My first commissioned piece

My fee: One iced triple Grande, nonfat latte, please (w/two Equals). THX.

Yes, this illustration was a special request for a couple of coworkers on the desk who are putting together a zine. I've been told I get a credit in the mag, or at least a special thank-you mention. Neat.

AND a latte.

You're welcome. :-)

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The first edition on the e-zine "The Dead Protagonists Society" hit my inbox at the beginning of August. I was given permission to put the whole thing here, but couldn't get Blogger to clear a PDF for upload, or Photoshop to separate the cover page out. Unless I'm doing something wrong (always a possibility).

Anyway, if you want to get a look at this publication yourself, you can contact the publication's editors, Amanda Keith and James Zvonec, directly at deadprotagonists@gmail.com if you'd like to find out more. Or post a request here in the comments, and I'll get it to you myself. Good stuff.

Taking the plunge

I've been tiptoe-ing into Illustrator for a few months and finally decided it was high time I just go for it. The story, for our Business page, was about a local program that helps first-time home-buyers get the financing they need.

The whole idea for the illustration was mine, concept to execution, and I learned a lot about the Illustrator process with this one. There's certainly room for improvement, but I was pretty pleased with the results here.

Oh, and I'm putting a digital pen at the top of my Christmas list this year. That sure would have made this drawing a lot easier to accomplish.

Trying something new

I wanted to try charcoal sketching, and I thought this assignment would be a perfect fit for that tone.
The story was about layoffs, and I really wanted the image to be a box of stuff that would be on a desk. Initially, I thought this would just be a photo illustration, but our photographers are pretty loaded down with assignments these days, so I thought I'd take a crack at it.

So I picked up a basic charcoal sketching set at the local art store and a watercolor pad (since I thought I might be watercoloring). I was going for a gritty look, but the end result didn't turn out exactly like I was hoping. Probably because I ran out of time and had to do the coloring in Photoshop — not that I had any decent markers anyway ("Dear Santa..."). But it was a valuable learning experience that produced a totally usable image.

If I could go back and start this one over, I might have just done really ragged marker edges to achieve a different take on a "gritty" look. (Next time...) I especially liked adding the details here: the farm picture... days of the week on the calendar...

At the last minute, I added the brown "label" on the front to serve as a background for a breakout of tips that went with the story. Without that bit of color, the words got lost.

Definitely gotta get me some markers...

It's kinda like lip-synching...

So we had a photo of three girls singing in a competition, and a story about a competition these girls were NOT competing in. What to do....? OH YEAH. Turn the photo into a photo illustration for one of our features covers.

This background, a nod to the iPod ads, came together very quickly and was pretty fun working up all those layers. The white lines should have been a little darker; they got a bit lost on the newsprint. Other than that, this was a quick fix that looked like we planned it this way all along.

The smaller, alternate version was cropped for use as a background for a skybox promo on the front page.

Ready for take-off

I've been suggesting illustrations — especially for our Business centerpieces — for quite awhile already. My only stipulation was that I needed to have ample time to come up with an idea I felt confident about executing. Finally, this week, I got some marching orders.

I'll put more details on the topic later. Just wanted to get this posted.

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This illustration finally ran... about three weeks AFTER I stayed late one shift trying to finish it up to run that first weekend. So it goes.

The story was about how some travelers were finding it cheaper to fly out of Mexican airports for their vacations, some reportedly saving upwards of $1,000.

Keeping it all together

While still gathering all the images, I was a little worried I wouldn't be able to fit everything in... especially since I had come up with the "split-screen" concept. Actually, I did have to hold the presidential quotes the reporter dug up (I think it stung a little... he had a soft spot in his heart for Jimmy Carter). Then I realized I had forgotten something BIG. Hadn't figured out where the STORY should go. Yikes.

But I thought I came up with a slick solution, and that the whole package worked... pretty well, actually.

If you play your cards right...

This illustration was for a centerpiece we did about the 2008 California primary election. Getting all the heads' proportions to be similar was a little tricky. Also, unfortunately, the edges of the cards kinda faded out in the toning process so the definition got lost a little.

Not sure what i would have had time to do to fix it though, given I made the whole thing on deadline. Maybe made sure the toning was satisfactory on the mugshots and then NOT toned the final illustration. That might have worked.

Anyway, the headline went on the blank card in front, with heavy Helvetica condensed typography in red and blue. (I'm still looking for the page... hope to post it here soon.)