Space Birthday Poster

My space-themed birthday poster is finally finished. It's [fraternal?] twin was posted a little while ago and can be found here.

There's something to be said for not treating your work as precious. From time to time projects come up that fight you at every step, and eventually you have to decide if there's merit in continuing down that road, or doubling back all the way to the beginning to find another way. This was one such project.

I had started with a more illustration-focused approach, but after continuous struggle, I realized that it was fighting me for a reason; that what I'd done to that point would be in poor service for what was needed. I knew I had to throw it all out and start from scratch. This turned out to be the right choice, as I'm far more pleased with how this wrapped up and not only had much more fun but learned quite a bit along the way.

Penguins Sketch

While I was digging through some old files tonight I stumbled across this sketch I did for a card while employed at American Greetings that went unused. I was never 100% keen on the final, but this preliminary sketch came out just fine. ;)

Eli & Amos Storyboards

Here's something new! And by "new" I really mean "different," since it's not a sketch or illustration and I did it a few months ago. For your viewing pleasure I present two sets of storyboards. Both sets feature the adventures (both real and imaginary) of Eli and Amos; the first is entitled "Cowlick," and the second, "Undersea Search." I always have fun working on storyboards, because as challenging as it is, and despite the fact that it's work most people will never see, it's surprisingly rewarding. As an aside, the second set is sort of a prologue story, an imagining of what leads up to the scene depicted in this illustration.

Hero of Time Revisited

In a strange sort of twist, while I am only just now putting up this sketch from my series of personal interpretations of The Legend of Zelda, it was actually the first; the one that got the ball rolling, really. There are still plenty of other characters and creatures I'd love to visit at some point, time permitting...

Carnival Birthday Poster

Wanting to create a kid-friendly piece focused on typography, I asked my lovely and always-inventive friend Rhiannon for an assignment. Her suggestion was to create posters for a child's party in different themes. I thought this perfect and began immediately, and so this carnival-styled poster is the result. Hope you enjoy, and I might just have another one coming down the pipes soon enough...

Extraordinary Voyages

Here's something new! Well, sort of. I wanted to do some new typographic work, and expanding on the "Circumnavigate" piece seemed a perfect opportunity. I'd love to use the illustrations already finished to create further adventures for the duo, woven together to create a children's book. For now though, I hope you'll enjoy this piece. :)

Stalfos Knight

I've always liked the Stalfos from The Legend of Zelda because they're understandable; you could tell very easily they were animated human skeletons, no matter the pixel count. The Stalfos in Twilight Princess strayed too far from this for my liking—they look like they were monsters even before death, and their gear was entirely too fetishistic of skulls (see: Arthas). Personally, I'd prefer to take it back to a more subtle form, as though they were the reanimated corpses of a defeated invading kingdom's knights. They sport similar but slightly different heraldry than Hyrule to hint at a disastrous desire for power.

Hero Attire

I may have drawn Link from Legend of Zelda a while ago, but I still think about the "ideal" version from time to time. I felt like there needed to be more to it, so here's another take.

Eli & Amos' Great Undersea Adventure

After teasing it in previous posts, here at last is my latest illustration: Eli & Amos' Great Undersea Adventure! My schedule permitted only sporadic work on this (much like the previous Eli & Amos piece), and it's a far more complex—some might say ambitious—illustration than its predecessor. It was great fun to work on though, and a great opportunity to learn. I like changing my process up to avoid stagnation and allow for learning new techniques. The challenge here was finding an approach different from "Circumnavigate" that would net quicker, better results while retaining the same style as its predecessor. The sheer amount of detail in this made it take longer in total, but I'm quite happy with the end result.

In site news, after putting it off for entirely too long I've finally caved and installed the newest WordPress. Ordinary visitors might not notice much of a difference (aside from faster page loads), but it was definitely worth it: the tools on the publishing side are far richer than their already-rich precursors. I look forward to making future website updates. :)

Sneak Peek #2

Another little preview of that certain something I’ve been working on [very] intermittently, which is suddenly coming along rather nicely… ;)