Here’s an illustration I did a couple of months ago, for The Feathertale Review!

Once more I find myself drawing a motorcycle! How can this be?

After nearly a year of waiting for publication, I can finally post what I did for my co-op last summer!

I did the character illustrations for two children’s travel guides for Junior Jetsetters - Paris and Amsterdam. (The background illustrations were done by artists living in the cities themselves.) Mike did the other two - Chicago and Lisbon. Here’re just a few of the 200-300 images done for these books. (There were about 150 “frames”, but many of them contained several separate character images.)

My first job was to design the local animal guides of the two travelling children.

Amsterdam Character Designs

Paris Character Designs

The images themselves were intended for insertion into photographs. I only have a few examples of that, in cases where it would have been difficult for them to add the characters after the fact. (The two kids, Keira and Jordi, are not my creation; they’re copyright to the Junior Jetsetters guys.)

Paris La Defense

Musee Grevin

Rembrandthuis

The rest of the images only exist in their free-floating, character-only state. Some of these were intended to go in photos, some not, and frankly I can’t remember which were which.

Nothing says Amsterdam like Bollywood

Cooking

Sports, with kiddie versions of our bosses Pedro and Slawko

Amsterdam Roots Festival

Picnic

X-Ray

Paris style

A badger riding a horse?

Beachtime!

Fun with perspective

A TREE

My one regret is that there was so much to do in so little time - near the end, I was doing maybe ten a day, and this was after school had started - so the shading had to be done in a very quick, loose style, and looking at it now I can’t say I like it. But it was a good time, and I learned a lot. Thanks to Pedro and Slawko for the opportunity.

FOR THE HORDE PROJECT ROOFTOP!!

Oh god I can’t remember the last time I coloured this way. Seriously, it’s been years. And Wolverine looks like a fireman clown in a marching band. From space.

At least he’s not a mountie this time.

Like so many awesome things in my life, this is Karen’s fault.

Not my real Project Rooftop entry (just a stupid sketchbook thing, really) but it may end up submitted anyhow because it’s… just… oh god what did I spend my evening doing. D:

Besides, what other Canadian superheroes have we GOT? Northstar? Pfft.

Grad show is over. College is over. I’m still kind of recovering.

A few things! First, I did this image a while back for a school project/ a calendar for Pylon Design. It’s been on my website for a few days, but I haven’t blogged it:

Second, remember that Stephen Harper picture I did way back when? (Perhaps not, too lazy to find the blogpost, but this is it…) Well, it’s a finalist in the Framing Harper competition! And so is the work of my friend Rosemary! Check out the finalists! (Especially Rose’s, which should totally win because it makes me burst into a fit of giggles every time I see it.)

Third, the narrative project I posted a couple of teasers for was finally finished up. I had print copies at the show, but if you’d like to read my shot at writing (or at least look at all the pictures) here’s a PDF! If you’re interested in an actual, printed, hold-in-your-hands copy, let me know and I’ll get you the Lulu link. (They printed out surprisingly well, even if the shipping prices are insane.)

I think that’s it for now. Now I’m done school, I’ll likely, hopefully, be posting work more often - there’s all this stuff I’ve been wanting to do that Grad Show panic has kept me from doing. Ah, art, I do love you.

COME TO THE GRAD SHOW!

It runs from 7 PM - 1 AM on Thursday, April 23rd, and 11 AM - 8 PM on Friday April 24th. Check the invite for the location.

The grad book also came in today, and it’s full of awesome:

My final Interp illustration of my college career. *single tear* The last of the four seasons. Guess which!

I have rather pretentiously titled this Mother of Wolves, not to be confused with Australian hard rock quartet Wolfmother, although that would be kind of sweet.

And now, an hour or two of sleep before class!

I’m still alive, which is ever so slightly ironic in an Alanis Morissette kind of way considering I’ve been driving myself into the ground writing and illustrating ghost stories. Hard at work, but with little I can blog. So here’s another random illustration from that ghost story book, to prove I can still draw, honestly.

I have business cards, which makes me happy. The grad show is in like two weeks. I, and everybody around me, are so wound up that the slightest thing will make us explode, atomic-style. That’s about it.

…is alive!

Check it out!

You can still reach it through otherskies.net, but for all personal branding purposes, my personal portfolio address is now kimsokol.com. Haven’t decided yet whether to rebrand the blog or not, but for now I don’t have time so it’ll remain all Otherskies’d.

But the otherskies domain is very dear to me - I mean, it’s been my home on the web since I was 15. I’m still trying to come up with something neat to do with it, so don’t think I’ve abandoned it entirely…

A seeecret preview of a seeeecret project.

No, that’s a lie. I’m redesigning the look of my web site, and putting together a business card, and this is for both.

I’m just no good at keeping secrets, I guess.