Society of Illustrators #53 Submissions

Well, wish me luck, the images have been submitted and the bill has been paid! Now it's all up to the judges at this year's Society of Illustrators annual show/ contest to vote on this year's winners and participants in the 53rd Illustration Annual.

For my submissions, I had to balance the cost and the number of images that I could afford to submit. I felt that 4 of the images that were created over the last year would be a nice representation. Of course I wanted to submit the piece that I did for the IMC, that was such a formative experience that I wanted to show the final piece. Also, in keeping with the Steampunk vibe, I entered my cover illustration for Steampunk Magazine #6.



Next up for submission and in a different genre, is the wraparound cover completed for PM Press' Noir Anthology;"Send My Love and A Molotov Cocktail." I submitted this one because of the over all feeling of the image, and because it is a little more concept and a little less figurative work, and besides all that, I just like it.



And finally, the piece that I have been working on for the past month or so, and that was alluded to in an earlier post, "A Curious Introduction!"



Watch for an upcoming process post about the creation of not only this image, but of the whole promotional piece that this is a part of, and of the considerations behind the core concept. But for now, these are my four entries, and I feel that they do represent where I've been and where I am at. Of course I live in hope that maybe one or more of these images might be chosen to be amongst the prestigious pages of the Society of Illustrators Illustration Annual #53! Only time will tell.

Links to other blog posts:

Click here to read more about the "Jetcycle Getaway," and part of my IMC experience.

Click here to read about the creation of Ol' No.6.

12WC: Week 4: Get to work!

Now we've come to the end of week 4 of the 12 week challenge. Arguably, we've entered the "fun" part of illustration, making images!

Before I move on to the painting, I have to say that part of this challenge for me has been about zeroing in on what I want to do, who I'd like to purchase my works, and how I can make a business of doing this. After looking at some of the other challenger's works, I have to say that I am at once, both terrified and filled with the "I'm not worthy" thing and, greatly inspired. This, of course is part of the inner, personal challenge. To be able to find my own self worth in the presence of other talented artists may be one of my biggest obstacles. Illustration is unique in this way, where we can find ourselves cheering on our friends while challenging them, and in return to be challenged by their now stronger works.

Now, here's the story of the painting! As some of you may remember from the earlier post "Alien Moon Phases," recently a friend of mine finished writing a fantasy novel, "Velor" which is looking for a publisher. In order to create a more positive and appealing property he decided to commission a few pieces of work from me.

This is will be the cover image for the book, so we talked about some of the key concepts that he wanted to represent his story. High on the list were feelings of ambiguity, of being lost, and that kinda the main character in the story is the journey it's self. After discussing some key scenes in the book, we arrived at a moment wherein the band of travelers is lost in a mountain range and decide to take shelter in a cave.

After a few thumbnails, we liked this drawing. The characters were ambiguous, the mountain is big and they are small, and the cave is threatening while offering shelter. I wanted this to be a "frying pan to fire" scene.

Moving right along, this is the first image that I took after the first washes were laid down. As a technical note, I tried some new paper, an Arches 260lb hot press. In the store I liked the plate finish which seemed smoother than the 300lb paper, but not as slick as the Strathmore 500 series that I had been using. I thought I'd just give it a go. The paper was stretched, it was kind of attached to a board {wet paper and tape don't mix so well, I guess that's why everybody else uses thumbtacks... lesson learned,} and we're off to the races.

These early washes on the page were really fun to work with. One simply cannot know the difficulty in painting "white" in watercolor. It actually turns out to be a study in shades of gray, but such is the story of my life!

After that point, I got really busy painting and didn't take anymore process pics, but somehow I ended up with the final painting.

All, in all I am happy with the image. I find that the compostional tool of using a spiral to bring the eye into the center is a lot of fun to work with, and that the over all effect of weather and light has come across to an acceptable degree. There are some nit picky things that, if I had to do this over again, I'd do differently, but in the end I am generally happy with the piece.

As for the new paper experiment, in the final stages of painting, the paper really started to buckle and warp from the numerous washes that I was applying. Looks like it's back to the Strathmore board, and the challenge of creating soft edges on it, and I'll have to save this paper for simpler works.

During the whole process, serendipitously I discovered a book "The Great Age of British Watercolors 1750 - 1880, and I was totally blown away with the works there. These guys were creating amazing realism in their watercolors as well as a great sense of mood and atmosphere. I didn't like everyone's work, but some stand outs are John Sell Cotman, and some lazy bum named Joseph Mallord William Turner. I could rhapsodize about their merits for quite some time, but suffice to say that these are some real solid building blocks in watercolor painting.

To summarize about the painting and the 12 week challenge, we are supposed to create 2 pieces a week. Realistically this is pretty much out of my reach, as I want to bring up pieces to full paintings, but that doesn't mean that I'll do anything but my best to create as much as I can in the next 3 weeks.

Stay tuned, I'm not exactly sure what the next painting will be, but there will be one and I hope that you'll be around to offer your comments and critiques!

Cheers,
B

PS: Links to stuff referred to in the post;
• the earlier Velor post: "Alien Moon Phases" ( which has a fun little video too! )
• the book: "The Great Age of British Watercolors" { and as ever, support your local book stores when you can! }
• John Sell Cotman { wiki-page } how have I not know about this guy?!
• JMW Turner { wiki-page } as a note, I knew he was good... but, wow.
• other 12 week challenge posts { here }

Ol' #6: A Past Future In The Present

Recently I had the good fortune to paint the cover of Steampunk Tales #6. It so much fun to work in a genre that I really dig. I like to describe Steampunk Tales as a 'Digi-pulp.' They are really taking a great format that has propelled so many story tellers and illustrators forward from the past, and bringing it into the 21st Century by making it accessible to so many tech platforms. Sort of a past future in the present, much like Steampunk.

{ I've posted links at the bottom of this post where you can go to download the latest issue, please check it out! It's a lot of entertainment for just $1.99}

I really enjoy Pulp action and drama, and may have really started my romance with them after reading { and by 'reading' I mean 'mostly looking at the pictures,' } "Bradbury: An Illustrated Life, A Journey To Far Metaphor. Ray Bradbury was one of the first authors who really got to me. His work was a.) short, b.) rich with fantastic imaginings, and c.) just down right beautiful. I've been in love with his works since I was in my single digits. Moving forward, what I saw in this book was how he got his start through pulps and fanzines. Of course, next to each one of those stories were fabulous, bizarre, and wonderful illustrations. Many of those illustrators went on to have full and rich careers, but, in the beginning they were doing it in a spirit of adventure and a love of the stories. I don't mind saying that here too, in this same spirit, I wish to send down a tap root in the hopes that my works will, over time, blossom and bear fruit.

I like to share the process of how these images come about. I have to say right up front that I didn't document a lot of steps on this one, but what I have is here.

I guess what really got the ball rolling was a note from the editor that connected me up with the writer G.D. Falksen, whose authored a series entitled "An Unfortunate Engagement." He briefly described an scene wherein the Hero, Heroine, and Sidekick are liberating slaves from a Siberian airship factory. Already I was drooling, there is just so much to work with here; giant airships, explosions, narrow escapes... ahh the stuff that pulps are made of!

The first take that I was ready to settle on { there were many that ended up on the cutting room floor } was one that showed the Hero charging at the front of the masses, grit in his teeth, and explosions all around! I described it like this in the email: "Take 1: Our intrepid trio crests a hill ready for more action as the giant airship burns to the ground in the background. Airships! Ray guns! Action and Adventure!"

As I continued to work over what was going on, I wanted to leave more for the imagination of the reader. Some of my favorite works of art allow the viewer to access what's going on. This can be done in an infinite number of ways, the way I chose was to allow most of the action to be "off screen" and to focus on the Hero and Heroine. The second sketch was discribed thus: "Take 2: The faces of two of the Intrepid Trio turn to face the explosions from the airship factory below, they are illuminated in crimsons and orange. Above them a Steam train waits to whisk them to their next adventure! Explosions! Narrow Escapes! and a Train bound for Adventure!"

Some other smaller details that I enjoy are a sense of timing. To name sources here, this comes from at least two different places if not more. The first would have to be "Drawing Comics The Marvel Way" where there's discussion of dramatic action and the example is drawing someone throwing a punch. The gist of what they said is that showing the moment just before the action or just after the action creates the highest drama. The second source that came to mind { and this is where you'll have to bear with me as I geek out a bit } is in the book " The Art of Jeffery Jones." Now, the image I am talking about is actually a painting by Harvey Dunn, which is shown as an early painting influence. The image shows a man sitting in a barn window with a stern look on his face, now it took me a while to put it together, but there's this wonderful wisp of smoke just above his rifle... AH HA! I thought, "he's just fired his gun and his expression is in reaction to that." Now that's the kind of timing I'm talking about, "What just happened, What's happening, and What will happen."

I have to be honest here, and just say that I read as many books and look at as much art as I can, it all percolates around inside, and sometimes it comes out in strange and wonderful ways. You can see that in the final drawing here a few changes have been made from the sketch. One, the sidekick was dropped. I felt like the duo made a stronger triangle shape on their own. Two, you'll notice that the gun's come back... and there's that smoke.

I also like the train in the background, because for me it gives a sense of 'future'. In a way, the past is where they've come from, the present is him shooting into the bright light of an explosion, and there, just over the rise, Ol' #6 waiting to take them to them into the future. Next stop.. ADVENTURE!

The new issue is out now, so please check it out and download it. For the low low cost of $1.99, you could have some great fiction, and fun art!

You can download Steampunk Tales issue #6 {here}

Please contact me through my website if you are interested in purchasing a print of this. {here}

To see other Steampunk inspired works by yours truly {Steampunk Made The Old Fashioned Way}, also {Dorothy: Then A Strange Thing Happened}
and some other works on the website {here}, and {here}

Books mentioned in this post: {Bradbury: An Illustrated Life}, {How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way}, and {The Art of Jeffery Jones}

Alien Moon Phases

You just have to love having creative friends. Recently a friend of mine finished writing a fantasy novel, which is looking for a publisher. In order to create a more positive and appealing property he decided to commission a few pieces of work from me, which I am more than happy to do!

The first step was to create what amounts to chapter headers, and a kind of time signature through out the book, he suggested the 28 moon phases of the double moon that hangs above this fantasy world.

I suppose I could have done quick pen and ink moons, but I couldn't resist just giving it my all, and doing my best. So, I first had to figure out how to create 28 pieces where the moons would go through all of their phases. Early one morning as I woke up, I realized a method that would accomplish just that, { ancient artists secret, corner me at a party and I may tell you. } After a few small experiments I settled on a method of production, and then it was off to the races.
Considering my choice to work with watercolors, I am often endeavoring to create works that are solid pieces, and that use watercolors for their strengths, as well as trying to strengthen their weak points. Recently I have become fascinated with edges, both hard and soft. For me, it is more difficult to create a soft edge, so I took this opportunity to work it out on the page.

In using watercolor, one method to create soft edges is the wet-into-wet technique. Which if you are unfamiliar goes basically like this; make a puddle of water, charge your brush with color, dump the color into the puddle, stand back and make faces as you try to control the chaos below. So, that became the first pass on the moons. Sometimes I used just blue, other times blue and black in the first wash.
Next, after the first wash has dried, I came back over them with a wash of black. There is an effort on my part to consciously loose the edges in the moons' shadows, and to create the chunky craters and such at the shadow's edge. During this wash I also experimented with creating little flares of color to break up the hard edges along the outside of the wash.

That process went a little like; make the first wash, while it's still wet come back with another clean brush and create a puddle just a hair away from the edge, when that is done simply break the tension between them, and BOOM! the color rushes into the puddle. { It actually works better when you use the sound effects out loud. Another reason I work by myself, otherwise people would just think that I am crazy...}

The final *phase* of this paintings { ho ho ho } was to wash in the light gray texture of the illuminated side of the moon, and to clean up any odd bits. Baddabing.

All in all I really learned quite a bit about painting during this process. Which, you know, amazes me because I really thought, just prior to this, that I finally knew everything... { he he }
As a bonus, due to the nature of these paintings, I cobbled them together in a quick little Quick time movie. Enjoy!



Addendum: see the final piece for this project { here! }

Book Cover: Pike

This is the second of the two book covers that I was asked to do for PM Press. Amazingly this piece was a great sounding board for the other piece The Chieu Hoi Saloon. Both pieces were a lot of fun to work on, and they provided a great point and counterpoint to work between. For instance this piece for Pike called for a cold harsh feeling, where as The Chieu Hoi Saloon required something warmer, although still gritty.

It was that "gritty" aspect that was one of the major challenges that I had to work with. Considering that often times watercolor, as a medium, tends to be softer and smoother. So, to build in some good ol' Noir Grit was a challenge. With this piece in particular you'll notice that I've spattered a lot of paint about, some to be the falling snow, and some to just be noisy on the picture plane.

Here is the progression from one of the initial concepts to final sketch. I was initially drawn to this concept for it's graphic quality. I liked the stark tree as an emblem of this character's family tree, that it would be desolate, broken, and dark, it's seen dormant during the wintertime. While the story's main character is actually Pike { for whom the book is named }, the character of the estranged grand-daughter, Wendy, is actually the epicenter of the story. She provides the touch stone between the main character and the mystery of his daughter's death. You can read more about my initial thoughts from the first blog post here.

Here is the expanded final sketch which shows both the front and back panels for the book. I had some fun putting that little wispy weed at the bottom of the spine. That's totally just for fun, I like books that have a tiny picture on the spine. Given the chance to do more book covers, I can see really pushing that tiny spine illustration.

When moving from here to the finish, I knew that one aspect that I wanted to show in both this and the other cover, was that the piece should be something that couldn't be created on the computer. I wanted it to be expressly "a painting." There just seems to be so many great up and coming artists working digitally that I don't even want to compete with them, so my answer is to create a something that is wholly original and difficult to do digitally. So, in this piece that is evident in the sky. The washes, upon washes are ripe with accidents and recoveries { I'll leave it to you to find those! } I found myself thinking a lot about the skies in pieces that I've seen by Sir Russel William Flint. While I wasn't directly looking at his work, it is strange to me that it would just emerge that way.

As with any piece of work, in hindsight I look back and see areas that could be stronger, but that is what the next piece is for! Stay Tuned, and thanks for reading along.

Book Cover: The Chieu Hoi Saloon

January has been a very good month, 2 book covers ~ DONE!

The past few weeks have been quite eventful. there was the Holidays, followed by New Year's eve, sprinkle in t he social events, and you've got a busy month. Some where in all that, I made time to paint 2 cover paintings for the "Switchblade Series," from PM Press. As I mentioned in my previous post , Santa brought me a great gig doing 2 book covers. I am happy to say that both covers are done and on time.

The books are stories that were outside the scope my personal work, and so I was challenged to come up with images that would be appropriate for the stories. The cover shown here is for The Chieu Hoi Saloon. The other image will be posted separately.

The folks at PM Press were very nice to work with, and they allowed me full reign on these pieces. In turn I did my best to deliver work that would be conceptually strong and technically well done. I feel good about both those aspects, but as always, there's room to grow.

Here you can begin to see the genesis of the work. I submitted a couple of concepts that were generated off of the initial brief that was sent to me. The thumbnail I chose to use has strong graphic appeal, and speaks to the story with in. As I look at other cover artists whom I admire, I am often really attracted to work that, while based in the literature, resists being literal. This is not the contradiction that it may seem to be. My endeavor is to allow room in the image for mood and tone to creep in. Bearing all this in mind, I felt that this image would work the best.

Next was to expand the image from just a cover image to a wrap-around cover.
I struggled with a few things in this image. One was the gun in the shadow. For a long time I wanted to put something in the character's hand that would possibly cast a "gun-ish" shadow. Then at some point, I remembered that this is an illustration, and not a photograph! It's funny that I should have to give my self permission to do that, but hey that's life. Another area that I worked on was the perspective, you'll notice in the sketch that the street light in the upper left corner moves from the sketch to the final. I realized that if the guy is walking and casting his shadow that way that everything else in the image should be the same. In that way the internal logic of the image wouldn't be broken.

I am very thankful for the opportunity to do these book covers and hope that it will lead to many, many more such wonderful gigs!

Check out the companion image: "Pike"

Merry Christmas... now get to work!

Hey all, so Dame fortune and Santa have smiled upon me and delivered me two book covers to paint. I am very happy to be ushering in 2010 with some illustration work.

Here's both the brief's that I've received thus far, hopefully the manuscripts will be emailed to me soon so I can parse out some more details.

The Chieu Hoi Saloon
It’s 1992 and three people’s lives are about to collide against the flaming backdrop of the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. Vietnam vet Harry Hudson is a journalist fleeing his past: the war, a failed marriage, and a fear-ridden childhood. Rootless, he stutters, wrestles with depression, and is aware he's passed the point at which victim becomes victimizer. He explores the city's lowest dives, the only places where he feels at home. He meets Mama Thuy, a Vietnamese woman struggling to run a Navy bar in a tough Long Beach neighborhood, and Kelly Crenshaw, an African-American prostitute whose husband is in prison. They give Harry insight that maybe he can do something to change his fate in a gripping story that is both a character study and thriller.

Here are the thumbnails for The Chieu Hoi Saloon. After reading the brief on this story, I felt that it was a story about a reconciliation between Harry's past and his present. I drew a strong connection between his Vietnam War experience and that one of the other main characters is a Vietnamese woman. As a supporting element I realized that LA/ Long Beach and Vietnam both have a lot of palm trees in them.
The first thumbnail reads quite well and is graphically very strong. The viewer is looking down on Harry as he's walking along a boardwalk/ sidewalk. The shadow is cast as that of a soldier; his shadow is his past self. The palm trees help to frame him and reference both LA and Vietnam. This is my personal favorite. It works well from across the room, and communicates an idea from the story. There is still some room to communicate the feeling and mood of the story here as well.



The second thumbnail is another variation on the shadowy past, but in this image we're in closer on Harry, and his shadow is cast upon a wall next to him. I think there's some room here to draw connections between a pitted and scarred wall, and the lined and weathered face of Harry. It is a more personal perspective.


{P.S.: see the final product here}

Pike:
Douglas Pike is no longer the murderous hustler he was in his youth, but reforming hasn't made him much kinder. He's just living out his life in his Appalachian hometown, working odd jobs with his partner, Rory, hemming in his demons the best he can. And his best seems just good enough until his estranged daughter overdoses and he takes in his twelve-year-old granddaughter, Wendy.

Wendy bears with her all of Pike’s failures to his family, enough heartache to last a lifetime and a few unanswered questions about her mother's death. And, following in her wake, a dirty cop named Derrick Kreiger, who carries an unhealthy interest in the girl. Pike, Rory and Derrick circle, evenly matched predators in a human wilderness of junkie squats, roadhouse dives and Cincinnati slums, with Wendy at their epicenter.

Here we have the Pike images. I worked around some ideas about what is at the core of this story. There is a "past coming to the present and having to deal with it" theme. Also I noticed a theme of unexpected family, where in Pike has to deal with, and, defend his "new" grand-daughter. As it says in the blurb "Wendy is the epicenter," and so she's integral to the concepts up to now.
In the first thumbnail we see Wendy as a silhouette against a dark tree. I like this image, and feel that it has a graphic punch for a cover image. I like the metaphor of the family tree, and showing it as a dark foreboding shape. There's a lot of potential for this image, there's a great deal that can be communicated through her body language and facial expression. { this is where the details from the manuscript will come in handy } This one gets my vote.


The second image is more narrative by comparison, Pike is shown working on a broke down truck with Wendy close at hand. Here I am showing the broke-down family as the truck, where Pike has get in there and fix it. I've highlighted his forearm which will have tattoos on it, referencing a sorted past. Wendy is shown in contemplation of her grandpa's hand, and it is ambiguous as to whether or not she's actually going to reach up and touch his hand. I think that this image highlights the family dynamic, more specifically the relationship between Wendy and Pike.

And that's all for now folks, stay tuned for details as this develops.

Art Auction!

Hey everybody,

I am so excited to announce that Shinteki is holding an art auction of the posters that I did for a recent game puzzle of theirs. Evidently there was a positive response at the games, and Shinteki have generously decided to hold an auction for the game pieces! The auction goes through to the 27th of July.

I am really happy and really touched that they'd put in this extra effort. We already knew they were great people, this just goes to further the point! So check it out, make a bid, and you might be the lucky one!

http://www.shinteki.com/artauction.html

You can also see the original post about these works here and here.