting, I thought it might be a great time to show off a few of the illustrations I did for last November's issue.

First off, a baseball player hits a home run but his leg cramps up as he rounds second base and he cannot finish rounding the bases. Is he allowed to be replaced by a pinch runner?

Second, an NFL punter muffs the snap and the ball drops to the ground. Instead of pouncing on the ball and covering it up, he kicks the ball off the ground? Is this legal?

And, last but not least, during a track relay, Runner A prepares to pass of the baton to the Runner B, who is running the anchor leg. As the handoff is made, one of Runner B¹s feet is outside of the exchange zone, though the baton itself is inside the zone. Does this qualify as a legal baton exchange?

You're the official on the field. So, you tell me...

What's the call?

Have a great day!

OilCan Drive Trading Cards

As busy as I was over the holidays trying to get all of the client work done I did find myself one night, at 3am, sketching out this new OilCan Drive piece of artwork.

The first art job I had coming out of the Kubert school was working as an assistant artist at a studio that specialized in creating comic book trading cards. During that time trading card sets were all the craze and, recently, I've found myself really missing those days.

I did some research and looked around the web for places that can print trading cards and I've found a few that can do some really good cards for not that much money. So, of course, my mind started racing. One of the things I comfort myself with while I am so busy doing client work is all the projects and ideas I want to explore once I have some free time. And, over the years, the idea of doing OilCan Drive trading cards keeps coming back into the forefront of my mind.

So, I did this quick sketch late at night which is 200% the size of a printed trading card. I just wanted to see how it felt to draw a card this size and see what I could come up with. And, it was nice to just sketch something for fun that wasn't for work. I think I need to do that more often.

And, while I'm not sure I'll go ahead with finishing this piece (I didn't like the way Ryan came out too much but I did really like the way both Nicole and Vince came out) it was nice to play a bit.

It's also not the first time I've been thinking about doing a trading card set. If you'll look at this blog post I did over two years ago you'll find I was already trying to figure out a way to package a set of trading cards if I ever get them done.

So, who knows, it may not be the last time we see an OilCan Drive trading card idea. It's just something that I can't get out of my head.

Have a great day!

So Long Lisa CD Cover

After a few go rounds with the musicians in So Long Lisa it looks like the CD to their debut EP album "Seven Signs You're A Superhero" is done and ready to go to press. Once the album is out I'll be sure to put a link up here to where you can find it.

The art itself wasn't that bad to produce but when it came time to fit all the information that the band wanted onto the CD sleeve something had to give. Originally the lyrics to each song were to be put on the interior sleeve but, with how many words there were and how intricate the background behind those words would be, I feared the type would be so small and cluttered that it would be unreadable.

So we compromised and I simply but the band member's names on the interior sleeve and we called the cover done.

And yes, lest you forgot, that is a room in my house posing as the background for the Irish band. One friend who came over during the holidays mentioned that I look like I live in a house designed by a fourteen year old filled with a big TV, movies, art, posters on the wall, and all sorts of musical gear at every turn.

I've decided to take that as a compliment.

Have a great day!

The Year in Review

At the start of every year I like to go back and reflect on all the blogger headers I created over the past year. It really is a good indication of how the year has gone and what I want to change in the coming year.

For every blog header I make I'd ideally like to use my own personal art and characters I've created. It's just more "mine" that way. But, more often than not, I find myself running out of days in the month and need to put something new on the blog header so I'll grab whatever art I can. Usually this means some client art I've created that I'm pretty proud of.

So, looking back over the year it looks like I didn't do too badly. Nine out of the twelve headers were from personal pieces (even though I didn't have time to color one of them and I did the December Mr. Mucho piece rather quickly.) Five were from OilCan Drive, two were from Exit 6, one was a pin-up piece, and one was Mr. Mucho.

This January, being so busy, I had to use another client piece of art for the header. So that leaves me only eleven more spots to get it right this year. And, if I want to beat last year's record I can only falter once.

So, hang on, it should be an interesting year!

Happy New Year!

It's 2012! Bring on the robots!

I hope you all had a great New Year's Eve and that this year is better for you than the last! Here we go!

Finished Robot Girl

It's been a busy week of finishing up projects to send out to clients on Monday but I found some time to finish up the robot girl and get her painted.

And, not only did I do the piece the client needed but I also finished up my first idea of her and colored that as well. It's been a while since I had a chance to paint a metal person and, I have to say, I really miss it. I first learned to paint metal back in college by studying the work of Sexy Robot artist Hajime Soryama. Just seeing the way he did stuff and having a few things explained to me really helped me understand how metal works on a body. And, what I first learned to do with the airbrush I can now do in the computer with the same idea.

Personally, I loved the way this piece turned out and I wish I could do more cool stuff like this for clients. But, if nothing else, I can always do stuff like this for myself. A character like this might need to be put into the OilCan Drive universe just because I like her so much. We shall see.

And, because I was curious to see how it looked, I did a full black and white image of the robot girl using a zip-a-tone type pattern on her and making the image strictly black and white with no color and no grays, just black lines and dots. I love the way this stuff looks and something about it really speaks to me. It's funny, the more involved I get in doing fully painted pieces and intricate photo realistic backgrounds the more I find myself drawn back to the simple stuff I loved as a kid. Just black and white line art with tones.

I love that look and I think it worked well with this piece of a sexy robot girl.

Have a great New Year's Eve! See you all in the New Year! Be safe!

Inking the Robot Girl

Since I liked my original pencil sketch of the robot girl and the client wanted a slightly different face on her for the finished version I did something I rarely ever do with client work. I decided to finish both versions.

So, I inked up my original version and then created a separate face that I could then paste on digitally for the final piece. The new face is on a piece of board that has a lot of other images on it including some Sports Illustrated stuff and some work for another client. I figured it was such a small piece of art why put it on a piece of paper all its own when I could fit it on a piece with a bunch of other images.

So now it's on to scanning these two pieces into the computer and adding some color. It's getting there.

Have a great day.