Illustration Throwback Thursday
February 12th, 2015 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
Hoo boy. Here’s some humbling stuff that I thought was lost to all eternity until I discovered an archive of my website from 1997. The images aren’t too sharp but here are a bunch of old theme park caricature examples of mine from the early to mid 90’s, awkward lumpy bodies, broken-looking hands and all. There were meant to be examples of the live graphite and airbrush style we used. Hard to believe a few of these are nearly 25 years old: READ MORE
January 22nd, 2015 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
Today’s edition of “Illustration Throwback Thursday” features a book I illustrated for MAD back in 2009 called Bo Confidential: The Secret Files of America’s First Dog, which just so happens to be on sale via the MAD iPad app for only 99 cents (cheap) this week only! The story behind this book is a short but intense one. I got a call from my friend, mentor and a guy who owes me $10.00, MAD art director Sam Viviano at the very end of April, 2009 to say they had a book project they wanted me to do the art for. The working title was “Bo… READ MORE
December 18th, 2014 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
Clicky to Embiggen… This was a spot illustration for a magazine called Snow Country done around 1995 (I think). It’s a caricature of a guy whose job it is to pick up all the stuff that drops from the ski lifts of a major ski resort. The story was about some of the crazy “treasures” he finds after the snow melts, so we did a kind of “Indiana Jones” theme. Yes, that is an artificial leg in his bag. This was done in ink and watercolor on illustration board. This is a scan of the original which is still floating around here in a big… READ MORE
October 30th, 2014 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
Clicky to Embiggen… I did the illustration above in 1997 for a syndicated radio show called “Backtrax USA”, which played retro music from the 1980’s. I don’t like doing logos but in this case the logo was provided and my task was to add caricatures of some iconic 80’s rock stars and the shows host Kid Kelly. This was one of my earliest digital color illustrations, I think. I shortly thereafter abandoned the “airbrush” tool in PhotoShop and started using regular brushes with pressure-sensitive opacity settings to get a more watercolor-like look. The original agreement was for use on promotional items like mousepads and T-shirts,… READ MORE
October 23rd, 2014 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
Clicky to embiggen… Here’s another original ink and watercolor illustration I did for Snow Country Magazine about 1996 or so. I think the big guy in the middle was some kind of agent or doctor or trainer for skiing stars, but I can’t remember the exact circumstances with the article. The other guys are famous skiers from the late 80’s early 90’s. The one thing I hated about ink and watercolor was how the paint would cloud up the black line work. What I would do was to paint the color in on the pencil drawing, THEN go in with the inks on top of… READ MORE
October 16th, 2014 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
This piece was done in 1996 for San Diego magazine for a story on, you guessed it, the increasing popularity of karaoke and piano bars. It was done in traditional media including watercolor, inks and airbrush. The above was a full page and the one below a spot illustration used later in the article. READ MORE
July 31st, 2014 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
Back in the early 2000’s the Minnesota Twins pro baseball team had a monthly magazine that was both distributed at the ballpark and sold on news stands… and the Twins were actually a good team as opposed to sucking as they do today. I did a fair amount of work for the magazine in 2000 and 2001, including some single page comics illustrating great moments from the season and feature illustrations. Here are a few from 2001 (clicky any to embiggen…): This was for a story about baseball superstitions This is one of those single page comics, illustrating pitcher Eric Milton’s no hitter. The Twins… READ MORE
July 17th, 2014 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
In 1994 I got a job through a design firm to do a cover illustration for the “Rolaids Relief Man Award Media Guide“, a 4 “x 9” booklet with the current year’s Major League Baseball relief pitchers statistics, put out by Rolaids in conjunction with their sponsorship of the MLB “Relief Man Award”. The cover usually featured caricatures of prominent relief pitchers and/or past award winners. The design firm angle was typical of smaller specialty publications, especially for sports teams or sponsors. They often hired a design firm to do the design and layout of the publication, and then the client would provide the content… READ MORE
