work

How did I forget to post this? I finished this a couple weeks ago! It’s a companion to my Death Nouveau piece from last year, and it’ll be in a fanart show at 8-bit at the beginning of June, as well as at Fan Expo at the end of the summer in print form.

Also, new shirt up for voting on Threadless!

(This was actually a part of a piece I did in first year – I even had to retrace it from the final jpg, even though it was in vector originally, because I just couldn’t find the old files from 4 years back. Durr.)

Here’re some things that aren’t exactly brand spanking new, but I’m going to show them to you anyway.

First: A new shirt up at Threadless! It ought to look at least mildly familiar, as it’s a somewhat rearranged version of my Perfectionist piece; the kid’s now gender nonspecific (or that was the intention; it kinda just looks like a boy, really) and the colours are, well, something more shirt-friendly.

Help me out with a vote!

Second, for the people not following my daily site, here’s a couple I’ve done recently that I like a lot.

I’ve been itching to post these for about a month now, and as the new issue seems to finally be listed on the website, I can finally bring them out from under wraps! Here’re a couple of illustrations I did for Shameless magazine, for a profile on Sook-Yin Lee, entitled “Definitely Not Shy”.

Also! I’ve finally dipped my toes into the Threadless ocean, and would be eternally grateful for a vote on my shirt design submission:

Just 4 more days! Vote, pretty please; I’m really happy with my design!

Another illustration for Briarpatch magazine, for an article about “the politics of the burqa”. I did two versions, a greyscale one for print and a colour one for the website:

…the colour one was kind of an experiment, as it was working off the already-finished greyscale; something I’d never done before for a colour image, at least in this style. A challenging article to illustrate; thanks to Dave Mitchell for another interesting opportunity!

Also! I’ve finished another month over at my daily artblog, so check it out for my new theme, myths and monsters!

Here’s an illustration I did about a month ago for Briarpatch magazine. The article – by a woman looking back to her days as a radical feminist, and wondering what changed – is really interesting, and up in full on their site.

Also, I leave you with another shameless reminder to check out my new daily artblog. Or at least this one post, which I totally love.

Another day, another artdump! Another story illustrated for Rubicon Publishing. This one’s about a Kanien’kehaka (Mohawk) kid, his birthday, his favourite meal, and his grandmother.

And speaking of children’s illustration, check out the work of Julia Denos, an illustrator who I found yesterday through Stumbleupon, of all things, and spent my evening fawning over. Love her blog. Her stuff is all kinds of adorable.

For the first time in human history, the number of hungry people worldwide will exceed 1 billion this year…

Around the end of the school year, my final project for both my computer and my information illustration class was an infographic-y video about Free Rice, a division of the United Nations World Food Program and an excellent, easy way to earn money to help combat world hunger. I sent them the video, hoping they could use it for something. While that animation has yet to see the light of day, it led to this opportunity – to do another short video, this time for their new Billion for a Billion campaign.

It’s been an interesting time. Very powerful subject matter, so trying to do it justice hasn’t always been easy, and I’m certainly new to work requiring so much revision – others have worked on it at various stages; the version up on the site isn’t entirely my own work – but overall, an amazing opportunity, working with some wonderful people for a fantastic cause.

If you’d like to help promote the campaign, check out the Billion for a Billion website for ways to show your support, or donate here – fill the cup! Even just play Free Rice a little. It doesn’t take much to help.

I’ve got a couple of other (unrelated) things to post over the next couple of days, so stay tuned. Just wanted to let this one stand alone.

I recently completed these illustrations for an educational kids’ story for Rubicon Publishing. Fun project, and a real challenge, too. (The composition may look weird on a couple of these, because I was working around text that’s obviously not included here.)

Aaaand back to work. Man, I knew freelancing was feast and famine, but it’s one thing to hear it and another to actually experience a couple of months of absolutely nothing followed by sudden work!panic. But whatever, wouldn’t trade this for anything!

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.