The illo was based on this concept by Evan:

Traffic Cone (see picture):  Traffic cones don’t get to have nearly as much fun as an ice cream cone, so one of them decided to switch roles when an ice cream cone wandered a little too close to the street he was set up on.  On the left side of the design in the street would be an ice cream cone turned over without any ice cream left on its top, and the ice cream cone itself would have a face and one black eye, looking beat up and tossed into the street to take the place of a traffic cone.  The traffic cone on the other hand who beat up the ice cream cone would be on the right side of the design, on the sidewalk away from the street, turned upside-down and having the ice cream cone’s scoops of ice cream in it, having stolen them from the ice cream cone and switched jobs and places with it!  The traffic cone would be in a state of total happiness, either using a spoon to take a bit of the ice cream scoops on top of its traffic cone head, or having an extra long tongue and slurping up some of the ice cream scoops.  The scoops could react as if they are being tickled, not unlike when a big dog slurps its tongue on a child’s face.  Role reversals are fun!

Evan's Concept Sketch

While reading his idea I sketched whatever came to mind...

Which fleshed itself out into....

We were pretty happy with the first sketch, so it was inked in Photoshop.

First color version included addition of a hole in the street.

Final version, with better hole and slight tweaking!

The End! :)

Today I realized how silly I had been! With a large-format, super neat scanner sitting right there in the corner, why on earth was I messing around with white balance and tents?

So in about two minutes, I scanned all of my bookmarks, where they came out perfect with no tweaking at all. Hooray!

Old Photo

New Scan

The results were perfect! Other than the fact that I printed the line art at an awful DPI, it looked just like the original and did not react to the water in any way. I don’t think this method would work with your average printer. You need one that can:

1. Handle thick, textured watercolor paper and
2. Print with archival, waterproof ink.

The Epson R2880 and the K3 inks fit the bill! Here’s the sample–

I chose some line art with large black areas as well as texture and open areas, to see how the paint interacted with each. Then I put on some color, and scrubbed certain areas to see if the ink came off. No problems! Now you can potentially ink pieces on deliciously smooth Bristol board, and transfer it to the watercolor paper without hyperventilating. And even better, you can draw it in black and color the lines digitally without having to sell your cat to buy every color and width of micron pen!  NEAT.

Try it out!

Chronicle Books is my favorite independent book publisher, and the third Monday of each month they are open for full portfolio reviews. I’ve been meaning to apply for months now, but I didn’t want to send in the usual Itoya black portfolio with letter-sized printouts. I love Itoya– just wanted a change, y’know? I decided to use Lulu.com again with the same options I chose for my dummy book. I set up this portfolio layout in InDesign, and ordered the book last week. It arrived pretty quickly!

I’m really happy with the quality of my new printed portfolio, and I’ll have no qualms about sending it in to Chronicle. I only wish I could swap out images when I have updates without ordering a whole new book!

If you’re interested in making your own portfolio book at Lulu, for reference I chose the paperback perfect-bound option in an 8.5″ square. I think the glue of perfect-binding looks a lot nicer than the stapled books. (And it costs the same.) You have to have at least 32 pages for perfect binding, but I found that using mostly one image per spread (16-20 illustrations) made the book flow nicely and not appear cluttered.

P.S. My printer arrived as scheduled and is AMAZING! I’ve been testing it out and will write more about it soon. Hooray!

My blog updates have been woefully lacking, not just from the move but also because all the work I have been doing has been your basic logos and things– nothing too exciting! I do have a few sketches to show now, however. Heck, I’ll even show some of the less glamorous stuff I’ve been doing.

I’m working on a painting for a woman in Canada, for a baby’s room. It’s based on a Filipino folktale called “The Deer and the Snail.” It’s pretty much the Rabbit and the Tortoise… but with, you know, a deer and the snail. Snails are freaking awesome, so this will be a lot of fun.

Next up is another foray into international illustration. WTS Productions in Britain needed an update to their poster for “Father Christmas and the Magic Fir Cone.” A girl and the forest creatures discover a magical fir cone, but a nasty black cat and Baba Yaga want to steal it for themselves. Oh no!! I believe the story is based on a Russian folktale.

Like I said, I’ve also been doing a lot of pretty simple, quick jobs for people. This is the kind of bread and butter work I’ve been doing to practice various skills and just keep making money as I seek out the big jobs.

Mascot Design of girls with lollipops. This is my attempt at, um, “sassy.”

Green Goddess Logo, which is still in progress as the client is out-of-state.

Golden Beet Yoga Logo Design

Tattoo design – Client wanted a Meeple (from Carcassonne) riding a catfish in the style of those Koi tattoos you see all over the place. This was ridiculous and fun, and a good way to brush up on my Photoshop skills.

This was a really small painting for a client who wanted to “look toward the future” after some life issues. She wanted absolutely nothing weird in it, so it might not resemble my usual work. ;)

The original sketches. They liked number two, so we went with it with some revisions (simplification, etc)

Some of the colors we contemplated (we ended up with a combination of these for the final one, though!)

We ended up going with this beast, but they also wanted a version with texturing, which spawned this guy….

Thank you John Foerster for the demo on texturing in Illustrator! ;)

Phew! It was quite a process, but a lot of fun.

Ok, slight venting ahead: A huge problem for me lately is trying to figure out what might appeal to art directors in the Editorial Magazine market (for adults.) I keep feeling like I have to make a postcard of some sterile boring guy in a business suit, and while I know this is not true I have no idea WHAT to produce. All my stuff seems to be a “style” that appeals to kids, even when everything in it is naked or violent. I am trying to work on being able to draw cute animals and all the weird things I like and making it appeal to the Art Directors of magazines for adults. Aya Kakeda does this fabulously! I originally made Bathtime for Medusa to put on a card, so I may still use it for this next card, but I was trying to come up with some other ideas too, that were more conceptual and actually fit a common topic in magazines– and I just totally drew a blank. Do any of you guys have trouble with certain venues of illustration that you still really want to tap into?  :end venting:

Finally, the Creatures Great and Small show is tonight at 6 the 180 Center– check it out! I know Anna has some work in there, and when I dropped off my stuff I saw some awesome paintings and plush so it should be a good time.

The Munnys finally came in today and we had a super fun time trading the random accessories that came with them. I started out with a wrench, shuriken, beard, and lightning bolt… and ended up with a poop, another poop, another poop, and a teddy bear. Sweet!

I have no idea what to make, but have been trying to tell myself “No cats…no cats…no cats…no cats…!” How will I resist though, with three poops right there for a litter box? Hmmm..

Here he/she is in all his/her blank glory (and really awful lighting):

If you guys have any idea on what it should become feel free to comment!