Busy busy!

Hello, illustration friends!  I thought I'd quickly check in to explain the lack of recent updates on this site.  Ironically, I am working harder than I ever have before on illustration.  I'm currently working on my biggest project yet, but it is top secret (literally! I had to sign a big scary "non disclosure agreement") so I can't tell you guys about it just yet.  As soon as I can, I will!

I've also been very busy working on the Basewood Kickstarter campaign, which continues until September 28th.  Readers of this blog probably remember Basewood from the many posts I wrote about its cover design.  If anyone is interested in owning a copy of the finished book, now is a great time to put in a pre-order.

Thanks for your patience and I'll post again as soon as I have something I'm allowed to share!

The Hunter

For the final project in our Children's Book class at Pratt, we had to take the text from an existing book and then illustrate it in our own style.  After a whole day at the library, I decided to use The Hunter: A Chinese Folktale retold by Mary Casanova.  It was a great story, and my illustration style was so different from Ed Young's beautifully understated ink drawings, that I knew I wouldn't be tempted to copy anything he had done in the real book.

We started out by thumbnailing the entire book.  I then redrew these compositions at a slightly more detailed stage so that I could create a full-sized dummy of the book.  You can click the image below to see these images at a larger size:

Right during this assignment I saw a Pixar show at the Museum of Modern Art and I was really amazed by the color scripts that they created for each of their movies.  I loved the idea of being able to see the colors for each scene all on one page, so that you can make sure each setting feels unique.  I made a very simple color script using my thumbnails:

I then drew a cover and two interior illustrations.  Again, you can click on any of these to see larger versions.

I have been posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  Believe it or not, this is the last old image!  It'll all be new stuff from here on out!

Alice in Wonderland

The other children's book that we tackled as an assignment for my "Illustration IV" class at Pratt was Alice in Wonderland.  This has always been one of my favorite stories, so it was great to reread it and pick out some scenes to illustrate.  We had to draw a spot illustration, a full page illustration and a two-page spread.  Click on any of the images below to see larger versions of them.

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.

Snow White

During my last semester at Pratt, our "Illustration IV" class did a series of children's book illustrations, even though we also had a specific Children's Book Illustration class that semester.  I was pumped about this because I have always wanted to illustrate picture books.  Our first assignment was to create an illustration for Snow White.  This piece was a big turning point for me, because it was during the critique process for this piece that I really began to understand the importance of value.

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.

Egyptian Mummification Process

The class I was most excited to take at Pratt was the Children's Book Illustration class.  For our first assignment we had to do two illustrations to accompany some non-fiction text.  There were four or five texts to choose from, and I selected one about the Egyptian mummification process.  It was super interesting to research this process and I tried to cram in as many historically accurate details into each drawing.

Click either of these images to see them larger:

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.