Recent Illustration Commissions

Superhero Squad

A Christmas present from a friend to her nephew (whose head is on the Iron Man suit.) I needed a lot of reference from online (images and videos) for the Squadies to nail their distinctive art style, and had a couple photos of the boy's face. I worked hard to make all the linework interesting, paying attention to shapes, width, weight, and flow.

The Cat Trick

My friend hired me to illustrate this as an anniversary present from him to his wife. I used photos for their three cat's heads, and rummaged online for the hockey uniforms, goalie net and rink line details. I created the little ads in the back in homage to the couple's culinary interests.

Note my new signature logo, an AM shaped and colored like a pencil, my favorite drawing utensil. Why do I use a signature logo? Is such a thing necessary? Who else does this? :)

Adobe Illustrator CS2

Recent Logo Designs

Adobe Illustrator CS2
Paying work makes me happy! :)

Glenshaw Alliance Church Bible quizzers revamped t-shirt design.
Logo for Independence Professionals, LLC webpage. They work with mentally and physically challenged individuals.
Design for local beauty enhancement company.

Illustration Friday-- Mail

Adobe Illustrator CS2
Tried my best to just use simplified shapes and concentrate on design, color, and composition. :)

Illustration Friday-- Sneaky

Moroccan Mark/Adobe Illustrator
This man looks like he could be a little sneaky. :) Actually, this was a friend's Halloween costume, and inspired me enough to draw a caricature of him. :)

It's been a long time since I...

...posted anything new. Well so, these aren't exactly new, but more like updated versions of illustrations I've already posted. Hopefully I'll get back in the swing of things soon, posting some new freelance and such. :)
Submission for Illustration Friday-Suspense
Big Boss Man
Adobe Illustrator
Swim Against Death
Adobe Illustrator

Church t-shirt logo

Adobe Illustrator CS2.
My pastor's wife asked me to make a logo for the Bible quiz team at my church. She said she wanted the chocolate brown/blue combo that's been popular for awhile. I think I wound up going a bit more teal than she originally had in mind, but she said she preferred how it came out. I told the printers I wanted this to go over the breast pocket area, but wish I'd have thought to have it printed over the whole front. Must be my conservative nature. :)

Big Boss Man

For Illustration Friday's Unbalanced. Usually the old man gets a little crazy around mid-week, but Nerble takes it in stride.
Adobe Illustrator CS2
Adobe Illustrator /PhotoshopWeathered version: I exported the Illustrator file as a tiff, then opened it in Photoshop. I opened a photo I'd taken of a cracked asphalt sidewalk, then dragged and dropped it onto my illustration. I blended the texture into the main illustration using the Multiply filter, then manipulated the transparency until the illustration still dominated but the texture showed through just enough.
I changed the background into a layer, then added a layer underneath the illustration layer, and turned the color to brown. I erased some of the illustration layer to let the brown background show through. Then I created some additional distress drawing cracks, highlights and shadows the Dodge and Burn tools. :)

Sweating the Small Stuff

I did this piece as a flyer for a Sunday morning Bible study I led. Unfortunately, I didn't get it to the printer fast enough (Yet another lame attempt to fit the Illustration Friday meme. This week it's Fast).
Adobe Illustrator CS2
I really enjoy the look of super-tight comic book inking, say, along the lines of The Art of Comic Book Inking volumes 1 and 2 by Gary Martin. Some of the examples in those books stagger my mind as far as tightness, getting the perfect balance of light and dark, and making all the lines work so the image comes alive, not just putting down lines however you feel like it. Another awesome book about inking is Rendering in Pen and Ink by Arthur L. Guptill; a big tome of a book that's worth every hour to read it.

The figure came first; the background and text came later. First I sketched the figure in pencil, scanned it into Illustrator, then traced it with the pen tool. I did all the blacks first, working out shadows and forms until it stood alone as a solid black and white illustration. I then started applying flat colors: 4 shades for the armor, 3 shades for the gold-lighted glass (I didn't know how many layers of color I would use originally, that's just how it worked out).

All the little tapered lines are, for the most part, blended triangles, shaped to fit whatever form I needed. I'm not a big fan of outlines. I do wind up using them here and there, but I'm trying to get out of the habit. I try to think more in terms of light, shadow, and dimension, trying to figure out how to make 2D pop out like 3D. :)

Swim Against Death

Adobe Illustrator CS2
A moment frozen in time (Illustration Friday meme). I can't believe how long it's been since I posted last. For the most part I'm happy with how this turned out.

Close-up of chained swimmer.
I created the main body of the chains, turned it into a pattern brush, then drew them on a path with the brush tool. The bubbles are one bubble turned into a scatter brush and the path drawn with the brush tool.
Close-up of monster fish.
Used a bunch of different blends for the details on his face. I created the tentacle texture using the pencil tool with a thick stroke. I turned the stroke into outlines, copied and pasted a copy on top which I made lighter, and moved it around a little until it looked like raised ridges. I then masked them into the shape of the tentacles. Close-up of water bug master.
Used a water bug for reference, but changed things up a little. I wanted some sort of sci-fi device on the bug to indicate it's in control of the little robot creatures, but I don't like the thing I made. I'll have to come up with something better later.
Close-up of bubble woman.
The chain going around the bubble is four different brushes, a dark, middle, light, and green for behind the bubble. I cheesed how the the chain goes behind the bubble, so it doesn't really look right if you look too close, where it goes from gold to green. I'll fix that eventually. Also, sometimes a pattern on a path may look squished if your path is short, or look stretched out if your path stops just short of the pattern replicating.
There's way more detail on her than what I needed, since she's supposed to be somewhat in the background, but once I got started...

Anniversary Card

Here's the front of the anniversary card I made for my wife. It's 3D Max. :)

8th Wedding Anniversary Illustration

Canon Digital Rebel XTi, 3D Max, Photoshop, Illustrator. :) Here's a submission for Illustration Friday's Drifting.

Final Approved Blaze Logo

T-shirt front and back designs.

Mock-up of t-shirt application:
Adobe Illustrator CS2